Who has been successful w crying it out or controlled crying?

[Mamabear12]

I want to hear your experience if you tried controlled crying or cry it out. How long did the baby cry for? How long until improvement? I always said I would try it when my son is 6 months and now he is approaching 6.5 months...it is time. Right now he wakes around 11pm, 3am, 4am, 5am...on a good night only 11pm and 3am. Lately he wakes for the day around 5:30am! I need to sort his bad sleeping habits. I feed him at 11pm, but he only drinks 2 oz. Before I would feed when he would wake at 3am...but again he only takes 2 oz or less. So he is not waking from hunger. I believe it is habit. If I pop dummy in he falls back to sleep pretty fast....except after the 5am wake up. When I put him down around 6:30/7pm for the night he goes to sleep easily...usually no dummy. So he can fall asleep w out the dummy.

I feel bad to leave him cry...but I can not keep waking up all night long!

I didn't do cc or cio with mine, but I did (and still do on the rare occasion they wake through the night) wait a few minutes before going into them - often they'd whine or call out for a bit but then stop and go back to sleep.

Ds didn't have a dummy and used/uses his fingers to settle himself so never woke when they came out. Dd had one though and did as you describe: at around 6-7 months she started waking several times throughout the night just because her dummy had fallen out. So we took it away - she fell asleep one night without it so I took it away and never gave it back. Since then, apart from a few nights when ill or teething, she's slept much better and rarely wakes. She has a teddy with a blankie that she sucks and falls asleep with that in her mouth (when it gets manky I swap it for another of the same).

okay, i think i need to get rid of the dummy! esp since he doesnt always use it.

We tried controlled crying DS is now 8months it was the worst experience of my life and DS got much worse went from waking every 3-4hours to waking every half and hour to an hour. He would often get hysterical and get sick. He also developed what looks very much like a fear of his room he would start crying as soon as we went into his room so now I'm back to a cuddle before bed he goes to sleep drowsy and falls asleep by himself. I found that his dummy helpes but wakes up at 11 and 4 to feed but takes 7oz so think his hungry!
With regards to your DC early waking maybe have bedtime slightly later?

I started cc but my going in all the time just made it worse. It quickly became cio which worked in 3 nights for us. She cried 20mins the first night, 5 mins the second night and all but slept through the third. If she'd cried longer I may not have been able to keep it up and she was a year old when we did it.
However I'd second putting bedtime back half an hour to start. That worked for us at 6mo.

I just put him down for his nap with out a dummy and he cried 3 mins and was sleeping by 5 mins...thankfully I didnt have to listen to crying for so long. I am worried about in the middle of the night! I will try and see how it goes tonight...but have decided no more using the dummy. It is more trouble then its worth...since he doesnt even like it much during the day...always spits it out. I am really hoping that it will work and he will start sleeping through the night.

I will try putting him to bed at 7pm instead of 6:30pm tonight. Problem is, bc he wakes early, it throws off his day and he gets so tired early.

Thanks for your responses and cross fingers that he cries only 5 mins or less tonight and sleeps through :) I cant take anymore frequent night wakings...its been 6 months of a baby who sleeps like a newborn!

There's a book called baby secrets that's suggests you try and nudge the time they wake by 15mins gradually as children end up setting internal alarms to wake at A certain time. Not sure how it would work for a hold your age, might be worth looking into if cc doesn't work.

I think cc takes a certain type of parent, my dds cry doesn't make me want to go running to her aid, my response is more of an eye roll and a reluctant are you okay? I assure you I love her dearly and am very attentive when not crying! my dp is the same, so if she wakes in the night we give it 10mins and see what she does, if she's starting to calm down we leave her, and in another 5 she will be asleep, if she's just as loud/ bad then we will go in..
I think if your the sort of person who's dcs cry makes your heart bleed cc is torture.. Mainly for you!
Good luck with whatever you decide, it's hard! But get rid of the dummy, we did at that age because she was waking for it and I used to get so flustered trying to find it in the dark!

Has he got the hang of putting the dummy back in himself yet? That made a massive difference here. I also invested in a bunny with Velcro feet that holds four dummies, because DD likes to throw hers under the cot, means she can find another. We also did CIO (young enough to get me a flaming on here) but not with a six month old so my experience probably isn't applicable.

We did CC with dd1 at 6 months and it worked like a dream. We did a sort of gradual retreat, so we let her cry for 1 min, then 2, then 3. I couldn't go for longer than 5 mins, so then I just went in every 5 mins. It was sorted in a few days.

However, it is a technique helps them to learn to self settle - if they are not sleepy, or they are hungry they aren't going to go back to sleep! Dd1 continued to wake at 5.30am for months, but with a full night's sleep that seemed more manageable!

Dd2 was good at self settling from the start so cc was useless with her, if she woke up, she wanted something, so you had to go!

Oh my. Last night was not so easy. He woke 3am and cried for 20 mins before I gave in and gave him some milk. He drank an ounce and was able to sleep after that. He then woke every hour after! But I did not go to him....bc when I went to him he would cry more..it seemed to work him up. I was in the room w him bc we share a room at the moment and it was tough! When I hear him cry my stomachs hurts :( but I can't go on w him waking all the time.

This morning he slept until 6:30am before I went to him. Big improvement from his usual 5am wake up.

This morning he cried 2 mins and went to sleep. So at least day time is not so bad. Perhaps I need to try giving 10:30pm feed and giving him more milk? He only drinks 2 oz and passes out.

I want to get rid of dummy now bc he doesn't always need it. Half the time he spits it out when I put it in and falls asleep fine. But half the time he needs it. But the past two days I don't use it and it has been fine. Cross fingers tonight gets better.

Thanks for your feed back everyone . It makes it asker to do when I hear other people's experience.

Sorry that last night was not so good. Hope tonight is better.

I know what you mean when you say that your being nearby seems to make them worse; it was the same with mine. I could never do that thing where you keep returning because it just woke them up more and made them cry louder/longer.
Would it work if you made sure your dc has enough food and milk during the day and then only offer water at nighttime - is he old enough for that?

I am going to start offering him water at night time when he is 7 months...just to be sure. But I think he gets enough during day...but would be happier if he drank more milk. He has never been a big milk drinker...averaging 25 oz a day usually. But I guess with breast milk they drink less right? I express most of the feeds and he gets about 8 oz of formula.

Just a quick update...put him down for his nap just now and he just made some squealing (his way of talking) noises for a min and went quiet. I went to go check on him and he was passed out sleeping! :-)

No dummy for 2 days now