To try cry it out method

[loveskaka]

I have tried everything to get my wee one to sleep through, nothing is working! I am considering trying cio but would like to hear some stories on your experiences. I did say I wouldn't do it but I am up at 6am for work really struggling now. Pls help!

It’s really not neglectful leaving a baby to cry for very short periods of time (whilst reassuring them) most people have said in their experiences it takes 2-3 nights. By the 3rd night, my baby cried for precisely 5 minutes and then went to sleep all night.

That was it. He has been a brilliant sleeper ever since. It’s actually more neglectful to not teach good sleeping habits. Or to get up for the day at 4 am like is often seen in here.

LaurieMarlow
I’m not totally against cc or cio but in most cases it is not necessary. I’ve worked with dozens of babies and almost all have slept through with gentler methods and much much earlier than 13 months old.
Babies might cry more and for longer with gentler methods but their cortisol isn’t being raised In the same way.

Delatron it’s not normally either or. I completely agree that it’s important to teach good sleep habits but this can almost always be done without using cc or cio.

Gentle methods did diddly squat for my DS. If anything they made him worse. Shush pat made him hysterical.

Sorry haven’t RTFT but I wanted to share what’s worked (so far, touch wood!) with us. DS stopped falling asleep on the boob in the evening around 5 months. After many failed attempts to put him down in the cot, we got a set up where I can drop side and lie next to him. So I feed him, put him down, and lie down next to him with my face by his and pretend to be asleep. Cried on/ off 45 min the first night but fussy grouchy crying not the hysterical crying that he did when I tried to leave the room. After 2 nights no more crying, just a couple of escape attempts, good natured face pinching, then off to sleep, takes about 20-30min. Might just be a fluke tho!

Did controlled crying with DD2 shortly before I went back to work. Worked within 3 days although the first two nights were hard!!

I think nailing it in 3 days is far better than dragging it out for god knows how long with ‘gentler’ methods.

Delatron I disagree. Some babies become very distressed with cc or cio and it doesn’t always work in 3 days. Even after it works the babies cortisol remains high, so babies may stop crying but they are still feeling stressed. Mothers and babies were observed to have less synchrony after cc so that suggests it isn’t good for attachment. You can start gentle sleep training much earlier too.
www.basisonline.org.uk/things-to-consider-potential-costs-of-sleep-training/

Controlled crying has be extremely useful and I have 4 very good sleepers. 2 were hard to deal with, 2 naturally love their beds. They were never distressed, I’d go to them if they were, but all of them at times needed some sort of boundary to let them get on with settling down and actually sleeping.

I thought this had been proven to cause psychological damage. And yes we did have to juggle a child who didn’t sleep through until 4 and working (inc parent working away.

At 18 months a child still needs you. The only way we managed was co sleeping (inc sleeping on a camping mat in his floor).

Oh and to my shame we once tried controlled crying our baby got so distressed in a couple of minutes he managed to scratch his neck so badly (eczema) he was bleeding.

I thought this had been proven to cause psychological damage.

It absolutely has not.

it absolutely has not

Has it been proven that it definitely doesn’t?

How could it be proven either way? Surely there are so many factors in a child’s upbringing it would be difficult to isolate exactly the point we fail as parents.

I think cio / cc is one of those things where its hard to be on the fence. There is plenty of research suggesting that it causes psychological harm, but as far as I know nothing has been proven. The only research the NHS endorsed when I looked into it was that 1) it shouldn't be done with young babies and 2) from a learning to sleep perspective by 5 it makes no difference if you've trained or not.

I was desperate to find conclusive evidence that it wasn't harmful. I couldn't find any. I also couldn't find a decent explanation for why it works other than 'they learn no one will come'. I'm not saying there isn't another explanation, just that I couldn't find one. The method hails from the behaviourist school of psychology which is founded on the idea that why doesn't matter.

So for me it wasn't worth the risk. I do know exactly what it's like to go to work after waking up 16 times that night. But I found the research saying it was very harmful more convincing than the research saying it wasn't (and believe me I wanted to be convinced it was ok).

