Controlled Crying **Does Not Work**

[fernyburn]

Well after the worst night yet (and there have been a few) I can definatly say that controlled crying doesnt work for all.

My DD is 8 months, she slept through at 9 weeks, then she hit 5 months and the problems started. for about a month every night - all night she cried and cried. The HV told me to ignore her - that she would learn to resettle herself. sundays to weds night - she sleeps fine, thursdays- saturdays all night crying. last night she started crying at 11pm and finally crashed out exhausted, on her nursery floor next to me (under my duvet) at 5.30am .

Has any one experienced this -- great nights in a row, followed by really bad ones. If so how did you deal with it - did you ever crack it and got a weeks worth of good nights. I hate to hear her cry, I cant ignore her crying, and there must be a better way to help her, than taking my HV advice than ignore her !!!
Thanks
Ronnie

I thought cc was only useful from 7 months as they cant learn what you want them to before that. Arent you meant to check on them every few minutes as well?

ahhhhhhh what is your HV on??
CC isn't about ignoring ...... have you looked at THE book on this...
< someone remind me please the great doctors name>

There is a technique, and it really can/does work.
As I am sure many will vouch.. it is just that YOU have to have the energy/inclination to see through..

not always easy.

ferber

I thank you!!

are you following how to do it? put them to bed, let them cry, go in after 2mins, setttle again, leave 3mins, go in again settle leave 4/5mins etc etc until they drop off, it might take all night for several nights in a row, but it worked for me and quite a few other i know.
its heartbreaking i know as i sat at the bottom of the stairs crying myself but i couldnt go on with her up after hours!

Have done cc with both of mine. It does not involve leaveing them. Settle, go for 2 minutes, settle 5 minutes, settle 8 minutes and so on.

It is not easy, and needs determination but it did work with both of mine. It took a week for dd and 2 weeks for ds. they are both excellent sleepers not ages 7 and 4.5

Hi fernyburn, sorry you're having a nighttime nightmare .
It seems to me that your dd is tired for a while, then when she catches up on her sleep requires some attention that she is just too tired to wake up and demand on other occasions.
Have to admit i adapted the cc technique to suit my situation - But ds was older than your dd - couldn't possibly have just let him cry - so here's my solution...including starting on the night that i knew my nextdoor neighbour was going away and i had a good nights sleep the night before.
Instead of listening to him cry, i went to him and i gave him a hug FIRST TIME ONLY incase he genuinely was scared/upset. From then on, every time he got up i simply took him at arms length (so no reward for his being up by getting a mummy cuddle)and re-deposited him on his mattress. The first night i did this about 45 times, but by the time i was half way through i was so determined not to give up. It took 4 hours until he gave up.
The next night i prepared for battle but believe it or not it took less than half an hour, once at 1am and once at 4am. The next night he woke up once, i put him back once, and it didnt happen again. We are lucky because he is a brilliant sleeper now, 7.30 to 7.30 for two years. Loads of other issues of course just great sleep routine. Hope that you get some decent sleep soon - sleep deprivation is a good (bad) form of torture.

Has your dd started weaning yet Ferny? Just wondered if she was starting to get hungry at all during the night and then getting into a pickle about it all, the way you do at 5mths. We started to have more unsettled nights around this time if I remember rightly, and I think it could have been for that reason. Or some new teeth perhaps? I'm not too good at cc either - I find it agonising to listen to.

Sorry if you've already considered that -just a thought. It's so exhausting when the bad nights kick in, hope you get some rest soon.

