Controlled Crying - The details

[Joannezipan]

I go back to work in 4 weeks and 4 weeks ago my 7 month old son started waking in the night many many times and is shifting his feeding to the night. As an example last night was pretty typical. Tea at 5:30 bed at 6:15 with his dad, feed in the dark bedroom, song, into bed (we then do a story if he isn't already screaming) 30 mins of screaming followed by him coming down going in his pushchair and being rocked to sleep. Asleep by 8. he woke at 9, drank 8 oz of milk, went back to sleep, woke at 10:30, soothed back to sleep, woke at 11, soothed back to sleep, woke at 12, soothed back to sleep, woke at 1, didn't go back to sleep until 4, slept in the spare bed with DH until 6:45. We have tried more gentle methods of geting him to sleep, but he now always needs to be held or rocked and it is getting worse. I don't know how we got in such a mess in 4 weeks. before this started he was sleeping 12 hours since he was 8 weeks old! So please don't tell me CC is wrong and nasty etc...I think it is the only option we have left but I need some more details. I understand the whole so 2 min, go in do 5 min go in do 10 min go in bit, but how long do you keep going for? I mean eventually there will be something else wrong like a dirty nappy or needing a feed if it's during the day. And if they just keep going what do you do?

Of course sleep is beneficial to health, but you said CC is beneficial to the child. I don't think it is, I think it's detrimental to the child and CC isn't the only way to get a child to sleep and develop good sleep habits.

Running in the road and eating ice cream for breakfast is bad for children (obviously) that's why we don't allow it. So why then do we "do" CC on our children when that is also bad for them?

Fwiw,

Ds1 Fed, put down in cot awake, settled himself to sleep after a few seconds of "singing" fed whenever he woke in the night. Slept 12hrs from 4months old. Now 2 1/2 still sleeps 13hrs a night.

Ds2 Fed to sleep, woke every 2hrs every night for 14months. Fed whenever he woke up. Starting sleeping through the night at 14/15months completely on his own.

No CC used. Both children now have a good nights sleep every night and have good sleep habits. And both did it naturally with no input from me.

This isn't a boast. It's just so you can see that children can still and will develop good sleep habits in their own time when they're ready but in the meantime, if op is really struggling there are other gentler options she can choose to guide her child in the right direction.

vezzie Surely ice cream for breakfast is ok? Wow tough mum! :)

I don't see how ignoring the crying of a 7 month old because it's bed time and they need to sleep any different from ignoring the tantrum of a 2 year old because they can't have sweets before tea? Both are just trying to get want they want. Children aren't ALWAYS happy.

because the 2 year old can understand and the 7 month old can not. All the 7 month old knows is that it has been abandoned (because they don't know you are only feet away!). They finally go to sleep when the accept defeat and realise no one is coming,

This is Successful cc - it makes me very uncomfortable.

Motherpanda - I would be interested to hear about the research you have done.

Op - have you tried gradual retreat? Can your health visitor give you any advice? We gave a Sleep Consultant in our area - she's in demand!
I do feel for you, I have felt desperate at times too.

I dont think a two year old can understand. I think they want the sweets and don't understand why they can't have them hence the tantrum. Us saying to them that they will ruin their dinner doesn't mean they get it.

I also think that a few nights of crying to sleep does no harm to a child at all. My mother left me to cry and I'm not frightened of bed infact I love it! Parents are made to feel guilty if they use parenting that others persive as harsh but have worked fine for decades. I left mine to cry, they are both lovely sleepers now and have no lasting damage.

If you don't want to, don't but it is unfair to make others feel bad for their choices.

i would recommend that you read Weissbluth or Ferber to get some facts about sleep and sleep training, so that you know you are happy with things before you start.

with cc, you can go in as frequently as you like. every two minutes if you feel you need to. you can console, stroke, soothe, until they stop crying before you leave the room. the idea is not that they are abandoned, quite the opposite. if they cry, you come. what you don't do is rock, feed to sleep, cuddle to sleep. the point is that they fall asleep independently of you.

i did cc with dd2 after i nearly crashed the car taking dd1 to school. luckily the policeman who saw me going through a red light was very sympathetic, so I got let off the points, but at that point I realised that yes, my need for sleep was valid.

