Leaving baby to cry for a couple of minutes at bedtime

[EeeyMacarena]

Hi all. DD is almost one and normally a pretty good sleeper. Normally We’d always rocked her to sleep and then transferred her to her cot, and she would then sleep for 11-12 hours straight. So it worked well! Worked.

Well, in the past few weeks rocking stopped working. In fact it seemed to infuriate her! She would act sleepy (rub her eyes, yawn ect) so we’d get her ready for bed (feed, bath, PJs) and then rock her, but instead of falling asleep like usual she would thrash around in our arms, kick, and cry. This has been since she started walking. This would go on for hours. Literally hours. It got to the point where she wouldn’t go to sleep until 2/3am, and would then be up for the day at 6:30am. That, or she’d fall asleep at 7pm but then wake up every hour! Calpol and anbesol (in case it was her teeth) made no difference. I’m a full time uni student and my partner works full time, so needless to say we were utterly knackered! DD, usually very sunny and happy, was also very grumpy and tired. She didn’t like to be rocked for naps either, so was only napping for 20 minutes at a time. We were all miserable, so I knew something had to change for bedtime!

Since rocking seemed to infuriate her now, I decided to see what would happen if I got her ready for bed but then placed her in her cot whilst awake and didn’t interfere with her for a couple of minutes. I decided that if she cried for more than a minute or so I would go in and soother her.

Well, the first night she cried for a minute but then, just as I was going to go in, she fell asleep and slept for 12 hours! I thought it might have been a fluke, but we’ve been doing this for 5 nights now and every night she has cried for less than a minute (sometimes less than 30 seconds) and then fallen asleep and slept for 11/12 hours. We’ve also been doing this for naps and again, 30 seconds of crying followed by a two hour long nap. She is now a much much happier baby. Very smiley and playful like she used to be! And of course DP and I are much happier too because we’re getting a decent amount of sleep.

I’d always been vehemently against any kind of sleep training or controlled crying, thinking it was cruel. And we’ve been lucky that we’ve never needed to use it up until recently. But now we’ve been doing it, I’m happy at the improved sleep and DDs improved mood, but I’ve been lambasted on other parenting groups and called cruel and accused of harming DD and our bond by letting her cry for a minute at bedtime. It’s never been longer than a minute, and it’s never been a loud, desperate, ‘help me’ cry. If it was I’d be straight in there. It’s more of a grumpy grizzle. It’s still not nice to hear her cry even for a minute, but if it improves her sleep and mood?

Am I really that bad of a parent for letting DD cry for a minute before she goes to sleep? She is my first baby and I always try to do my best by her

Thanks

This was DD! She just needed us to fuck off and stop fussing her! 2 or 3 minutes and she was asleep. If we rocked her she would get overtired and cry a lot, lot longer!

She's 13 now. Still independent!

Well done to you. My 3 year old has never slept for 11 to 12 hours straight. I am still waiting for him to have a full night's sleep. He's literally just gone to bed. It takes hours to get him to sleep. Your parenting style might not always be someone else's cup of tea, but hey ho, some like their 'tea, strong , weak, milky' etc..
I am really looking forward to the day my toddler goes to sleep at 8pm and wake up at 6am. Oh what a day!!!
You are doing a good job.

You’re doing nothing wrong at all so no reason to feel guilty.

I’m glad you’ve found something working for you and hope it continues. Lack of sleep is horrific!

No, what you have described sounds fine - and I am really, really opposed to controlled crying in any form!

If it's genuinely less than a minute, it doesn't sound like she's getting really upset - more that she's just fussing while she's winding down. And given that she clearly doesn't want to be rocked any more, I think it's ok to do this.

Well, this is why people do it. Sometimes controlled crying works better for the child. It's not because people like to be mean to babies!

Congratulations. You sound like great parents. I don't think there is any harm in that type of crying the way you are doing it

I can't believe you've been accused of being cruel! 1 minute is fine (and I'm a very soft parent). People are so high and mighty on their high horse.

