Opinions on controlled crying?

[larita]

Hi Everyone,
Just wondering if anyone can give me some opinions on controlled crying/teaching to sleep?
I have always been against it, but after a couple of months of travelling my 9 month old appears to have lost the ability to put himself to sleep & is up 5 times a night again. Our doctor has recommended 'teaching to sleep', & as I am so tired I am trying it tonight - the wee man has been crying for an hour now. I hate doing it, he is such a wonderful boy & it absolutely wrenches my heart to hear him cry.
Some success stories would be much appreciated! I'd like to hear the againsts as well though.
Thank you.

Horrible though it is, I am all for it because it works! Not only does it teach them to sleep well without you and therefore give you more rest, which is essential to anyone never mind if you're looking after a baby, but I think it teaches them to enjoy their own space and learn to be able to entertain themselves quite happily, their first little step of independence.

agree with davros in the long run it is best for you, but i think even more so, your baby. my dd, now 2, loves her bed and has no prob going sleep on her own and is wholly independent. it is a shame at first but it doesnt take long if you are consistent (hopefully!)

I was a lucky bugger and had a very easy daughter but I saw my friends go through it and the ones who didn't leavetheir babies to cry made a rod for their own backs and had nbabies who continued to cry until they were picked up and held which made for unhappy parents. thise that left their kids to cry soon had kids that could settle themselves and everyone was happy. Hell to go through. I was at a dinner party where every adult in the room was on the edge of their seat waiting for the crying to stopa nd it was agony for everyone but we all agreed that mum was doing the best thing. The crying stopped after 20 agonising minutes. The next night she cried for 15 minutes, the next night 10, then 5, then it went back to 10 and then stopped altogether.

cc did not work for us although it wa worth trying it as it might have worked try and have a lot of support for you and also a time when it is easy to get in a routine that can be maintained

larita - dd was always a bad sleeper so did cc with dd when she was 9 months as she never went down before 11pm. It was gut wrenching and i never let her cry for more than 3 minutes, but after a few nights she actually went down at 8pm.

Now that she's nearly 3 and in a normal bed she can easily escape from we've got a bit of an issue again and hardly ever get her down before 9pm but then again that way she gets to see dh for a couple of hours in the evening.

Hi larita,

CC is wonderful when it works - and if you follow it to the letter it works well. However, for those of us mums with a sensitive constitution it is a difficult procedure. I just could not sit there and listen to my baby cry himself to sleep. Having blithely suggested cc for lots of desperate Mums as a HV pre my baby it came as a shock to me to discover how heartbreaking it is to put into practice. Here's what worked for us - a very modified form of cc.

I looked in Gina Ford's book and she advocated waiting 20mins before going to a crying baby. In another case history she talks about thinking the parents neurotic or feeble and giving in.

Well - I am happy to say that I am sensitive, neurotic and feeble as I always lifted my ds when he cried and still do.No way could I leave him for 20mins. However, in dealing with sleep I modified the cc and sat in the room with him. He was 10 months or so by then. It didn't necessarily make him any better but made me feel happier as I could see he was safe and didn't feel like I was abandoning him.

I kept interaction to a minimum and just gently laid him down every 5 mins or so and explained to him that it was time to sleep. It took a month or so (including one night when he fell asleep leaning against the cot bars as he refused to lie down - how evil did I feel that night) but we then had a cure. He'll be 2 this month and sleeps 6.30pm - 7.00am apart from the very occasional night when he is unwell. He is a happy, confident and outgoing little toddler who still loves his Mum despite the fact that she makes him go to bed in the evening. It also helped to remind myself that he needed to sleep and I was helping him to learn the skill of putting himself to sleep.

Hope that helps a bit

Mandy

We did CC when ds was about 9 months old and wished we had done it earlier. It took about 4 nights to sort out his habit waking that time, and we've used it a couple of times since when he's been unsettled for any reason (travelling did it for us too).

