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 not true that they will all be good sleepers by age 5 if you don't tackle their sleep. I work in an nhs role supporting families and sleep problems are a big issue right up to age 16 and older for many parents and it's more often than not that they've never implemented any bedtime routines or 'sleep hygiene' (awful expression but that's what we call good sleep habits and routines )

There's an enormous difference between having no sleep routine at all (random bedtimes; not having calm time before bed; not taken up for a wash, tooth brush and settled into bed etc) and techniques where a baby is left to cry. I don't think it's remotely helpful to conflate the two things.

Yes, babies sometimes (in car seats, when you are attending other children) are left to cry for short amounts of time. How is this different to crying in their cot for short amounts of time while you come in and reassure them? You get cortisol in bed but not in a car seat? I don’t think so.

It’s not about learning ‘nobody will come’ it’s about learning to settle to sleep without crying. And then doing the same when they wake in the night. They are happy, they get lots of sleep, they actually cry less.

The extreme position of never leaving babies crying isnt realistic. I mean you couldn't ever have second children as there are going to be times when you have to leave a small baby screaming in order to dress and nappy change the older one or prepare food for them.

There is another difference that if a baby cries in a car seat, surely someone talks to them to try to reassure them even if they're only with the driver? I can't imagine someone driving and just not saying a word if the baby starts crying.

Please do not put the needs of yourself above the needs of your baby.

YANBU
But I think it depends on how upset your child is going to get really.
I did it for my son at 7 months when he went in his own room. All it took was 3 nights and even on those nights he never sobbed hysterically, it was just the odd burst of crying that settled down again...
After that he slept through fine and has done ever since.

I'm not sure idve continued with it if he had become incredibly distressed though... there are some children who will wail for hours, hold their breath, make themselves sick etc... and I dont think you would be able to do it with a child like that. I was just lucky with my son that hes a pretty chilled out child who settled within three nights!
I mean it's worth a try but I think be prepared for it not to work as you cant foresee how your individual child will react to cc, some will just become too distressed for it to work.

I think everyone should just do things whatever way they see fit. But it would be great if when people ask how we have managed to create good, quick bedtime routines and kids that sleep through the night in their own beds from a reasonable age (8-12 months with all 4), they don’t act all horrified and huffy and downright rude saying it’s cruel to leave a child grizzling a bit. Or throw their hands up when we explain how we put some boundaries and expectations in place saying again, it’s cruel. We’ve never once left a kid distressed. But have put effort into teaching them what bedtime means in our house and that can involve crying on their part very occasionally.

And it would also be great if the same people didn’t come crying and whinging about their 3 and 5 year olds who STILL don’t sleep through the night wondering how we did it but then again shutting down any discussion that involves giving kids a boundary.

So if you are unwilling to hear your child cry, please accept that most people with kids that sleep great have heard their child cry about being made go to bed and that is the big difference and the ‘magic’ of getting a child to learn how to go to sleep themselves without rocking and patting and sitting by your 6yr olds bed for 1.5 hours nightly. I don’t want to hear about how you’re broken over this because you are equally unwilling to hear about how it can be avoided.

And just to add, I’ll take the two nights of relatively minor crying and shouting on and off on a few occasions in any given year compared to 6 years of bad sleep, stress for the whole family, lost evenings and battles nightly. I know which I think is more ‘damaging’.

But in summary, nobody has to ever let their child cry, it’s your choice. But don’t come complaining that life is shit because they won’t do anything you ask.

Please do not put the needs of yourself above the needs of your baby.

Bollocks. A mother suicidal from sleep deprivation who sleep trains IS putting her baby first.

When I sleep trained my son, I was meeting his need for sleep. The transformation was incredible. He was a different baby, actually smiling and laughing instead of crying and eye rubbing constantly.

There is another difference that if a baby cries in a car seat, surely someone talks to them to try to reassure them even if they're only with the driver? I can't imagine someone driving and just not saying a word if the baby starts crying.

Well, most sleep training also involves intermittent checks. I assume a driver is not constantly talking and singing and making eye contact in the mirror, otherwise that is a safety hazard.

Please do not put the needs of yourself above the needs of your baby.

It is beliefs like that (which I had bought into) that pushed me into post-natal depression and made my PTSD even worse.

You have to care for yourself and attend to your needs to some extent - otherwise you cannot care for anyone else, including a baby.

@PoffleWaffle well said!!

Babies are not more or less important than their mums. They just have higher needs and dependency which means that mums often have to compromise their time for their baby. It doesn’t elevate the baby to a higher status than the mum. I typically put my kids first but not for the sake of it. If something is important to me it’s fine for them to compromise something too.

Kokeshi cortisol isn’t significantly raised when a baby cries in the presence of a parent. So it is very different. When babies have been sleep trained with cc or cio their cortisol levels are still raised after they have stopped crying.
Cortisol hasn’t just been observed to be raised in children from orphanages. I linked to a study upthread that measured cortisol in babies whose patently were sleep trai I g with cc.
I’m not anti sleep training at all. All of mine were trained to sleep through by 4 months and I regularly support mothers to sleep train. I just don’t use cc or cio.

3WildOnes can I ask how you did that? I'm not trying to be goady. I have a 5 month old who will only nap for a decent amount if time in his sling and wakes frequently at night. He might break me...

In an ideal world it wouldn't be necessary to use controlled crying but parents and babies get into really bad patterns. DS had grim, vile, relentless colic for the first 5 months of his life and screamed for 6 hours every evening, with it only made vaguely bearable and reduced it to low level crying by being walked around over someone's shoulder. There wasn't a specialist I hadn't seen and not one of them could help him / me. I'd love someone to have had him sleep trained by 4 months. Hear me hollow laugh as I remember the excruciating torture of every evening (19 years on) and imagine that someone could have sorted it out when none of the health professionals could.

So, by 15 months we ended up in a right mess. I find it hard to believe that two nights of a period of crying with constant reassurance from me raised his cortisol levels to such a degree that it had a profound and lasting effect on him - if it did then he was fucked anyway, given he spent every evening crying for the first 5 months of his life despite endless comforting and constant contact with me or his dad. In the weeks after I did CC, he slept more and was calmer and happier, which seems inconsistent with raised cortisol levels to me.

Mississippi I had a bedtime routine from day 1. I would leave a fussing baby to self settle. I always tried to put my babies down drowsy but awake. Even if it meant spending an hour stroking their tummies at 3am when I knew they would suckle to sleep in minutes. I always offered enough so that they were not distressed but tried to get them used to sleeping without my help. So at first rocking instead of suckling, then just cuddling, then stroking...

Mississippi but I remember from another thread your little one has CMPA allergy? I don’t think this would have worked with yours.

Great thank you. We do rocking (irritatingly). He falls asleep at the boob during the night but never in the day.

Mississippi, I think 5months is still a bit of a free for all in terms of how a baby will settle. The easy ones might go down but there’s no point arguing with a 5month old. I only start expecting things of them really from about 7months as they suddenly become aware in a different way around that age. Capable of remembering a routine and responding to cues. Having said that my most difficult one did start self settling after roaring the place down in her cot initially at about 4 months but I had two other toddlers to get into bed and couldn’t do it with her in my arms. So I guess that was unplanned sleep training. But suddenly after a few nights of putting her down and sprinting to do the others I realised she would lie there cooing and sometimes dose off rather than shout the place down so maybe I’m underestimating their ability to understand rather than just react at that age.

Please don’t. It damages their attachment and trust in you. This has long-lasting implications way beyond whether they sleep right now or not.

TrainsandDiggers, any research to support that long term trust and attachment is damaged? Or just rehashing something you’ve heard?