controlled crying?

[BellyMonster]

Has anyone tried controlled crying? My daughter is
8 weeks old and very agitated in the evenings. There's nothing that I can see is wrong (like tummy ache) and it happens at the same time every evening for about an hour or two. My boyfriends sister tried it with her daughter and she now sleeps 7 till 7!
I just wondered if anyone had experience of it?

My mother warned me when I was pregnant about what she called 'suicide hour' every day which lasted from around 4pm to around 8pm and the baby just doesn't stop crying no matter what.

It's very common for young babies to cry in the late afternoons/early evenings without any seeming reason. It should start getting better at around three months.

A month away probably sounds like an eternity right now but there are a few things you can try which might help:
swaddling
a good quality sling (try the moby). I call mine my magic sleeping device.
white noise
a warm bath
quiet room

Controlled crying is not a good idea especially for such a young baby.

Cry-sis provide support ( www.cry-sis.org.uk/ ) if you're struggling.

Liz, I did it to ds1 too and later found out why/how it works. It felt wrong to me at the time, but I felt I 'should' do it. I can't say for sure if it caused his fear of abandonment or if that is down to any number of things, but NO WAY would I do it to ds2. It would break my heart. And it breaks my heart to think of poor ds1 .Like me, you probably thought it was the right thing at tht time. And were told so by older family members? So I guess we need to forgive ourslves. But I wouldn't do it again at any age tbh.
Fwiw, I was left to scream at weeks old - my Dad forced Mum into it and wouldn't let her go to me. I am also terrified of being abandoned and have had a whole host of MH probs my entire life. Of course there is more to it than just the CIO, but I don't think it set me up well, put it that way.

Not for me, sorry. In my logic it wouldn't help, would either make her cry more to get what she needs, or realise that no-one comes when she needs them...neither favourable outcomes in my book. Cuddles all the way for me, but then I am a softy.

One of the reasons why CC isn't recommended for babies under 6 months is that it is only by then that we know that most babies are physiologically capable of going a whole night without a feed. Before that age, for many babies, going so long without feeding is damaging to their health and in some cases can lead to weight loss due to lack of nutrition.

Of course, many babies do sleep 'through' at a much younger age on their own and it's clear that going a whole night without a feed doesn't impact their health. However, it's impossible to know if any individual baby fits this description if they don't sleep through on their own, so medical advice is to wait till 6 months before trying sleep training.

Of course, many babies (including my 9 m.o.) still need night feeds way past 6 months, but failing to feed at night them won't cause the same sort of health damage that it would to a younger baby who needed it.

I think they all do it. My DH used to sit in our rocking chair with a book and the baby and just read while he yelled. He was being rocked, cuddled and comforted, and my DH was catching up on his reading, so they were both happy in their own ways...

Don't do CC. It's noisy and pointless.

Thanks everyone. Sorry to spur off a heated debate!
I'm not going to do the CC I couldn't stand it! It's not a wind up, my boyfs sister and some of her nct friends genuinely did it. I thought it was mean doing it so young, that's why I posted on here, to see what other people had to say.

We do all the usual things to try and comfort her, bathing, pacing, changing scenery, the sling, feeding, sucking my finger. She just gets overtired so eventually crashes out. I know she'll grow out of it. She's wonderful the rest of the time and I enjoy cuddling her anyway. I'll carry on with our usual routine.

Glad to hear it, Belly. You're still in the fourth tri, it's a really hard time, and the fussiness peaks at 6-8 weeks, so you're right in the thick of it. Mine screamed for a couple of hours every night around that age, petered down to 12 weeks and then just stopped. I'm not going to tell you that she started sleeping through, but there was such a switch at 12 weeks, it was unbelievable. Hang in there.

Really CC makes no sense at all with a child that young. The idea is that the baby learns that it can put itself to sleep, and not wake up so much - but an eight week old doesn't have the cognitive skills to make that sort of conclusion at all. They're hardly even thinking creatures at eight weeks, just a bundle of instincts, and the idea that one can "train" them into anything is just laughable.

The only thing it could possibly do, at that age, is teach the baby that its only method of communication - crying - is useless, because nobody cares enough to come and assist it. And frankly I don't think a 2 week old could even do that, so I am really fucking appalled at Ragwort's post. A 2 week old, left alone to cry and cry. Holy fuck.

I would really like to ask Ragwort how her relationship with her child is now, presumably quite a while down the line. Not in the spirit of getting at her, but just to know whether she has become more attached to her child, or whether they get on... Just curious. I couldn't imagine doing that to my 13-month-old DS now, but I am a total softy. Also, he is stubborn as a mule so would just settle in for a night of screaming cheerfully. No CC for me either way...

So glad you aren't doing cc. The neuroscience research shows that it damages the developing brain. Read Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt or The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland for details. (When you have time to think.....)

Have you considered whether she is dairy allergic? Even if you are fully breastfeeding her, if you have any dairy in your diet, the protein will pass through in your milk and causes gut symptoms including irritability and colic in little babies, constipation later on. My dd was just as you describe your little one when she was a baby. She is now 4 and was severely constipated from 2 1/2 until just a couple of months ago and this has now been confirmed by a paediatrician as being due to an allergy to dairy. She has to steer clear of all dairy, cow, goat or horse, because the protein causing the problem is so similar in all of them. Bingo! All symptoms gone! My poor little one has probably had an uncomfortable gut for all these years because of cow's milk. She was fully breastfed but all the cheese I ate went through in the milk and caused her baby colic.

Just a thought. Tough to give up butter, cheese, mik, but worth it.

OP, really glad you're not seriously considering it. It makes me cry to think of such a small baby.. and I'm not necessarily completely anti-cc.

I second having a look at kellymom.com. It helped me loads..

my ds cried a lot in the evenings too for the first few months and one thing that really helped him was me cutting citrus out of my diet (if you're breastfeeding). It gave him tummy ache although it wasn't obvious that this was what was making him cry - when I drank juice the crying returned..