Oh FFS I wish I didn't read this. Some people have all the luck when it comes to their babies' sleep.

(I've been up with 11mo since 5am after a total of approximately 3.5hrs of broken sleep and I wish I could say this is is uncommon)

It's fine. DS was a nightmare to get to sleep until we did this. Like a PP, it turns out that he needed us to leave him alone so he could wind down. Every baby is different.

There is something on the news this morning saying that new research has shown that short periods of being left to cry has no effect on the baby's bond or development

@Enchiladas so sorry, it wasn’t my intention to upset you. Like I said, DD went through a stage of only sleeping 3/4 hours a night or being up every hour, so I do have some idea of the horrors of sleep deprivation! I hope it improves for you soon.

Thank you all, I feel so much better

This isn’t controlled crying/sleep training. That’s a normal tired baby having a quick grumble before falling asleep.

Sounds like it’s working for all of you. Don’t worry so much about what other people think about your parenting choices, you know your child and are best placed to decide what’s best for you as a family.

Imagine how the parents with more than one child manage their crying babies.. of course, you try not to leave them crying but sometimes your other child’s needs/safety etc have to come first. Baby having a little cry for a couple minutes really does not harm them. You learn to be less precious when you have more than one!

Anyone who has said those comments are idiots. It is not cruel. It is life. My DD hated being fussed to sleep as a baby.. no rocking, no cuddling. Self settled from about 2 months.. I certainly didn’t complain. She’s almost 3 now & still needs her own space to sleep. Even when poorly, she’ll come for a cuddle & then ask to go back to her own bed. She’s the most affectionate little girl when awake, it’s just how she likes to sleep!

I agree with a PP - my mum always says sometimes kids just need a little cry/grumble at bedtime to get out a little frustration/emotion from the tiredness. Once that’s done, they conk out!

Thank you OP and no need for you to apologise, I shouldn't have had a little pity party grumble lol. He's napping now so hooray

Yes...I used to sing endless lullabies to my oldest son convinced this was the way to get him to sleep - untill he started to have words, got more mobile and put his hand on my mouth and said 'top'! 😳 Now I think there is a chance that he fell asleep inspite of my singing rather than because of it. I would also say that you might want to try to get her bed ready before she shows signs of tiredness so she can go straight away when rubbing eyes/yawning.

@EeeyMacarena our boy has been like this since birth. Everyone needs to bugger off, pitch black and no noise, he cries for a couple of minutes and then off to sleep. Sometimes it can be 5 minutes, but more of a grizzle rather than an actual cry. He is absolutely infuriated if anyone goes back into his room so we leave him to sort himself out.
I pray for the day that one day he will not cry at bedtime / nap time but I also thank my lucky stars that he sleeps all night!! Swings and roundabouts.

Surely it's more cruel to keep offering comfort when she clearly wants to be left alone?

Not all babies want to be held, rocked etc all the time. My dd was the same, she wanted to be put down on her own and left to it. Any interference from me just wound her up.

Thanks all! Success tonight! She didn’t cry at all! Well, she let out a couple of whinges but was quiet within 10 seconds!

I hate babies being left to cry but honestly that's fine op!!! Its clear she needs her own space to settle and that's what she's doing. Enjoy the peace!

Sometimes, especially at nap time when we know baby is tired but fighting their nap we’ll put them down and they’ll kick off. If this is in the living room we’ll go into the kitchen for a couple of minutes and in that time they’re fast asleep. We don’t feel cruel for doing this as sometimes it just needs us not being there distracting them to fall asleep.

We always put ds down and allowed up to 10 minutes for him to settle himself to sleep. If there was nothing wrong then he always would. Yes he cried for a few minutes but it's not cruel at all.
He's always self settled and was sleeping through from 3 months.
There really is nothing wrong if a baby cries for a few minutes.