Trying cry it out tonight..how do I handle night waking

[PreemieBlessing]

So I'm at my wits end. 7mo cut his two molk teeth and now he doesn't seem that fussy with teething so I want to try cio method. He can't settle himself without my help and he wakes almost every hour at night and only wants 1-2 oz milk. He has two feeds as he can't settle at 2am and 5am without milk.

I tried pick up put down but it wasn't effective. I can count on one hand how many nights he's slept through!

I will try cio with no comforting at bed time but how do I handle night wakings after that? I don't want to make it harsh on him..thought I'd tackle those wakings once he manages to put himself to sleep at the beginning of the night.

Has anyone used cio and how did you handle night waking?

Motherhood is a learning process.

Welshwabbit absolutely!

msmiggins sorry, but you come across as someone who is being deliberately obtuse and refusing to see the bigger picture.

msmiggins maybe you should learn some compassion and stop preaching to others

I have been feeling awful about this for days now since I first read it, and responded, and if the OP feels like shit well she isn't alone.

The thing is we were presented with a scenario - a situation - not with a person, not with any idea of the person's motives or where they had got the idea, or anything else. Or what they had been through previously which obviously is terrible.

We were commenting on a scenario and an action, with very little to go on except what she was doing, and what she said about it.

Had she presented herself as someone who had been advised to do this, but actually was willing to listen to advice - which was almost exclusively not to do it - it would have met with a far less harsh response.

This just goes to show how much a crying baby can affect a mother, or father I guess, even if it isn't your own baby. Many of us have been upset on behalf of this baby, imagining it crying, and wanting to do something about it - even though we have never met the baby or its mother.

It turns out she is actually a brilliant mother, from what she has posted, and wants to do what is best for her son, but how were we to know that before? She gave us a snapshot and we reacted to it because it was all we had and it was very painful to read.

I still feel bad for making her feel bad. As you will know if you know me on here it isn't my normal MO to be so extreme. But given the info we had I think many of us struggled to respond with anything other than shock and sadness.

Anyway, I hope that the OP does stay. Or at least doesn't leave on our account.

I'm so glad this post turned around and OP has recieved some apologies. I'm happy to hear you've found an effective way which works for you and your LO without much stress.

I can understand your feeling to leave MN, I have done the same before after being emotionally attacked by some on MN. Some people are unable to be open minded, non judgemental and see the bigger picture and believe that they are right no matter what and strangely offer very little advice if any - You wonder what their purpose here is ? It's almost as if they are just here to be mean! Communities are about honesty, support and kindness.

Please don't let them get to you - you are the bigger person and there really are some lovely people here for all the right reasons. Wish you lots of luck and sleep for you both in the future.

X

I don't think any of us intended to be mean.

I do hope that all the people piling in to attack posters who did not say "whatever makes you happy, Hun" to the OP have noticed that, on the strength of the advice she has received, she has changed the way she is approaching the issue. I am very sorry too if she feels she has to leave Mumsnet, but on the strength of her original posts I stand by my "do not do this" response. And so, judging by her post of Monday 20:36, so does she.

I am never going to say that it is OK to plan to leave a baby to cry for an hour. Getting to the end of your tether, putting the baby in a safe place and leaving him while you recover is sometimes essential. Leaving him crying for an hour with the intention of teaching him a valuable lesson is never, ever acceptable.

Yes it is perfectly possible, and reasonable, to attack a way of behaving towards a child without attacking the person doing it.

I see now I had a post deleted - probably my first on the thread, where I said the OP was abusing her child by doing this. I stand by that tbh, because emotional neglect = emotional abuse.

I am REALLY glad to hear that the OP was told to do this by someone else and has since thought better of it.

I was careful not to attack her as a person - only what she was doing.

I guess that still breaks talk guidelines in some way. Whatever.

The important thing is that she has stopped it.

curlew I also never said it was acceptable to leave a baby to cry for an hour. And also said i didn't agree, and also never will. But I also wasn't mean. And I think you can disagree with people without being mean. Some people have resorted to swearing at OP, mentioning social services and saying she was f* cruel. You can give advice and your opinion without all of that. We are adults, and meant to be parents. If that's how some people resort to dealing with situations then that's a shame and a worry. Anywho, I'm glad it turned around and she got some constuctive advice and support from others

Hi OP. You've had a rough time on this thread. Personally I am totally against CIO and just wanted to state why in a non judgemental way. Babies cry for a reason. Aside from the emotional impact of not responding to your baby's cries, there are also other things to consider. If you are not checking on a crying baby for 12 hours, how do you know they haven't got a dirty nappy? What if the baby has been sick and is lying in vomit? What if they have a leg or arm trapped in the cot bars? What if they're ill? What if they are too hot or too cold? Honestly there are so many reasons why you need to be checking on your baby it is unreal. Also the risk of SIDS (cot death) although less after six months still can and does happen. I think it is very easy to read books and internet forums where people discuss things such as 'sleep training', and get lulled into the idea that you can apply a method to a human being. It doesn't work Ike that. Bless you for being desperate and trying anything to get some sleep, I don't think there has ever been a parent in history that hasn't wanted their baby to sleep or felt exhausted to the point of distraction! Just remind yourself that your number one responsibility is to look after that baby to the best of your ability and always always respond to him when he needs you.

