Controlled Crying - When can I start, is my DD too young?

[LulaTallulah]

I did Controlled Crying with my eldest DD at three months and although it was hard it worked a treat and she is a brilliant sleeper. DD number two is 3 weeks old, is this too young? If so, how long should I wait?

Thanks.

and when i did it, it seemed like the kindest thing because she was desperate to go to sleep and everytime i picked her up i made it worse!

Way too young!!!

There are other ways of encouraging good night time sleeping:

Try to feed as much as possible in the day (if the baby gets enough milk in the day she may be more inclined to sleep at night)

Have a consistent bath, feed bedtime routine (roughly the same time each day). A nice quiet time for massage etc.

More than that you cannot do.

Remember - tiny babies do not even know that they are separate from their mummy, they have no sense of identity. Imagine how she would feel if you did this.

omg, 6-8mths maybe, what about cuddling and being close to her at this stage, shes only out of her warm home 3 weeks. shes probably dying to be cuddled all snuggly.
you have to let go of the idea of good sleeping for now and just go with baby.

Lula, at such an young age you could try
the controlled comforting technique:
swaddle lo, put her down and stay with her stroking her/shhhing her until asleep.

The main thing is to be able to understand her cries.
Do you know when she is hungry and when she is just fighting sleep?
If you don't, then don't do CC.

Don't worry too much about these mythical age limits (no CC under 6/12 months),
it's a Mumsnet in-joke

CC at 3 weeks
Please don't do it. Read up on Tracy Hogg's , how to settle a baby is a gentile loving way.

controlled crying is much stricter and involves going in much less often.

on day 1 you should allow a minimum of five to 10 minutes of crying before returning to reassure the baby. Reassurance should be kept to the minimum. You can stroke them or say 'ssh-ssh' softly, but don't pick up. Leave the room after two minutes even if they continue to cry.

After the first half hour of crying, the times between visits should be increased by five to 10 minutes each time, to 15-20 minutes between visits.

If your baby wakes in the night, continue to follow the same plan for the evening, gradually increasing the time between visits, until you are going in every 15-20 minutes.

on day 2 during the daytime wait at least 20 minutes before checking your baby and continue to keep visits to him to a maximum of two minutes, with the minimum of reassurance.

If your baby falls asleep closer to the time he's meant to be getting up, allow 15 minutes in the morning nap and 45 minutes at the lunchtime nap so he won't end up sleeping after 3pm in the afternoon. If your baby's very tired he may need a short nap of 15-20 minutes late afternoon, so he doesn't become over-tired.

Follow the same settling procedure as the first night in the evening, this time waiting 20-25 minutes before returning. During visits on the second night, reassure your baby by saying "ssh-ssh", but don't stroke or touch him.

If your baby is still crying after the first hour, the time between visits should be increased to 35-40 minutes.

If baby wakes in the night, you should wait 45 minutes before checking, and you shouldn't speak to them or stroke them. Reduce visits to one minute.

By day 3 most babies should be settling themselves and falling asleep within 20 minutes.

If your baby backtracks at one of the sleep-times and you have to go back to checking them, start off with looking in on them every 15-20 minutes and increase the interval until you are back to 45-50 minutes.

Once your child has done a few days of settling within 20 minutes, you should be able to use the crying-down method for getting them off to sleep. Within a couple of weeks, the majority of babies and toddlers will be going to sleep without any fuss at all.

I can't believe anybody would leave their 3 week old to cry for 20 minutes without comforting them.

My DD (who is my DC3) has been left to cry sometimes out of necessity. At most it's been 10 minutes while I sort out her older brothers - by the time I got to her, she was absolutely hysterical, despite my verbal reassurance.

All of her hysteria could have been avoided by a quick cuddle, kiss and pop the dummy in.

I just think it's wrong to leave such a tiny baby crying.

daddyj I'm not happy with your commednt about the age limit just being a mumsnet in-joke

ferber himself now says not before 12 months
there is good reason for this

It was not meant to rile you (or anyone else)
but I have asked a few times before without
a response.

Can you show me the quote and the reasoning behind it?

I do agree, though, that when it comes to sleeping through
it is probably unrealistic to expect anything before 6 months.

