To ask for your stories where controlled crying DIDN’T work?

[BookWormsRule]

DS (18 months) has never been a great sleeper. We’ve had at best maybe 2/3 nights a week of ‘sleeping through’ to about 5am out of a 7 day week, but also many weeks where every night is unsettled.

We have 2 issues - getting him to settle down to sleep at the beginning of the night can take about 45 mins (or longer). Then he often wakes up at about 1am and might stay awake for an hour or two

We have done some sleep training, with a really lovely consultant who got us into a much more sustainable routine (no more feeding to sleep etc) but even she admits DS is a tough nut to crack and we’ve had to repeat the training a number of times already.

The one thing we haven’t done is controlled crying. I definitely am not trying to start a debate on the rights/ wrongs of it but it is something I’ve wanted to avoid where possible.

We are considering it and have some friends whom it worked very well for. However their kids have always been more chilled than DS. I’m loathe to do it if it doesn’t work and certainly don’t want to have to repeat it everytime he’s sick or teething.

I have a lot of positive stories about controlled crying so now looking for stories where it didn’t work so I feel like I have all the facts.

So AIBU to ask if controlled crying DIDN’T work for you to share your story?

Thanks so much!

DD number 2 was a nightmare, would not settle and if left to cry vomited everywhere, meaning all clothing and bedding had to be changed and then of course was hungry.
What solved it eventually - moving house. First night new bedroom, straight to bed and asleep!

Ah Usedtobeginger we are moving house soon so fingers crossed it’s the same for us!

Have a look at WHY controlled crying works (sometimes) and the impact it has on your baby's body.

Before I knew better, I tried CC one night. She cried and cried. After a short while, I cried and cried. At no point did she even stop to catch a breath. It was a horrible night and it took her a few nights to "recover".

I was a sleep trainer years ago and 18 months is kind of hard to start. He’s already ingrained with these habits so they’d likely take a long time to break. Controlled crying works a lot more easily and quicker with younger babies who are still learning habits.

If he will be safe, ditch current cot and get a more "grown up" bed so the current routine is totally broken, that's what we did.
Happy house move!

We tried it briefly but I hated it and it felt wrong.

We did about 3/4 nights. The final night I went in to check and my DS has vomited everywhere so that was the eve of that. It felt barbaric.

Second accidental experience, we just moved house and didn’t hear him as we weren’t used to the new place. He’d been screaming for around 10 mins I reckon. He was in a state - hyperventilating, sobbing, scared - it was awful. I just couldn’t do that and regret the brief time I tried.

DS is nearly 17 but I remember trying this approach once. Hated it and never bothered after one so called controlled crying session again. I remember thinking that I felt more stressed by ignoring the crying than I did by his crying, which, of course, made no sense to me to then continue.

Honestly, it did "work" in the sense that cc made him give up and go to sleep fairly quick after the initial trauma, It didn't make him stay asleep or teach him to re-settle himself. He'd have a 45 minute power nap and then be up again at full pelt for hours. If he slept longer it would be till about 11/midnight and then same story.

Only thing that has made a difference is he's cut his naps out and will now (fairly reliably) sleep 7-7 down to outright exhaustion. Still wakes for a cuddle/reassurance though too the difference is he will stay asleep enough to go back to proper sleep. He's nearly 2.

Didn't work for dd - she's 14 now so I can't remember the detail, but we would have tried it when she was 14 months or so I think. We were not totally hardcore, but it just made no difference. We were told by many friends that we'd see a big difference pretty quickly. We didn't so stopped after ?? a week or so?? as it was something I'd not been comfortable with and was only going to go through with if it was going to work efficiently. I wasn't up for weeks of crying and no difference.

Both dd and ds slept through at about 18 months. With dd we avoided co-sleeping, did lots of pat and sush, didn't get him out of his cot, had various complicated routines, did slow withdrawal, everything. With ds I just chucked him in bed with us when he woke up. No bloomin' difference on the outcome, other than I got more sleep with ds and enjoyed it more! Have you tried Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution? That revolutionised how I felt about baby sleep...

This article - amongst others - put me off trying it:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/lifestyle/does-controlled-crying-really-work-20150202-133tf9.html

Cc also made him poo out of sheer anger at being "ignored" and then he'd be sick too for good measure.

Yes it did not work for us.
But we did it every night for a year.

The reason for this was, I had tried everything else first. I read every book. I trawled every internet resource. I paid for online sleep consultancy. I did everything by the absolute letter and nothing worked.
We tried controller crying because I had absolutely no choice.

Controlled crying didn't work either so he just cried at midnight every night for a year for 1-2 hours. Before that he would cry for hours before he went to sleep in the first place.
I wouldn't just leave him for hours obviously, I would go in. But it made precisely fuck all difference whether I went in or not.

He finally slept through when he was 6.

In your new house just really lay down the law that bedtime means bedtime. Get into a typical routine, dinner, play, bath, story, bed. It helps my son if I get into bed with him and sing him 3 little songs and then say goodnight and leave.