No particular axe to grind either way - I co-slept till 2+ (not because of any adherence to a particular school of parenting, was simply a pragmatic choice to get as much sleep as possible so I could function properly as a parent and hold down a job so we didn't starve), friends did CC, all our children seem happy and well adjusted with no attachment problems, so I suspect that choice of parenting method matters less than the spirit in which it is carried out - CC done by a parent who is otherwise loving and responsive to their child's needs is not harmful, in my opinion. But one thing that does jump out from your post is that you're putting your baby down at 6.15. Now children vary widely in how much sleep they need (my DS has always needed about 2 hours less than the text books say is typical for a child of his age, which is not good for me time, but does mean as a working single parent that I get plenty of time with him). But even assuming your baby needs a lot of sleep, 6.15 seems early - 12 hours would have him waking up at 6.15 am! Have you thought of maybe shifting his bedtime to 7.00 or 7.30? It might simply be that your son isn't tired enough to go to sleep that early.

Lucio I was just coming to say the same thing about 6.15 being a bit early! My DS goes down around 7pm but a fair few friends babies aren't tired and ready for bed until 8pm (eek!). Actually I think my ds goes to bed the earliest.... Also op, is your ds actually crying? my ds has always been cross and shouty when he needs to sleep and my mere presence can send him spiralling into hysterics, so now he has a shout and then a loud sing song to himself and then sleeps. No one must be in the room (If he is in the pram I have to put a cover over the hood). I thought he was crying and would rush in to him but it took my mum to point out that he wasn't and to give him a minute to wind down

My DD is a very good sleeper, & whether that's by nature or by routine, I don't know. However, I've only had to employ our version of CC recently (she's now 21 mths) as she'd got into bad habits after 2 bouts of nasty illness, meaning she'd wake once or twice in the night for a cuddle back to sleep, in our bed. After a week of her wanting a cuddle at 4am, I snapped, cuddled her and put her back in her bed and let her 'cry' herself to sleep. Hearing 'mummy mummy mummy' over and over then 'daddy daddy daddy' is heartbreaking but she soon got back into her old habits of self-settling.

I would suggest you try looking at your bedtime routine and maybe tweaking it a bit first before actually trying CC with a 7mo. Try having a set routine of calming activities; bath, lullabies CD as we change her, bottle/bf, stories, cuddle & kiss works for us. If he still fusses, try calming him, but keep him upstairs, with lights dimmed so he knows it is bedtime. If a few weeks of that doesn't solve the problem, then you could maybe get more 'aggressive'?

Good luck - sleep deprivation is a well known form of torture, so its not surprising it affects us so strongly & we start looking for answers... HTH

triptrap22 - you have mail

OP hope your LO has settled tonight (you have mail too!)

Iwillonlyeatbeans - can I have a mail too thanks

I will only eat beans please could I have one? I passed the end of my tether earlier today. Thank you.

WARNING- THIS WILL BE EPIC! I feel strongly about CC and Mumsnet did nothing but make me feel like the worst person in the world for doing this to my DD. I did a mild form of CC (from 3 Months) and sleep training (from 3 days) with my DD who is now 13 months. I didnt know I was doing it, I just did what I felt was best, it wasnt until much later that I heard about Ferber and CC.

From the moment I brought DD home we made sure that the day was filled with talk and music. If she needed to nap, she napped in a moses basket with the lights and noise still going. At around 7.30, we'd use softer lighting and spoke quieter until it was bedtime (for all of us.) When she woke at night (every 3 hours) we dealt with her as quickly as we could without speaking or making eye contact or leaving the bed and kept all lighting to a minimum. She often slept on my chest at that time because of reflux and colic. By 2 weeks old she seemed to understand the difference between night and day and would fall asleep at 9pm, wake 3 or 4 times in the night for a feed but go staight back to sleep, then wake at 8am all sweetness and light! At 2 months we would put her in her basket upstairs and use a baby monitor to listen out for her and go if we were needed.

At 3 months she was massive and couldnt sleep in her basket anymore. We dont have enough room for a cot in our bedroom and both of us are heavy sleepers (I have nightmares and thrash) and are overweight so co-sleeping was never an option to us. We put her into her own room right across the hall and decided to coincide getting our lives back at the same time. We put her to bed at 9pm after her usual routine and went downstairs. She didnt grumble (having gotten used to the routine in the basket) and went straight to sleep! Over the next 3 or 4 weeks there were instances she would complain at being put down but we learned to understand which cries were "Oh my God youve left me!", "Im tired and grumpy" and "Im terrified/in pain" and would use them to judge if she really needed us or was just whinging. We would wait for a few minutes before acting but I never left her to cry for more that 7 minutes although gradually lengthened the time over the weeks. We also made bedtime 15 minutes earlier each week until we got to 7pm. Eventually she went staight to sleep every night at 7pm and woke 2 times a night for 8oz bottles (little gannet!) but would go straight to sleep after. At 7 months we began to reduce the bottles by 1oz a week. She never noticed, and started to not bother to wake for a piddly amount. Because of never tiptoeing around when shes asleep she now does not wake up to any noises (except for loud bangs, or if DP and I are watching something REALLY funny )

