4 month old and controlled crying/self soothe

[emmak8383]

I call it controlled crying but what we are just trying to do is help our daughter to self soothe. Our daughter is breastfed and has always gone to sleep on the boob. Because of this she is unable to self soothe when she wakes in the night. I am still feeding her during the night but sometimes she has woken an hour later after being fed and we have had to go in to her to get her back to sleep as she obviously doesn't know how to do so herself.
So what we have started now is to soothe her by not picking her up. We rub her belly and shush her. We leave her for a minute or two and then we go back and try again with the belly rub and shushing. Sometimes we do pick her up just in case she needs a burp (even though she has already been burped) and then put her back down to try again.
Let me make it clear that we are not just letting her cry it out till she stops. We are trying to soothe her without picking her up so she doesn't rely on it.
We are just after some thoughts about whether this is too early. A lot of information that we have read says controlled crying should not be done before 6 months or 9 months old.

From your link:

'When a baby knows how to self-soothe and falls asleep independently, she wakes in the night, checks her surroundings, and finding nothing to be alarmed about, she goes back to sleep without needing our help'

That's what mine do when I'm next to them in the same bed. It doesn't mean I get less sleep than someone who sleeps separately from their sleep trained baby. It means I get the same amount, perhaps, but it's achieved without the several nights of crying.

If cosleeping works its great. I know from trying that ds is very distracted and wakeful if he's in our bed but all children are different.

I personally don't agree that it is damaging to an otherwise well loved and cared for child to go through cc.

My ds1 is like that, cosleeping makes him more wakeful. Je loves his own bed in his own dark room (he is 3).

My ds2 however loves co sleeping and I do do it, although I have slightly trained him as I have night weaned (he is 7 months) je is still in bed with me. He sleeps all night that way, so I'm happy to do it. I would prefer he move into ds1's room too as I wake him in the morning shuffling round, but that's a minor issue!

"if you were true sleep deprivation you would not be lying awake at night for an "hour or two""

Or, you don't know what you are talking about because you don't know anything about me

"without proper research you don't really know whether what you or other people did had a causal effect on sleep paterns or merely a coincidental one"

It's as coincidental as hearing thunder after seeing lightning

Night 0: Baby wakes up three times in the night to feed
Night 1: Sleep training starts. Baby cries a lot.
Night 2: Sleep training continues. Baby cries much less.
Night 3: Baby sleeps through the night.

Does that look like a coincidence to you?

*I prioritise no one crying. I think that's my main thing - I can't stand to hear crying, from my babies, so I'll do whatever prevents or stops that.

Even if it means they 'have' to cry for maybe 2 nights - nope. I could not and would not do that. It would upset me far too much.*

Rooners, that sounds an awful lot like your reasons against CC are purely self interested ones. You can't stand crying. If so then that's your choice. But many parents would take a few nights of crying and better sleep at the end instead. That's their choice. No moral high ground either way.

Can't believe people here are seriously suggesting that if a baby sleeps through after a few nights of CC or other sleep training, it's a coincidence! Come on...

CoteDAzur well yes, looking at one case and drawing inferences is the definition of coincidence!

canthinkofagoodone thanks for the link I am working through its references and will get back to you with comments (if anyone is still interested!).

There is no harm in co-sleeping and breastfeeding. There is potential harm in leaving a baby to cry. I will never forget the completely silent tears of DS's 6mo little friend, whose mum regularly turned the baby monitor off when he was crying :( I looked at him one day (when DS was screaming about teeth or something) and he wasn't crying, just had tears streaming down his face, no noise. He'd learnt that there was no point in crying for help :(

Yoko that is too sad but that is just general neglect, not sleep training.

I don't know how it is possible to ignore a baby's cries.

It's easy if You Are Doing It ForTheir Own Good..............

'Rooners, that sounds an awful lot like your reasons against CC are purely self interested ones.' YES! That's exactly what I am trying to say.

Well, maybe not purely, but largely. In the first instance. That is my PRIORITY, that no one cries.

But that's for a secondary reason which is that I think it's wrong and sad to allow a tiny child to cry without a very good reason, ie, you're trying to help him stop crying but don't know how.

If you know how and you ARE able to stop him crying but refuse to (for perhaps purely self interested reasons) then I think that is terrible.

But then, other people's priorities seem to be that everyone sleeps through, and they probably think my actions are terrible in their own way.

Not judging exactly but well, maybe I am actually.

You know, I would much happier with this if people said "I wanted an unbroken night's sleep and I hated having to share my bed so I did controlled crying because I found it worked and I feel that my needs are at least as important as my baby's". We've all done things because it suited us as adults. Being selfish is not always such a bad thing. But you have to be clear sighted about it. Pretending it's for the baby's benefit, or it's "teaching them a useful skill" is all bollocks really. Do it if you want. But be honest abut it.

