Controlled Crying. Anybody had a bad experience?

[hopingtowantasecond]

Does Controlled Crying really change a non sleeping baby to a sleeping through the night for 11 hours every night baby? And does it only take three nights of distress as promised in many sleep books?

I really would like to hear people's wonderful success stories or negative tales, if there are any?

That's great, well done. As for the early waking, I think some children just don't need as much sleep as others. Although dd now sleeps through, she always wakes at 5.45 or 6 if I'm lucky. Been told to put her to bed later but I just don't want her up past 7.30; I need grown up time and as I'm a morning person rather get up early.

CC definitely worked for us from when DD was 6 months-ish (she is now 16 months and sleeping through roughly 11-12 hours a night). What you have to bear in mind is what some others have mentioned is that when you suspect they might be teething or feeling ill then CC is a no go and you will need to resort back to soothing them off to sleep or co-sleeping. I do believe CC teaches a child good sleep behaviours and once you've done it once you should find that even if you have to re-do it after a bought of teething or illness it comes a lot easier. With the early morning wakening we kind of just went with it and if DD woke early we co-slept fairly successfully till it was a more reasonable time for us all to get up. If you are concerned about early wakening I know that exposure to sunlight helps, take them out for an evening walk or play in the garden right before bedtime and it sets their body clock in the right direction and can make them sleep longer.

Thanks for the tip betty - I hadn't thought to take him in the garden before bedtime. And I'm with you leelteloo - bedtime should be by 7.30. I tried the later bedtime thing but it made no difference whatsoever, so back to bed before 7.30 now.
Night three CC - only cried for 30seconds and then asleep! Yippee! Lets hope he stays sound asleep until at least 5am. And the clocks go forward tonight so this could be a good thing! And I think you are right I just have to go with the early rising. Any advice about naps if up so early. I'm trying to stick to a one nap around, just before noon only for DS but he struggles to get there when waking so early. Should I go back to two naps?

Glad to hear you've got some good results hopingtowantasecond I remember how liberated I felt when I first got DD to sleep through without her needing to cry and it was bliss! I agree with late bedtime myths, in my experience the later DD goes to bed the worse her early rising can get.

Regarding naps I suppose it depends on the age of your DS as to when and how long they should be. I know with my DD that until fairly recently she was taking two short-ish naps, one morning one mid-afternoon due to early rising. She's now given up the early rising (thank god! but don't know how long it will last!!) so she's back to one nap in the middle of the day.

Hope this helps, happy sleeping

OP we just live with the early waking and hope that one day she'll sleep longer :)

DD is 20 months now and when shes not poorly or teething ususally sleeps from 7-5.30. We've got used to the early starts now and take turns to have a lay in at weekends. Not really a solution but it's better than the 4am wake ups she did between the ages of 11-14 months.

Well done OP! We did CC and my DD has ended up doing 11/12 hours a night. But, most importantly, we find she cries a lot less than before. There was some research reported here in NZ recently which had found babies who had done CC had lower stress level a few weeks after. I've been looking for the original paper but no success.

You might find these webpages useful:

www.thesleepstore.co.nz/sleep-information

I find that DD gets a second wind if I keep her up past 7/7.15. Now I aim for 6.45/7 and she sleeps till the same time in the morning. We also use the early evening walk if we go through early waking. But give yourselves a break! One step at a time.

How old is you baby OP? My dd grew out of early morning waking at about 18 months when she started walking!!!! She was waking at 5.00am but now she wakes anywhere between 6.00am and 6.30am, we don't get her out of her cot until 6.30am (that's our rule) I do pop in and give her back her lost teddy and a kiss if she wakes before 6.30am and she accepts this with no tears! Good luck!
We had a sleep clinic help us when dd was 11 months old, let me know if you would like me to tell you what they advised!

We did it with DS when he was about 18 months old. Very distressing for everyone concerned, and I'm talking screaming so much he vomited, alot.

Did it exactly how they describe, made not one jot of difference. He still woke until he was 5, so what he was being fed made no difference either.

We found this book much better, although he did still wake sometimes.

Just read your last post. How about 2 naps but have them both for 45 mins? That way they are a sleep cycle each but he won't be using the daytime for catching up on sleep he is missing at night.

Didn't work for us (DS was 15m when we tried it). He just got more and more hysterical - even though we went in to him every five minutes. We thought he was bound to start winding down eventually so we persisted. After an hour and a half he was so upset he was sick. Horrible. We will NEVER do it to him again. It went against all my maternal instincts but we did it because we were so desperate for some unbroken sleep. He had been fed, winded, calpol'd and there wasno obvious reason why he wouldn't sleep. But he is a child who can whip himself up into such a state that it is almost impossible to wind him down again. I don't think we ever had a hope of CC working.

DS is 16months. LAst night 30secs of crying and slept til 7am (with the clock change). What a miracle! I hope that's the start of many lovely sleepful nights, but am not yet convinced. But was so relieved that I didn't have to listen to half an hour of crying.I will get back to re early waking if no improvement.

I'm glad it's working for you.

Just for the record, we're on the side it didn't work for - and it was pretty obvious it wasn't working and harrowing for all concerned.