I had a great book - well more of a pamphlet than a book - called the Good Sleep Guide which set it all out, and gave you situations where it wouldn't be appropriate, as well as a more softly-softly approach involving sitting in the room.

I think the GF 20 mins is harsh personally (and I was quite hard about it, desperate for sleep). We always started off with less than five minutes for the first time we left him, and never let it go over 15 mins even when it had been going on for a while.

Found the site for the good sleep thing, it's \link{http://www.babysleepguide.co.uk\here}

I have successfully done controlled crying with DS1 and DS2 and it only took two nights with each of them. However, and paradoxically, I really do have a lot of misgivings about it, especially since reading some of the recent research about the negative and permanent effect on a baby's brain of exposing him/her to too much stress (see, e.g. Sue Gerhardt's book, "Why Love Matters"). I really don't know what I am going to do with DS3 (only four months at the moment, therefore too young for controlled crying).

Sorry not much help I know.

I have to say it worked for DS and only took 3 nights. Few are the children who are naturally good sleepers. We did it when ds was 7/8 months and it was really hard but when (hopefully) you see an improvement on the 2nd and 3rd night, then you see the light at end of tunnel.

Do you have a DP to help you? I found my DH a great support. Also don't stand outside listening - use the monitor. Use a watch - it feels like they've been crying for ages when it's only been 3 minutes!

DS went from being the worst sleeper to the best IMO! He is 2.7 now and sleeps 7-7 and 2 hours after lunch with no fuss at all. Good luck with whatever you decide

I'm getting a bit depressed by all this because I (1) hate the idea of cc on principle and (2) know I couldn't see it through. But I have a 10-month-old nightmare sleeper. I feel like I have no choice. :(

If you don't feel you could see it through, don't bother trying it. It's not worth doing part way, you'll just annoy yourself and the baby.

There are quite a few other techniques out there ... Amanda's sounds like a nice half-way point.

I like cc, I'm a big fan of it, but I don't think it's for everyone necessarily. It does work much better if you have the timing right - a just-barely-tired baby goes to sleep much easier than an over-tired one.

Larita,

I tried a modified version like Amanda after ds cried for nearly an hour one night whilst trying the conventional cc method

The modified version was to put him down, turn out the lights, but sit beside the cot (not touching him) till he fell asleep. Next night move slightly further away and sit until he's asleep. The following night sit further still...and so on until you are out of the room. But we didn't pick him up if he cried, just went over to him laid him down, tucked him in and kissed him (same routine each time) then moved back to our seated position for that night. This lasted for a week, and by the end of the week he was going down by himself with us out of the room. He was about 8 months when we first tried this, and we've done it a few times since when he's had broken sleep patterns again from sickness or teething, but it works for us every time.

A trick I used was to sing to DD (she'd do anything to get me out of the room!). I mean, she could still hear my voice but it wasn't really stimulating interaction iyswim. I'd be screeching half way down the stairs and then make a run for it!

It worked for us with DS1 - although it was awful the first night as I felt like the mother from hell but....after a while it was fine. It got to a point where he would always have a cry when I put him down, even in the day, and I would just leave him to go to sleep - worked pretty much the whole time. However, with DS2, we've never done it because we didn't want him to wake DS1!

My ds used to wake regularly at night - every two or three hours and sometimes wouldn't go back to sleep for a couple of hours. When I went back to work, when he was 6 months I realised that I could no longer continue suffering from such awful sleep deprivation, so I did something similar to Amanda, below, because ds was sleeping in our room at the time.

It was horrible to listen to crying, but after the first lot of crying he went on to sleep for a five hours, which was a huge stretch of sleep for him and this gave me the confidence to continue with it. By the third night he slept through.

I've had a few problems with illness and teething since then, but it usually takes only 5 minutes of crying to get him back on track.