I did NOT say she was f-ing cruel.

I said that the practice of CIO is f-ing cruel, because I believe it is.

There is a huge difference there. And I was careful to phrase it in a way that did not attack her as a person but attacked the 'method'.

It seems MNHQ aren't reading carefully enough if that's what they think I said.

Er, who on earth mentioned not responding to a crying baby for 12 hours?! I don't think anybody did, did they? Because that would clearly be totally insane.

I agree, as would all parents, that a parent's most important job is to respond to your child and ensure its needs are met. But sometimes what your child needs is to learn to settle itself to sleep. Obviously before you try to let them do that, a loving parent will make entirely sure (as far as you can, if they can't fully express themselves) that they have no other unmet needs that are causing them to cry.

It's not rocket science.

Hence my view that people who attack CIO are often doing it on the basis of misconceptions about what CIO actually is. It's really not "I can't be bothered to deal with my child, I'll just put it down and let it cry until it gives up".

And then they confidently come out with stuff like "7mo babies need to feed during the night" - no, in general they don't, and the OP's clearly didn't - she said he was waking twice but only taking 1-2oz each time. That's not hunger, is it? That's habit.

And "it's not normal for 7mos to sleep through". Funny, I've known a lot of 7mos who have.

As I said, everyone needs to find parenting methods that work for them. CIO will not be for everyone. But nor will rushing in at the first whimper and taking the child into your own bed be for everyone.

Ok, down at the bottom of it THIS is what really gets me about all this - people's apparent failure to tolerate parenting approaches that are different from their own, just because they would be wrong for them. Where else would we be so intolerant of diversity?

The OP said up thread that her ds had gone straight through for 12 hours and that when he woke he 'self settled'. No mention of her being involved with him for that length of time. I'm not flinging around wild accusations just going on what the OP herself wrote.

Oh yes. So the baby wasn't crying for 12 hours then.

And given that he managed to settle himself back to sleep, he presumably didn't have any of the other urgent needs mentioned in your post.

How do you know that? You don't. Presumably is not good enough. I think it's very arrogant to assume that people are critical of CIO because they don't understand what it is or how it works. Of course they do, that's why people are so outraged by it.

I never said that. I think that's PART of it, for sure. A very unhelpful part. At least as big a part - as I have said, at least twice - is that some people really don't like the approach, would not use it themselves, and so refuse to accept that it could possibly work for anybody else.

I was about to say "now THAT is arrogant", but actually I think that'd be unfair. Clearly a lot of people find CIO an extremely emotive subject and genuinely believe it is cruel. As such, I wouldn't call it arrogant to oppose it, as such opponents are wholly well-intentioned.

Instead, I think it's at best somewhat blinkered, as it's an attitude that exists in a vacuum and in ignorance of the totality of the available evidence on the subject. Including denying the reality of others', equally valid experiences.

I see what you're saying but anecdote is not evidence. Just because some people have managed to ignore their children long enough for that child to stop crying either through exhaustion or the realisation that nobody is going to respond to their cries, doesn't mean that CIO is a good idea.

"anecdote is not evidence" - exactly - but doesn't that apply equally to the other side of the debate too? Afaik neither side can claim absolute, irrefutable scientific backup for their approach, so it rather seems to come back to what works best for different families.

Obviously every family has different approaches and individual needs. But surely there has to be a degree of common sense in the way we care for our children? Leaving young babies unattended for extended periods of time cannot possibly be a good idea surely? Even taking into account individual approaches to child rearing there are universal measures of acceptability which must apply to everyone. I think it is incredible to assume that a baby of 7 months cannot possibly need anything for 12 hours.

Interesting "Mumsnet" dichotomy here.

Leave a sleeping baby alone in the house for an hour to drink wine in your neighbour's garden-bad. Letting your baby cry for an hour, then "self settle" if it wakes up- good. Or, if not good, at least a different parenting style that nobody has a right to criticise.

Sorry, I must have missed where someone said that, was it on this thread?

I might not be back for a bit, I have to go and write forty Xmas cards. Argh. I don't even have sherry. .

That was @ curlew, sorry.

@ turnip as usual, I see where you're coming from but surely the very existence of such vociferous debates as this indicates that no such universal consensus does apply on the issue.

.

See you on the other side...

'Ok, down at the bottom of it THIS is what really gets me about all this - people's apparent failure to tolerate parenting approaches that are different from their own, just because they would be wrong for them. Where else would we be so intolerant of diversity?'

That's easy. Any given thread involving smacking a child.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your reports. We understand that cry it out and controlled crying are contentious topics for many people, but we do ask you to be respectful in the way that you put forth your views.

We all know parenting can be incredibly tough, which is why our aim is to make parents' lives easier by pooling and sharing advice and support. We'd really appreciate it if you could bear this in mind when posting.

Thanks mnhq-that really needed saying and I'm glad one horrible post was deleted.