I could easily say that co sleeping was me being selfish because I got plenty of sleep and didn't have to listen to my baby crying. But in that case, my selfishness and the baby's needs/wants matched.

What concerns me is the mechanism employed to carry out crying methods.

Like all primates human babies have evolved to have 24 hour attention and close physical proximity to their mother. "cache" animals like the big cats leave their offspring in undergrowth while parents hunt. These animals don't cry when left- it would be unsafe to do so.
Human babies do cry for company and comfort.
Teaching them that their cries are inneffective does not sit happily with me.

We do not understand the mechanisms when we use crying techniques and given that we have no evidence to show no harm then I prefer to trust my mothering instincts.

These crying techniques are very new and much based on Dr Ferber's techniques popularised in the 1980s.
Even he has now relinquished much of early ideas, admitting: "I wish I hadn't written those sentences"- Talking of :

"Although taking your child into bed with you for a night or two may be reasonable if he is ill or very upset about something, for the most part this is not a good idea…sleeping alone is an important part of his learning to be able to separate from you without anxiety and to see himself as an independent individual."

He regrets these comments.

I agree, it is worrying and I think it goes so far against nature as to be obviously wrong. But that's just an opinion.

With my priorities comment I think I was trying to say taht for some people, 'everybody sleeps' or perhaps 'no one is awake' is the priority while for me, 'no one is crying' is the priority.

It depends on what you want to achieve and while there is some crossover between crying and wakefulness, and sleep and happiness, that's kind of how I see it all. It's a spectrum in a sense.

Booboo - That is not the definition of "coincidence" at all. I have no idea where you got that idea.

Feel free to leave your fingers stuck in your ears while you sing "la la la" if that helps, though.

I agree with you, Rooners. It is all about what you can live with.

I can live with two nights of crying. I can't live with years of broken sleep, risking DH's job, my mental health, and baby's life as well as my own because I'm too stupid & slow due to sleep deprivation to notice the truck coming my way and do something about it.

It you can't live with a few nights of crying and you are fine with wriggly little ones in your bed feeding through the night for years, it sounds like you have made the right choice for your family.

The message to take away from this thread, for everyone, should be to each their own imho.

... which is the exact opposite of comparing a few nights' CC to child abuse and neglect, blowing it all out of proportion by talking about teaching them their cries are useless, and touting the lifestyle of humanoid cavemen ffs

Haven't read this entire thread so forgive me if I'm repeating someone else's comments. There was a recent (2012) study done that confirmed CC does not harm the child in any way, if I ever figure out how to link things on here I will post a link to the article but I'm sure you'd get it through google.

We did CC with my DD when she was 7months and trust me we were at our wits end when we undertook it. Co sleeping simply did not work for us and I did that for quite a while! I also tried other sleep training methods but nothing worked. Sleep deprivation was making me ill, and was starting to put a strain on my marriage! She is now 21months and as far as I can tell a happy healthy little girl who sleeps a solid 12hrs a night. It took 3 nights of controlled crying. Yes she may have got to that stage by herself but at the time in the moment, when we were up 6-7 times a night, it was the right thing to do for our family.

Oh and she still has the ability to cry when she needs us, is hungry, has fallen, because she's getting her hair brushed/teeth brushed, when Mickey Mouse has finished

Cote- it's not a simple stark choice as you describe.

You said:
"I can live with two nights of crying. I can't live with years of broken sleep, risking DH's job, my mental health, and baby's life as well as my own because I'm too stupid & slow due to sleep deprivation to notice the truck coming my way and do something about it.

It you can't live with a few nights of crying and you are fine with wriggly little ones in your bed feeding through the night for years, it sounds like you have made the right choice for your family."

You suggest that the only two options are being dangerously tired/ Oh loses his job/you become mentally ill--- or doing controlled crying.

That's ridiculous.

We co slept because I value sleep for the whole family. Noone has ever been short of sleep in my family, There are also other ghentler methods to encouraghe babies to sleep without resorting to ingoring their cries.

You paint a very hysterical picture of what life must be like for those of us who don't choose to ignore our baby's cries.

Keznel- you can quote studies, but the evidence is mixed and no- one can say for sure what the possible effects may or may not be.

No evidence of harm is not the same as evidence of no harm- so while the jury is still out I prefer to comfort my babies when the cry for me.

"... which is the exact opposite of comparing a few nights' CC to child abuse and neglect, blowing it all out of proportion by talking about teaching them their cries are useless, and touting the lifestyle of humanoid cavemen ffs "

Ffs right back atcha! It's either civilized controlled crying or the lifestyle of a caveman? Where the fuck did that come from??

My reference to "lifestyle of humanoid cavemen" came the fuck from Atthestroke's talking of "Like all primates, humans have evolved to..."

Can you not read?

Atthestroke - It looks like you didn't understand my post. Try reading it again. I didn't say those are the only two options for everyone in the world. I said those two situations were the ones my family and Rooner's family were in.