controlled crying...don't we all do it in the end?

[mamacherry]

Who does it? Is it ok? Will it cause lasting damage? Don't all parents inevitably do it in the end at some point or other, whether they admit it or not? Considering it with my 4 months old dd2 as she started sleeping though the night 8pm to 6am at 8 weeks but is now waking regularly and I am sure she doesn't need milk - she's massive!

No, never. DS (15 months) was (and still sometimes is) a pretty bad sleeper, but will now "tell" me when he wants to go to bed and will self settle in his own cot (and even wave goodbye :)). He slept on me for the first 2 months. After that he was swaddled and comforted every time he cried for months and months. Only started sleeping through occasionally at around 12 months. He will now either sleep through or wake once a night (sometimes for 2 hours, but that's a different story), so am quite happy. No real sleep training involved. Just a rule of no playing in the middle of the night. I will even feed him at night should I think he is hungry. Trust that they will sleep when they are ready! At 4 months they are nowhere near it, I'm afraid.

AngelDog, those links about the sleep regressions are really interesting - Thanks ever so much for them. I strongly suspect we are in the middle of one as DD2 is learning to crawl and does the waking up to practice thing!

CC - not for me. I try to follow my instincts with this parenting lark and this goes against mine.

AngelDog, I always breathe a sigh of relief when I see you on here.

I've spent years banging the drum of developmental spurts and their effect on sleep (if I had £1 for every time I'd seen a 'my child usually sleeps well but is taking ages to settle, waking frequently, upset and moving around in his cot a lot', I'd have a LOT of gingerbread by now).

My Wonder Weeks book is the best thing I ever bought.

I did controlled crying at 7 months and it worked after 2 nights 1st night for40 mins 2nd night for 15 mins.
However if ur baby has previously slept through and is now waking he/she needs to be weaned onto solids.
4 months is bit too young IMO

Edward, this is a fairly old thread (moved on a bit) but there's no evidence to suggest that waking again in the night is anything to do with readiness for solids. It's usually due to a developmental/growth spurt and the joys of sleep regressions and it's advised that you don't wean solely because of this.

I don't think a lot of u understand how cc works????
U let baby cry for 2-3mins go in comfort put back down leave.
Then let baby cry for 5mins go in and comfort continue pattern increasing by cpl mins each time till u reach max 15mins. So baby is not left alone for hours on end.
It is extremely hard to listen to ur baby crying DH had to take over for me as I nearly gave in.
But sleep is a skill they need to learn just like potty training etc.
Just because someone does CC doesn't make them a bad parent or have a bad attitude to babies!

Edward, it's an OLD thread.

X-post
Just though I'd add my tuppence worth as came across it today in active conversations and didn't lilt the fact a lot of posters had judgey pants on RE CC.
That is all!

bubbles, that definitely sounds like developmental stuff to me. Learning new physical skills messes up sleep as well as predictable spurts of brain development.

I agree, SOH, the Wonder Weeks was one of the best books I bought. I find it fascinating how babies are affected differently by developmental stuff - with some it seems to be more food or behaviour related, some sleep and some poor children all of them.

I do scan the Sleep forum every so often to find the 'why has my 4/8/11/13/18 month old stopped sleeping' threads so I can cut & paste in my links. There are usually several.

on lots of gingerbread - I'm more of a Dairy Milk girl myself. :)

Edward I'm with you on your post, although I haven't trawled through all 12 pages. I don't know any mother (or father for that matter) who would do something if they thought their baby was genuinely distressed and upset for any length of time. There is a big difference between a baby having a wee wind down mump and a baby screaming and gaining momentum as Angeldog's article outlines with different baby types.

I don't agree with leaving a baby screaming alone distressed for lengths of time, but I can, as am sure we all can, tell the difference between our babies cries and CC has worked for us (at 8 months).

I did try previously and DS was very upset and it was obvious to me that he was not going to wind down and sleep. I therefore, did not leave him crying and stopped the process. I tried again last week and this time it was totally different. Maybe DS was just that bit older and more confident, but I could tell the difference and on the third night of cc he slept from 7:15pm to 6:25am with no issues at all having previously always woken 3 or 4 times in the night.

When doing the cc, he would cry for a few minutes (but not in any real distressed way), and would then mump until he went to sleep, with me going in to reassure him at reasonable intervals.

From angeldogs article, CC is not going to work for everyone, but you can tell when it is and isn't going to work. Maybe some posters have had children who cry and build up tension and so therefore cc did not work for them and they think that other mum's are leaving their children crying at the intenstity that their children were? Just a theory.

Everyone needs to do what is best for their individual baby and that they are comfortable with.

S x