I know you want stories of it not working but the fact is that if you don't employ something similar to control crying now, you're going to end up with a 4/5/6 year old who just won't go to bed!!!

At 18 months with no feeding to sleep and sensible routine, it'll happen soon anyway I think. Be consistent but boring when going in - lights of, sip of water, shhh shhh etc.

Controlled crying is a painful experience imo and if you are used to responding to cries it will be hard to stomach. Rule number one of CC I believe is you can't give in, otherwise they cry for nothing and learn you will eventually come.

I couldn't do it, with my eldest I did two nights and it was more stressful listening to it then just getting up and settling her (she'd cry for 30 mins - friends listened to cries for over two hours) Both of mine are really good sleepers now (4 and 6) but youngest took till 18 months to stop waking hourly most nights it was hell but it got better, he was a child who left to cry would just get hysterical - none of this 'crying down' and he'd look ill and wake the whole house up so it wasn't for me.

It didn’t work with my friends DD initially. She was crying until she was sick every night and friend would go in and get her up.
She was 2 and taking until midnight to go to sleep and then waking every hour through the night, and getting up for the day at 5am. Their whole house was existing on 3 hours sleep a night.
I know you didn’t want positive stories, but after a few nights of throwing up each night my friend would go in, clean her up, strip the sheets where she had a waterproof sheet and new sheet underneath and lay her dd back down without saying a word. 2 nights later she was sleeping 7pm-5am waking once, so no miracle, but more than the 3 hours a night they’d previously had.

I think 18 months is too old for controlled crying. I'd try music or an audiobook or CBeebies radio at a very low volume.

MY 18 month old has started crying at bedtime. After 3 nights of tears and trying everything else I've bought a star projector- works a treat

It worked really well with one of mine who grizzled rather than cried, my other slept through so didn’t need to train my trickiest became incredibly distressed and became fearful at the begging god of the bed time routine shaking and crying and was much more clingy in the day. All babies are different but I would never use with a baby who becomes distressed rather than a short tired cry again.

We tried this although very briefly. My dd1 was 18 months and cried and cried for about 10 minutes and was so desperate that she managed to climb out of the cot, throw herself onto the floor and we ended up in a&e as she really hurt her wrist. She didn’t have a break luckily but we never did it again and took the side off cotbed the next day.

We let her come into our bed when she woke at about 2am where she would fall back to sleep straight away. She would even come in by herself eventually which was much better. When dd2 was born when dd1 was 2.10 she never came in our bed again.

With dd2, 3 next week, we let her co-sleep for the second half of the night to make sure we all got enough sleep and about 2 months ago she made the decision herself to stay in her own bed all night (most nights anyway!) and mostly self settles.

In our case we just had to wait it out and do what seemed best for them while also trying to make sure we got as much sleep as possible. We have a super kingsize bed which really helped as well. When we’ve been away in a smaller bed it’s been much more of a struggle tbh.

You say you've had to repeat the training. If you are honest with yourself, have you been a bit soft and let it slip? If so you are probably not suited to cc.

Also, 18 months is old for it. You might be better enforcing a strict routine to get into better habits then going for bribery/ bunny clock/ bed and toys in the room but gate on the door in another year or so.

Yes my 5.5 year old is still in bed with us every night!!

Tisthedev I’d say I’ve actually read TOO MUCH about it. It’s not a road I’d go down lightly

We did try it with oldest, but it was far far more stressful for everyone than just dealing with night wakings would have been so we gave up with it almost immediately - her distress was too much for us to cope with.

The technique that did work (but took a couple of weeks, iirc) was the one where you pick baby up for a quick reassuring hug, then put her back down with a phrase that you repeat each time, e.g “goodnight, time to sleep now” or some such. Is that Baby Whisperer method? Long time ago!

Younger baby was like the grizzler mentioned by a previous poster- would wake and grizzle rather than cry, and could usually be soothed by hearing our voices telling her to go back to sleep.

Wow just stepped away for the bedtime routine and tons of replies, thanks all.

To answer some points - we have an excellent bedtime routine in place now, it is clockwork and DS knows what to expect and is definitely tired.

In terms of having to repeat training, fair challenge as to whether we’ve been soft. I’d say I’m the one more likely to give in but actually the main reason was a spate of illness where routine and rules went out the window a bit - he had awful tonsillitis for example and couldn’t even swallow so of course was holding him, feeding when he needed it. I don’t regret that as I will always respond to him when he needs me, but it did set him back a lot.

I think he would be a candidate for making himself sick with crying, that seems to be a theme for some babies. And noted that a lot of you think 18 months is too old...

Controlled crying is not just leaving them to cry. You let them cry, start counting and when you can get to 50 go back in,resettle shh shh and leave again. Count again. If they stop crying even for a few seconds start the count from zero again. Going in to reassure them a few times works,leaving them to cry does not.