How long would you leave an overtired 8 week old crying ?

[Looby34]

Despite watching my ds (8 weeks) for cues he is tired, he is quite hard to read and sometimes gets overtired and then impossible to settle.

Sometimes I sit next to his cot and try shushing him, sometimes I sit with him on my knee (in desperation), shushing him with his dummy in his mouth. You can see he is knackered but won't give in to it.

Tonight after trying to get him off to sleep several times (unsuccessfully) I left him crying in his room for 10 minutes or so. His cries became less frequent and eventually he fell asleep.

I am wondering whether I should just leave him to when it happens again - and how long it is OK to leave him for.

Any thoughts would be appreciated - plsu tips on how to settle an overtired lo.

Thanks

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

Not all babies cry for a reason. Ds1 cried only for a specific purpose - once he was fulfilled he stopped. Ds2 cried because he felt like it, sometimes.

'Moany' crying sometimes means (or did with my kids) "Oh will you all just shut up and fuck off and leave me alone, I am exhausted with you all!"

So if the cries are not increasing, but are becoming more moany and lower pitched, I'd say he's settling himself in for a good sleep!

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

Sometimes if you rock and cuddle and hover and lullaby, it makes them worse. Not all babies need to be held all the time. Some just want to put down.

[quinne]

then the answer is follow your instincts. tune in to what the baby needs and give it to them. They are not exactly complicated creatures so just get a sense of what they need and make sure they feel confident you'll give it to them without them having to scream at you first.

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

quinne, some babies cry if you give them the moon on a stick. If you are unfortunate enough to have one of these babies, especially as your first, then comments like

"They are not exactly complicated creatures so just get a sense of what they need and make sure they feel confident you'll give it to them without them having to scream at you first"

are not only unhelpful, but unbearably smug too.

Sometimes it is luck of the draw. Ds1 was amazingly placid - had ds2 been the same, I would have remained sure that mothers of screamers were doing something wrong.

Ds2 knocked that out of me within 4 weeks.

[quinne]

my comment was not meant to be either unhelpful or smug although i suspect that you did intend to be aggressive and unnecessarily rude in your comment.

It is blatantly obvious that all babies are different and I think it could have gone without saying. However, in my experience having had babies of different types is that trying empathise with the baby to work out what the little person needs (in other words following your instincts) is the way to go. In my opinion there can be too much theory and too little room left for the mother's instincts which only serve to undermine the new mother's confidence.

I think this is how it works here on MN isn't it? Someone asks a question and several people give their advice based on their experience and the OP works out what, if any, of the advice they want to take?

[Nighbynight]

lots of people do indeed follow the "dont let baby cry" way - whatever that takes, lifting them, leaving them or whatever.
We did it, because in ex h's culture it is said to be very bad to let your baby cry.

latest research supports this, I think. I read it on the bbc a couple of years ago.

[Nighbynight]

before anyone flames me, obviously if your baby's got colic, you cant do anything about it!

[pamelat]

I never let my baby cry (she is now 6 months) and I now think that I was "wrong".

Looking back I think that the poor mite was often over tired and that I just made it worse by picking her up, carrying her around, shushing etc.

Obviously it depends on the individual baby - some will find it reassuring, others (like mine) found it over stimulated them

At 5 months I left her to cry for 5 mins at bed time and she went from being a really fussy baby, who never went to sleep at night, to never crying again (not because she doesnt think I love her but because she has been given the opportunity to sleep)

Dont get me wrong, she cries in the day (just not at bed time) and I respond to her. In fact she is a little minx and as soon as she sees me she will put her arms in the air and demand my attention, she does not feel unloved
x

x

[Nighbynight]

A good way is to pick the baby up, but concentrate on something else, eg conversation with dh/dp. I found that my babies responded well to this.

[ninja]

Hi Looby,

bet you never realsied there's be so much controversy!

My dd was a bit like yours in that I discovered one evening that if I didn't fiddle/rock/feed/.... she whinged for a bit and then went to sleep (rather than crying for hours while I was rocking/feeding....). If trying to comfort him isn't making it nay better I think you're doing the right thing and I hope that I can be as sensible with dc2!

I have to say I'm very much for the don't leave to cry at this age, but my dd seemed to NEED to cry before she could sleep.

[Nighbynight]

Or I put them to sleep in our bed, but lay down next to them.

[Nighbynight]

Ooh, rocking - I hate rocking babies. I really had to bite my tongue when SIL was in the housewith her baby. The babe was crying, and SIL was jiggling her up and down - far too much, imo!

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

quinne, I'm sure it wasn't mean to be unhelpful or smug, but it was anyway.