It's not for everybody and I didn't think I'd ever be able to do it, but I got to the point where I didn't feel I had much choice. I'd tried gentler methods, but they didn't work. I'm so glad I did it as it has improved the quality of our life and I feel like a normal rational person once more.

I agree with all the other messages here that it is really hard to do but worth it in the long run.
My dd was a great sleeper from birth then at about 9mnths went thorough an awful phase of screaming her heart out when she went to sleep and waking during the night.

It was hard and I was in tears myself quite a bit but after a few nights she improved dramatically. Now its just when she is under the weather.

But what about e.g. Sue Gerhardt's research, as Dinosaur says? See e.g. \link{http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1262302,00.html\this review}. And she's not alone. Doesn't this worry you at all? I say this not to be provocative, but as someone who's in a genuine dilemma right now.

Bahhumbug. Do you have a garden. Why not calmly put baby to bed say night night. Go in garden for a few minutes so you can't hear. It will stop you getting to distressed. Then pop back in really quickly lie them back down and say night night again - then back to the garden for quick G&t and fag. Then back in in few minutes. Really makes it easier.

DO NOT LISTEN to the crying on a monitor - they AMPLIFY it and make it sound worse.

Also remember when crying seems to have reached fever pitch andf you can bear it no more - that is usually just prior to the moment when they fall silently asleep - so jsut try and hold back.

if you even pick themup once it undo's all the good work of poppin in and out you have done before.

I do it when we stay at Grannies as it is always hard for dd to settle into new bed, but she soon does.

Trouble is even if I can't hear it I'll know it's happening. It's not just that I'm not strong enough to do it; it's also that I actually fear it will do DS some harm. Can't bear to take that risk and put him through that. But I do feel under immense pressure to do it and that a tired mummy can't be a good mummy. :(

That's an interesting article but I'm not personally convinced that it's particularly relevant to controlled crying if done properly and with love. I mean yes, obviously consistently leaving children to cry endlessly is not pleasant and I don't doubt it has negative effects on them emotionally. I just don't see that a few nights of leaving them for max 15 minutes, then going in, stroking hair, tucking back in and telling them you love them but it's time to sleep is the same as the Romanian orphanages, to be frank.

The line that struck me in that article was this:

'A neglectful, stressed or inconsistent parent gave the kind of care which tended to lead to anxious, insecure or avoidant children.'

I am much more likely to be that kind of parent when I have had 3 hours sleep per night for weeks on end, so to me a few nights of crying to get it sorted so we could all get the sleep we needed was by far the lesser evil.

You can not compare Romanian orphanages with cc. I really don't think that this can have the same effect.

It worked for me with ds1. haven't had to do it with ds2 as he's happy to sleep on his own. I did it for about 5 nights, he cried for 40 mins first night and then reduced over the days to 5 mins. it only took 5 days, we went in every 2 mins, then 3, then 4 then 5, never leaving it longer than that. probably not the right way to do it but we couldn't stand it any longer than that. we never picked him up but just spoke softly and stroked his face till he was calm. for what its worth, i think i created the situation where i needed to do this, i had allowed some bad habits to grow, like putting him in our bed instead of his own (don't ask me why it made sense at the time!) but with ds2 i got into good practice from day 1 and haven't had to do it. i didn't feel bad about cc because i felt that it was important to both the baby and to us as parents that he slept well. having allowed the bad habits to form, i had to sort them out, which i did. it only took 5 days and since then he has been a fabulous sleeper, and is now almost 3 years old and sleeps from 7.30pm to 7am. He even takes himself off to bed if he's tired beforehand. So take comfort from that, he's certainly not haunted by the memories and neither are we :)

It worked for me :)

Bahumbug. I did read that feature, but don't feel bad about cc as I responded to my baby's every whimper until he reached 7 months, which is probably one of the reasons why he wouldn't sleep on his own. I don't think a couple of hours of crying will really damage him. Some babies cry endlessly with colic or because they are tired. Are they all going to be damaged by this?