HV suggests controlled crying for 7 month old

[leonieandevie]

Hi need some advice as I'm feeling so guilty. For the past few nights I've been trying controlled crying as my 7 month old who previously only woke once a night started waking every 2 hours. I now feel like I've damaged her all for the sake of a few extra hours sleep. I've stopped feeding her at night as HV said I shouldn't be doing it - she also suggested stuffing DD with carbs at supper and trying formula. I've breastfed so far and intend to carry on.
HV also made me feel bad because my bubs wasn't getting the full 14 hour a day sleep - said it could affect her development, also that she shouldn't be falling asleep at the boob and ontop of that even though DD's a chubster HV showed concern over her weight slowing down...flipping eck thought I was doing ok.
All I want to do is go back to feeding her once a night - is that so wrong. Love her so much and have waited forever for her. Feel crap.....

If you want to feed her at night then do it! My ds2 is nearly 8 months and his sleeping is erratic, the other night he went through but often he'll wake once/twice/three or more times and i always feed him if he does. he most definitely does not get 14 hours sleep and neither of my other 2 did either. If you want to give formula then do, it may or may not make a difference, but dont do it just because your HV thinks you should. I think it is widely accepted that although there are some very very good Hvs alot of them talk utter bollocks nonsense!
Porridge or similar at bedtime may help but its not something I've ever tried. Could she be having a growth spurt or teething?
I have used some controlled crying to get him to settle himself at bedtime, I just sat by the bed with my hand on him, he got very angry at first that I wouldnt pick him up and cuddle him but soon calmed down and went to sleep. i only had to do it twice and now he is back to going to sleep on his own when he's tired. i dont think you will have harmed her.

Babies are only babies for so long and the sleepless nights wont last forever. you know what you can cope with so just do what you feel happy with to get the results you want.

Dont feel bad - you wont have damaged her.

As for the weight gain i cant really comment without knowing her weight etc and even then i wouldnt know much but i do know that most hvs seem obsessed with growth charts and end up worrying parents unnecessarily. Follow your instincts and do what makes you feel happy

hi i agree with fpesha in my experience HV's dont tend to know what techniques work best and only give info based on outdated research. dont get me wrong that is not the work of all HV i am commenting on... just the ones i have had the pleasure of ignoring[gsmile] i would go with my instincts myself hun if you want to feed your baby at night then do what you think is best. your baby is only young yet there is plenty of time to wean her off the night time feed. my DD is 23months and she still has her night time bottle of milk. it wont do her any harm havin that extra bit of BM and you should follow what you think is best hun xx also if you dont find that CC is your kind of method there are alot of others that you can try. i found CC was a big pile of poo for me and my DD but many others swear by it. it is personal preference IMO xx HTH
xx ei xx

that was meant to have a in it btw
xx ei xx

omg hv's are such a liability. haven't heard of a good one yet. "shouldn't be feeding her at night"?wtf?? don't let a blardy health visitor give you a huge guilt trip. "have waited forever for her" says it all.
you are her mum. you do what you feel is best for your baby.
I fed my DC at night til 10 months(DS1&2) and fed DD at all sorts of hours til 17 months - and much of that at night because it is what she needed. babies are not robots, and they are not manipulative. you are the sort of mum who is so tuned into your child and can see exactly what she needs, that you should be complimented for that - not given health visitors wierd oppinions.
oh GGGrrrrrrr I get so at health visitors. lots more feel the same way if you hunt round the threads on here
don't you dare let this person change what you are doing, she does not spend her time with your baby and does not know her as you do. Listen to 'rules' - then do exactly as you please.

well said gigglewitch
xx ei xx

Well said you all - thankyou!!
I'm still a bit concerned that she can't put herself to sleep without my boob, but yes, she is still very young and I'm sure there's time to sort it.
I may sleep a bit better tonight - for the few hours my little bean gives me and all thanks to fab advice!!