However, for someone who doesn't believe it's harmful then its ridiculous not to do it. I would have been a better mum with full nights' sleep, a better wife and just been happier. But the NHS research was right - 5 years in you'd never know they weren't sleep trained.

So I think you have to do your own research and decide what you think.

I think it's been proven to cause an elevation in stress hormones but we don't fully understand the implications of that

That seems fair. I did something, I’m not sure if it was cc or cio but it was part of my bedtime routine and I found staying with my child kept them awake and going away helped them sleep. I still went to them during the night.

I think it is unhelpful to make parents feel guilty by suggesting that long term psychological damage Occurs because they are left to cry if it is not proven (nor possible to prove). It’s trye that no one sits on the fence about this (why not? Why does it matter what other people are doing?) but it seems a lot of studies start off by trying to prove a point & finding evidence to support it.

It is obvious, however, that a child who does not sleep enough has tantrums, falls over and is less quick to learn.

Oh and I totally agree that by 5 it makes no difference it all seems to even out.

I think it's been proven to cause an elevation in stress hormones but we don't fully understand the implications of that

There's a link with cortisol levels, though I'm not sure how widespread that link is proven to be beyond the Romanian orphanages study (which does not in anyway replicate the experience of a baby in a loving home).

Joe public has latched in to a very simplistic narrative about cortisol which calls it the 'stress hormone' and raised levels are therefore bad.

It looks like it's far more complex than this. For example other studies show that cortisol is raised in all of us after physical activity and that higher cortisol levels on school children equate to better performance. I don't pretend to understand much about it, but it's not straightforward.

It's one of those 'little knowledge is a dangerous thing' situations.

How could it be proven either way? Surely there are so many factors in a child’s upbringing it would be difficult to isolate exactly the point we fail as parents

I completely agree. Which comes back to the individual parent choosing what they think is best based on possible risks of cc/cio vs risks of family getting no sleep.
It’s interesting reading the stories as some babies seems to cope better with it that others.
For us - I know my boy isn’t ready for sleep training just yet and the sleep deprivation isn’t as bad as what some parents have to put up with. So I’d choose not to do it.
It’s not at all black and white. But I have enjoyed this discussion with mainly sensible opinions from both sides

pediatrics.duke.edu/news/sleep-training-your-child-myths-and-facts-every-parent-should-know

It's all about context. In the context of a secure home with loving parents it is not going to cause long term psychological harm.

Any literature you read on cc quite clearly states it should never be done with children who are fostered, adopted, victims of abuse, ill etc.

Yes I’ve enjoyed it too especially where there is compassion for both points of view. I found when my kids were little that reading about parenting was useful but usually books are sold through selling extreme methods. Somewhere in the middle is a good place to be imo.

Just a question for the anti CC people: how about babies who scream non-stop in the car seat and then fall asleep from exhaustion? Is this inherently different? Because loads of people who insist they would never sleep train admit that this has happened to their babies (because they have no alternative other than to drive sometimes).

It must depend on the baby. My gut feeling is that it would be bad for mine but I know other babies seem to prefer to be given some space. I don't think a one size fits all approach is helpful.

It's an interesting discussion. In this thread it's most of all struck me that babies are really so different in how often they wake and how long for, and I think the best approach really depends on how extreme the issue is as well as how the baby then reacts. My DS (10m) now only wakes once in the late evening for a quick cuddle and once for a feed before we go to bed and then sometimes wakes once for a feed in the night; he goes back to sleep within 2-10 minutes each time. When he was tiny he woke up more, and when he had a little 7m separation anxiety period he woke every hour, but it leveled back again gradually and from the time of night based on how he's changed before it looks like he's now getting ready to drop one of those wake-ups. To leave him to cry with so little time awake would clearly not be for his benefit and I don't think it would work when he's hungry anyway. If a baby has never settled and is only getting a few hours sleep though then clearly something has to change or they and their mum would become ill.