Because we travel a lot we've adapted bits of the routine like times, where she sleeps and how much milk she gets during the night and nothing ever phases her. We also adapt as she gets older. She goes to bed around 7-8pm (sometimes later if we go out) and sleeps right through until 8am. She does wake from time to time, mostly settles herself, occasionally has the odd night terror that we attend to straight away. We never take her out of her room during the night, and if we find we've run out of nappies in her room we'll ask the other for help. Sometimes she'll need a 4oz bottle just to help her back to sleep. This is about twice a week. If we get her out of bed before 8am, God help us! She also has a nap of around 1 or 2 hours during the day. Obviously all rules are thrown out the window when shes sick or teething but we just ease her back into the routine by leaving her to grumble for 5 mins, then 10 and so on which usually takes 2 days.

It wasnt easy leaving her, I was sat outside on the stairs sobbing even though she wasnt really fussing and checked on her every hour in the first weeks! Even now, just a sobbed 'Mama?' sends me running but all she needs is a cuddle.

I can tell you all about the studies into CC from when I had my dark period of "oh God what have I done" and they are appalling. Yes, CC can cause narcissistic behaviour BUT only if the child is left to sob for hours with no contact. The studies into CC are carried out in 3rd world orphanages on children who have no additional contact from humans other than their basic needs being met since birth.

CC is not about leaving your child to sob alone in the dark because Mummy needs some sleep. ITs about teaching your child night from day and to have a life free from sleep issues. My DD is happy, confident (to the point of cockiness), rarely cries and loves her room so much I can leave her in her cot for 5 minutes to have a shower.

I dont know if sleep training her helped her to sleep through the night and become the lively, happy child she is or if its just her nature. Im the first person to say I bet the next one will be hell and I'll be back on this board crying for help! Until then, CC worked for us. But in a mild, gut instinct form. Dont take Ferbers word as gospel. Hes just a man!

ReebleBauble, thanks for a great post. but just to correct you a teeny tiny bit...
what was practised in some overseas orphanages was not cc, but neglect, plain and simple. nothing about cc can be extrapolated from those studies. I think we need to be really clear on this distinction.

cc has not been linked with narcissistic behaviour. narcissistic PD has unknown aetiology, but if anything, is more loosely linked with over indulgent parenting.

there are often threads posted about "excess crying" and ADHD, and cortisol, but these studies are widely misinterpreted on MN I'm afraid. There is no evidence of cc causing any damage whatsoever. of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but that's the case with lots of parenting choices.

What there is evidence of, is that maternal depression and depressed responses to your child can negatively affect mother/child attachment. so basically if lack of sleep is causing you to be burnt out, then it's a reasonable option to consider.

I did the CC method on both mine at around 13 months they were soley breast fed and never had a dummy and by this stage they didn't need feeding in the night so when they woke up in the night after a few nights of soothing them back to sleep then waking again every hour I tried CC. Sent my DH away for the night as I knew the crying would drive him mad. It took 2 nights with my eldest and 1 night with my youngest . Neither of them have ever woken in the night since, (I think they prob do wake but self soothe back to sleep!!) unless they are ill. However I think 7 months is a bit young I think 12 months plus is fine as they need to learn night time is for sleeping and if they are eating three proper meals they don't need feeding!

Charlottebrontesaurus (oh god it took me ages to click on the nickname...), I dont think I made myself very understandable! I was writing it last night with DP waffling on in my ear so didnt explain fully.

I read that early studies into CC were linked to these studies in orphanages and the children were used as an example of what could happen if a child is left to cry. It wasnt until recently that it was revealed where these studies came from and have since been dismissed but are still used as .evidence against CC What I meant by pointing this out was that not all studies into CC were correct.

I also read about studies blaming CC for narcissistic behaviour which was again was declared ridiculous as a child can only develop that type of behavior in extreme circumstances, such as the Romanian orphanages. I must see if DP can find that article again. It was something he showed me at my low point.

You are right that there is no proof of CC causing negative effects on a child, a point I was trying to make and failed Thank you for putting it a bit better.

My mother was sleep deprived and had depression as a result. I found that far more damaging growing up than anything else. I know I am not as patient when Im tired and that does not do anything good for DD if Im snappy all the time. There are actually some times where a happy mother really does equal a happy baby and sleep is definitely one of them.