Weight wise my bubs has always been a big girl and has only dropped a little. I presumed it was because she is more active now. She's started crawling and spends ages in the bouncer with her maracas which I reckon is a full workout! The HV still seemed concerned...You know, I really can't be bothered with them any more. I think that most of them want you to worry - its almost like they get a kick out of it and then want to connect it with depression.

Get some sleep girls! Sod the CC - boobie's back in business in an hour or so if necessary!

Oh yes. Agree you should do what suits you and LO.

Stop going to the HV. You can see if a 7 month old is ill or not herself - not like tiny babies where you might need to worry, weigh, etc. etc.

DS still BF, night fed, fed to sleep, wakes etc. etc. at over 2. For HIM it's the best thing, and he's clearly a genius

Your HV sounds rather stupid.

My goodness. That's a bit of a catalogue of bad advice. My HV was expecting my daughter's weight gain to plateau, as it has. I'd really stop going. My HV was funny about sleep - pro CC and all that, so I'd always just say she was sleeping fine . For what it's worth, my daughter gave up breastfeeding to sleep at about 8 months, I think, and her sleep had started to go bonkers at about 7 months. We did a combination of shh/pat and gradual withdrawal over a period of weeks, which has been a very pleasant experience for all concerned and has worked well. Last week or so she's been a bit funny going to be, and it's odd what a massive intervention a few minutes shhing and popping back in seems to be now.

HV sounds a right twat

Hvs think all babies eat loads and sleep through. Know why?

Because mothers lie to them. I've done it myself. "Oh is he on 3 meals a day now?" (18 week old baby)no you loon and does it matter "yes yes, he loves it!"

Coldtits

No mums do not lie, I never had to as both mine slept through from about 3 months, so you are talking rubbish , mostof my friends babies were sleeping through at that age as well.
One of mine was breastfed and the other was ff, so feeding doesn't make much different.
Who would you rather listen to, a trained HV with experience of hundereds of babies than women who have had 1 and think they know it all.

Some babies might sleep through from 3months. But there are also lots of mothers who tell fibs about it. I've lost count of the number of mums who told me their babies were sleeping through at the time their babies were 3m old. The same mums, months later, would go on about how difficult life had been in the first year due to their babies never sleeping through.
Others have different ways of measuring what 'sleeping through' means. For some it means that the baby only wakes once in the night 'but apart from that s/he is sleeping through'
I've also told hv that my baby is sleeping well (interpret how you will) so that I didn't get the lecture of what I should be doing which I knew wouldn't work for us. With my later babies I told the truth and said why the suggestions wouldn't work.
Leonie, you do what suits you and your dd. Feeding babies through the night hasn't damaged any of mine in anyway and the older ones are 20,17,16,15.

oh i lied to the HV with baby no 2. After getting no end of conflicting info about how best to deal with feeding / sleeping issues for ds, I just made out everything was hunkydory with dd so she could tick her bloody forms and bugger off!

leonieanddevie, just follow your instincts, and do what YOU want to do. Im not anti CC per se but if it's not for you then dont do it.

That's so true, about mother's lying because we think it's somehow our fault we didn't get the angelic sleeper and eater.
Didn't night wean any of mine until at least 12 months, I don't care what the 'experts' say about them being able to stuff all calories in during daytime hours, they were obvious still hungry at night.

When it comes to advice from any source you have to weigh up whether they are a reliable source, whether they have their own agenda, whether what the person is saying fits with your own experience of your own child, and whether your own views on parenting are vaguely similar the the advisor. With most HV you can safely assume no, yes, no and no!

I think they tend to give up feeding at night when they are ready. My HV said they don't need feeding after 6 mths as it is just habit and I am sure that you can wean them off it but what is the point if they are going to stop of their own free will anyway. I think to be fair my HV was worried about me as DS1 was a constant feeder and it was taking its toll.

Seems a bit daft to worry about your DD's weight slowing down and then saying not to feed her at night. She only has a limited capacity for food so she may not be able to take any more at teatime anyway.