We did it by the book - return at 2, 5, 7, 10 minutes then every 10. No eye contact, no picking up. DS (about 8-9 months old IIRC) screamed and screamed and screamed. When he got too tired to scream he stood silently in his cot in the dark watching the door and only started screaming (hoarsely) when we came in to check on him.

Over 5 nights he never ever slept without us in with him, he held out for 5+ hours each night and finally collapsed at around midnight when being checked on each night.

He would then sleep for about 5 hours and wake up crying.

By day 5 he was becoming hysterical - crying, clawing, struggling - at the sight of the stairs and was inconsolable at the sight of his cot. He was also very clingy in the daytimes and clearly distressed.

I believe it would have worked for our next 2 DC as they have very different personalities, but for DS, not without significant damage.

Just adding the opposite POV, as it is very easy to feel that it always works. It doesn't.

It didn't work for me. I tried it by the book, as described by NightLark, but my dd who was around 12 months at the time, just screamed for hours and hours. Her voice became hoarse after a few days. I persisted for 5 nights. I only did it because I had so many people telling me it made a difference for them. It went against every instinct I had as a mother and I regret it terribly.

My dd is now 18 months old and is starting to show sighs of improving naturally without me doing any further sleep training. What seems to have made a difference is that about 10 days ago I took away her cot and put her mattress on the floor. She prefers this. I always had the feeling the cot had a lot to do with it. She hardly ever went in it as she would only settle when she was in my bed. Since I got rid of the cot I have managed to settle her in her own room every night and she has even slept 6 hours in a row on a couple of nights (a veritable miracle) before coming into my bed.

Re early waking: when my cheerful and quietly persistent DS started sleeping through but waking up from 5am onwards I just started going into his room and sleeping there with him next to me until 7am. On the upside he had me next to him so he would chat to himself, chew his toes and roll a bit around; on the downside there was absolutely nothing interesting happening until 7am (apart from a glass of water). Sometimes he would fall asleep of boredom, sometimes he would last until 7. If he was getting restless we would get up at 6:30. It would drive me mad if I had to go into his room every 5 minutes to settle him. Also I think it reassured him we were not having fun while he had to sleep.

I tried a gentle version, returning after a short period of time. It didn't work and DS was incredibly distressed by it all, for the week while we tried and the week after he became incredibly clingy and pretty much cried all day.

I can't add anything positive I'm afraid. My DS1 is nearly 18. I did controlled crying with him at the insistence of my HV (was cosleeping but young, naieve and made to feel it was really wrong) He has never slept for more than 5 hours a night in his life :( now he can articulate it he says he feels irrationally unsettled when he lies down and quite stressed, finds it hard to relax and will wake 4am ish and not be able to stay in bed! My other 3 DC are totally different down to DC4 who is 9 months and a calm self settler, as long as he has a muslin to suck\cuddle.

I never used CC or CIO or PUPD on any of the others. I slept in their room with them until they were ready to go 'solo' and held hands, shushed or snuggled up with them ..... Whatever they needed. I think you have to go with your instinct and your childs individual nature. Mum (or dad) really does know best :)

fanniadams, nice post. DD has been a great sleeper until cutting these last 4 teeth (all four canines at once, its been miserable!) and now I think she's forgotten how to sleep without me, I'm going to do as you suggest.

Don't think it's clear: I would go to DS room when he woke up at 5 and sleep there not from the evening before.

I completely agree that your intuition is much more sensitive to your child's needs and you need to take their interests into account when following the books.

DD1 was a completely non sleeping baby and was up 5-6 times per night at 6 weeks which was beyond my coping threshold! I did CC and by 8 weeks she slept 10pm-7am, by 12 weeks she slept 7-7. (She was FF though so slightly easier because I knew she had fed really well all day). I can count on one hand the numbers of nights she has woken up, usually ill and she is now 6.
DD2 was breastfed until 6 months, did shush pat, took until 8 months before she slept all night and to this day she has woken far more during the night than her sister.

A little update: In 14 days of CC slept through all but 3 nights, but still cried every night he was put down and I hate this because he used to go to bed without crying. After 14 days ds got ill, so all disrupted and I did whatever I thought I should to sooth. As it did seem we were all getting a little more rest with the CC I have now gone back to it (day 3). Feels like starting right from the beginning again.
Despite the apparent shift in sleeping habit, I'm still not convinced. I need ds to go to bed without crying and then sleep through for me to be happy. Perhaps my expectations are too high?

AnxiousElephant - that's quite amazing!!

Really good to hear the accounts of CC not working - I'm still in your camp - I haven't jumped to the other side yet!..... But would like to!

I think it depends enormously on the child. Ds was a secure baby who if left to cry would quickly soothe himself and settle down. So any method would have been a success really and you would have ascribed it to the guru.

Dd otoh was a highly strung and anxious baby who was well capable of screaming for hours, and start again the moment you moved away from her cot. We spent many months doing the settling and coming back to reassure and it never had the slightest effect on her. 15 years later she is still an anxious highly strung person (I can see my mother in her). The idea of curing her in 3 nights just wasn't going to work. She'd need a personality transplant. Or just learning to live with the fact that she is highly strung.