3weeks, are you mad? you cant possibly leave a baby that young to cry

we tried it with ds1 when he was about ten months? it didnt work, did it for three nights and he would just cry until he was sick it was awful, i went downstairs and cried whilst he cried

havent done it with the second two, bfed them on demand and let them sleep with us, ds1 got there eventually, we just cuddled him or brought him into our bed if he needed it, now at 7 he is a fab sleeper, as is ds2 who is just 5, ds3 is in our bed but sleeps through from 7 til 6am then has a bfeed and stays asleep till about 7:30

i can bear to hear little babies cry

Ewww, I really don't like controlled crying, Lula.

But that's my opinion. That said, three weeks old?

At three weeks, its probably out of sheer desperation and sleeplessness that you're even considering it, I'm sure we all remember how tiring it is!!!
Personally I don't go in for the whole controlled crying, but I think what nappieaddict has been saying is your best option.
Try to leave it off for as long as possible though.
My dd was born prem and kept in hospital for quite a while, by the time she came home she practically slept through anyway, but with my DS it was different, and I used tactics similar to what is being suggested.
At such a young age, babies need reassurance that you are there, and a simple stroke on the cheek or a whisper was plenty for him.
Although once he got to around 6/7 months I would simply go into him, lay him back down, give him a kiss and leave, there was no communication, he slept well and continues to do so. (He is nearing three now). Whatever you decide to do I hope you get some sleep soon!

My HV told me that CC was not recommended for babies under 6 months. Someone said it was because of the risk of cot death. If you do a google search for "time to sleep", you will eventually find your way to a site which describes controlled comforting, as mentioned by DaddyJ. Controlled comforting can be used from birth and, in passing, it is worth pointing out that the woman who developed it says not to use CC on babies under 6 months too. We used controlled comforting on ds from about 8 or 10 weeks and it took a while to work, but we got there in the end.

Personally, I wouldn't use it beforehand, but that's 'cos I think it must be a real shock for them to come out into the big wide world and so they need lots of cuddles, but that is a purely emotive reason on my part!!

Is it this one, mb?

Nope! This one!

Yes, that's more like it!
Rhonda's main website (my link) gives very little info away
but the explanation on your page is pretty comprehensive.

This method is preferable to CC, Lula, although again
you need to be reasonably certain when your lo is ready to go down
for a sleep and at 3 weeks we certainly weren't!

Good luck in any case!

For anyone interested (including, I hope, the OP) here is the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health research paper on the damage controlled crying can do: www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/pdf/papers/april2003_aaimhi_controlled_crying.pdf. Hardly an MN 'in joke'.

good link callisto!

to OP i know its hard work, but your baby is so tiny...please please dont!!!

I don't like to be awkward, but that Australian paper just seems to assert that controlled crying is damaging, without adducing any evidence to support that?

It is the summing up of the research they carried out - you need to go to the end of the paper and you will find the references there to look up. The AAIMH is a repected body and I am sure that there are other studies that show the same results.

Personally, I don't need a scientist to tell me that leaving a baby to cry itself to sleep, especially one only 3 weeks out of the womb, is the wrong thing to do. Threads like this always make me really sad.

Sorry, that wasn't terribly clear - the link is to a summation of the actual research paper. This summation is used (I think) for teaching purposes. I don't know if the actual paper has been published on the web (you may have to pay for the privilege of reading it). If I get a moment (unlikely atm btw) I shall try to find it for you

Have a close look at the statement, Callisto, and you will
find a fundamental flaw that undermines the entire paper.

Please, please don't be sad. They have made a mistake.

TrinityRhino, I hope I didn't offend you
but I am genuinely interested why you said 12 months.

So tell me what it is DaddyJ.

you haven't offended me at all
I said 12 months because of a revision in ferbers new book that said that.

I will admit that I haven't researched the evidence that says its wrong but I cannot see how anyone can know for certain that a crying tiny baby doesn't actually need something.

I also see needing to be close to mummy and having copious cuddles as a fundamental REAL need that should be fullfiled.

I just do not agree with it in any way.I could never do it and feel very sad when I hear of other babies having to go through it.

Phew, glad you came back, TR, and good post, too!

I have to get off my lazy but-tocks and
buy a copy of Ferber's book because from
everything I have read, he has not made
any such revision.

It would be massive news, like the Pope saying
condoms are ok actually.

Ferber did make one major admission - he is
now happy to endorse co-sleeping - which has
been reported widely online.

Your main point is of course perfectly valid,
CC really is not everyone's cup of tea.