It also seems strange to me that she is suggesting more carbs. DS1's weight slowed down at 7mths too and after analsying what he was eating, my HV thought he was having too much carb (and he probably was) and told me to up the protein which is what I did and his weight started to go back up again.

DS1 slept through the night at 10mths by the way and never had a regular nap pattern until he was a year. I wouldn't have said he got 14 hours either but that is not an absolute requirement. Some children need slightly more sleep and some slightly less and certainly 14 hours in one go is difficult to achieve.

I think your HV has upset you unnecessarily. I know mine said CC was OK but she managed to suggested it without making me feel like I was the worst mother in the world for not taking her up on her suggestions if I felt it was wrong. They aren't all bad, honest.

Go ahead and feed your DD in the night if you want to and don't see the HV so often if she makes you feel inadequate. You sound like you know what you are doing to me and you just need to find the confidence to believe that.

l&e your hv sounds like a classic example. is there anything she thinks you are doing right?

so she instructs you to stop bfeeding your dd at night but then says she isn't putting on enough weight? hv solution to this is give a ton of pasta and some formula and then when she cries for you at night you are to ignore her?

i wouldn't go anywhere near such a nitwit.

Xywhysty, yes they do lie. Maybe you didn't, seems you were lucky.

And It would be wonderful if Hvs were, as intended, valuable, reliable and unbiased sources of information, but unfortunately a distressing percentage of them seem to be vastly undertrained, hysterical old crones who tout their opinions as facts and and the facts as whimsy.

As for who a mother should listen to - she should listen to the person in best possession of the facts. This may NOT be the health visitor. Following advice blindly is what has led to a serious decline in breastfeeding today.

Controlled crying is a bit of an out of date idea now isn't it? I was always hopeless at it anyway. I would just ignore your hv and do what you feel is right. They are only babies for such a short period of time.

Xywhysty - coldtits isn't talking rubbish. Just because you don't lie doesn't mean others don't. God knows I do...

If you are going to do controlled crying, do read Ferber's book. There is a lot more to it than just leaving them in their cot for 5, 10, 20 minutes.

I did use cc to stop ds feeding at night when he was about 7 months, as I had to go to back to work. But that was only to drop 1 night feed, and he picked the idea up on the 2nd go (10 mins crying both times).
If dd is waking evry 2 hours, it could be teething, growth spurt, illness. I would try to rule all of that out before you did anything like cc. Also, make sure she is taking lots of milk in the day - topping up with carbs will not replace the milk she needs.
Also, before doing cc why not try some shh-pat, using lullabies etc to get her to resettle. Or try going to her and cuddling her but not feeding.
btw my hv said some babies don't need any sleep in the day , so they obv don't all know what they are talking about.
and if they make you feel bad, don't see them - you don't have to. I get all my advise here now

My dd slept through at about 7 weeks, she then started waking in the night again at about 4 months, don't ask why, I don't know. The only person that knows is DD.

I don't think I would do cc on a 7month old baby personally, and I am one for getting babies into a routine as early as possible.

If you are worried about her not sleeping all night, and do beleive it is just habit you could try getting her back to sleep through other methods, stroking her face, and the such, it doesn't need to be crying fgs.

FWIW, I stopped seeing my HV after a few months because it was clear she was as dappy as the day is long. Unfortunately health visitors know a little about a lot.

Xywhysty, I found your post rude and insulting.

Oh, also, have you checked if DD is maybe waking up more due to the cold???
DD and DS both did this and it took me ages to realise it was the dip in the temperature that was waking them up!

Well I found Colditz post rude and insulting. i am fed up with people insinuating that sleeping thoruhg at 3 month of their own accord as not possible.
Both mine just stopped waking up at night at about 3 months. I didn't do anything they just dropped their night feeds by themselves. Colditz insinuated that anyone who says this is lying, when it is not. I know plenty of babies who did this.

My HV's were lovely ladies, and I fed up of the bad press they get on these boards.