[quinne]

Germanprison : I guess you are not going to apologise then? Would you prefer that only people who share your opinions post here?

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

WTF?

Why would I apologise? For stating that Some Babies Just Cry?

No. I am not going to apologise for trying to set the OP's mind at ease. I'm not going to apologise for stating facts. My perceived aggressive tone is unfortunate, but nobody seems to be sobbing yet.

[Nighbynight]

stella, your next baby could be a sleep through dream babe though!

[pinkspottywellies]

To be honest my dd didn't ever get over-tired that young. She just slept all the time! But as she got older I knew that in 10 mins she would go to sleep but also that if I went in to try and 'help' that we would be back to square one! I would go in if her crying was different to normal or if it had been 10 mins and she wasn't settling but usually 10 mins was fine.

[NoBiggy]

Have only skimmed this thread, so, I'll ignore the ding-dong and offer my method which has worked for two babies.

You have to get their full attention and make them forget anything else is there. Then they relax and drift off. This is my experience.

Here's how I did it:

Get very close to the babies face, either holding with their head in the crook of my arm, held high, or laying alongside on a bed. Blow gently across their face while making a low humming noise (think didgeridoo). Either the baby settles, or I have to stop for a moment because I've gone light-headed.

Worked like a charm. But any spectators would make me laugh, then I couldn't do it. It's a private thing

[May2December]

Onestonetogo - I disagree with you, sometimes a mother's presence prevents sleep. I agree one way of dealing with crying babies is not better tham another - just different. Everyone who believes 'some experts' view to never ever leave a baby to cry may be out of touch with their own instincts. Some babies cry whatever you do and crying is not always about intense distress in an infant.

I try to think of it as letting them cry a bit rather than leaving them to cry (and never for more than 15 minutes and only for a moany cry - not an incessant hysterical cry). Even with older babies I have never left them to cry for long, I haven't had to because they self settle and get the sleep they need - that's not been smug it took me a long time to work out with ds 1). If you never let your baby cry for a second that is your choice and I respect that, I do not think it wrong just different to mine (you must be exhausted). Also all the friends of mine who have 3 or more children have had to let babies cry a bit at times out of necessity.

[Flossish]

My dd screams herself to sleep. If I could have realised she just needed to be left for 10-15 minutes at 8 weeks old I would have had a much more enjoyable start with DD because as it was she would scream whether left or not. She's been screaming again today for her nap this morning. Other than this she is now a very chilled out contented baby. Do what your instincts say are right.

[May2December]

In the 1970's my mother followed 'expert advice' and left my brother and I to cry imbetween our 4 hourly feeds for however long we cried for - she had been told it would 'spoil' us if she did otherwise. She bitterly regrets this now since becoming a grandmother (this is pehaps the other extreme of expert opinion and emphasises the need for each mother to trust her own instincts on her own babies needs). A footnote to this story, have my brother or I been damaged in anyway by this treatment? - well, neither of us remembers a thing about it, neither of us have self-esteem issues, mental health probs or psychological damage - we are both happily married with families of our own and love our mother dearly.

There are much more important things a parent can do to make a child feel secure than not letting them cry for a second, being a relaxed unstressed parent for one!

[IAteRosemaryConleyForBreakfast]

Having read through this thread again I can see a definite thread. There's a divide between those who have had babies which cry before sleep but in the "moany" way described, and for these babies the crying is a precursor to sleep and doesn't seem to signify great distress. And then there are those whose babies cry - really cry, and struggle to get to sleep because of pain/overtiredness/whatever.

To the first group of people the idea of leaving a child to cry seems perfectly reasonable - it's only a little whinge before sleep and they drop off nicely in a few minutes, and what's the harm?

To the second group, the idea of leaving your child to cry for any period of time is completely appalling because the crying is hysterical and distressing for both baby and parent.

The problem comes when people think a piece of advice can apply to any baby. I got loads of helpful advice when DS was tiny (he definitely belonged to the latter group!) but I was persuaded by some people to leave him to cry. I tried on occasion but in retrospect it was absolutely the wrong thing for him. I had been taking advice from people who evidently had no experience of a baby like him. Everyone got on loads better when we made sure we were there for him in the way that seemed to help him most at that stage.

I guess it's a longwinded way of reiterating that they are all different - and that what works beautifully for one baby won't work at all for the next. I really do think that unless you've had direct experience of an unsettleable baby you haven't a clue how tough it is, especially with pressure to just leave them to it coming from all angles. Likewise, I cannot comprehend that it's possible to put a baby down in a cot and walk away without some sort of meltdown resulting. I'm hoping my next one will demonstrate that it can be done though!