Oh I do feel for you! My first baby I did CC as recommended by GF and yes it did work. You have to follow it TO THE LETTER. However I can;t bear to do it second time around and I have found the book by Elizabeth Pantley - The no cry sleep solution to be spot on. Basically she follws the pick up put down, going with your baby instead of against. She has a plan that increases their sleeping in very small stages, so results are slower than with CC but it does work. I did CC one night with new baby and it was AWFUL! Baby whisperer p/up, put down works very well although you have to persevere with this, it does get there. I have found getting baby up at 7-7.30am every day and letting her sleep no more than 3hrs 30, maybe less for a baby over 3 months has nipped this in the bud. Some nights she went down a treat, others absolutely awful and I was ready for throwing her out the window! I now do this every day and put her in her cot with dummy and night mobile. I have to wedge dummy in a little with a rolled up blanket but 10 nghts in a row she has done really well after so many bad ones. Does this help you at all?????

I'd never leave a baby to cry, especially under 1 year old. But after 7 months or so I would consider cc if the sleep problem was very bad. We did it with dd at 15 months and it worked really well when all else failed. But even at 15 months I couldn't have just left her to cry, cc is much kinder than that, it's a plan and unless your child is unwell or in pain in some way has a very good chance of working.

Get the book Parentalk Guide To Sleep. It has lots of different methods for impving sleep in it other than jsut CIO. It really PMO that HV and the like think there is only one way to skin a cat!

The method that worked for us was called the Elastic Band Method. Basically, you do the night time routine tea, bath, bottle, bed and when baby is put down in there cot you stay in the room and settle them until they are asleep. If they are quiet in their cot but not asleep, you move between the cot and the door and return to the cot if they get anxious/upset - thats the elastic band bit. You can comfort baby by stroking them and touching them but you are not to lift them out the cot, once they are in bed thats it, its lights out.

The idea being baby learns to go to sleep on their own but with the reassurance that their parents are there and will come back if they need them.

It took me 8 days to get DS to go off to sleep in his cot on his own like this btw.

Good luck, sleep deprivation is the pits. You will get there in the end!

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340785411/qid%3D1098476161/202-5625345-1788620

3. The Elastic Band Method. This method shows your child that, although you?re still nearby if he/she needs you, he/she can fall asleep on his/her own. The basics of this method are putting your child in the cot and after the familiar goodnight kiss and cuddle you move slowly backwards and forwards between the cot and the bedroom door. Hence the elastic band bit, you leave the cot again, then return again, perhaps thirty seconds later. You can reassure your child but you must not have eye contact. The point is that by being there, your child will build up enough confidence to fall asleep without the fear of being left alone.

I have experienced the great nights followed by rubbish ones and it has often been teething. About 6 weeks later a tooth pops out and you work out why they were unhappy.

For what it's worth, I don't think any method works for all, you just have to find the one you're comfortable with and which works for you as a family and go with it. I ended up doing a variation of what WestCountryLass describes and that's what worked for us. I didn't find my HV very useful (she only had one suggestion, cc) but mumsnet is good to find loads of different ideas.

Good luck.

controlled crying doesn't work with every child. It worked perfectly - like a text book- with ds1, and not at all with ds2. We did the same sort of thing as west country lass with him. It was much harder work than controlled crying, and so I only tackled it when I felt ready. Now he sleeps really well and if he wakes up at night will happily go back to bed.

When my little lad was well - litlle I swore by the contented litlle baby book. You have no life if you foloow the routine properly but then when you are knackered what life do you have anyway.

CC doesn't work if you (as parent) hate it and can't stick with it. By default, ergo, definitely does not "work for all"

cc can work - at the right time. We tried it 2 or 3 times to no avail (just a lot of distress for all) but then once ds was about 12 months or so it worked. I think it was a combination of my desperate bid to sleep again that made me stick to it - but also his age. With hindsight I believe that at 7 months (when we first attempted it) he was too young.
With dd we have (touch a very large bit of wood!!) had no problems but we have been much stricter with her from the start (no getting into bed with us, no going to her unless properly crying etc.) CC was horrible, I did everything I could to avoid it a 2nd time but until there's a better alternative (??) it's worth a shot - so long as you can stick with it. And that's the hardest bit... If you can't then I wouldn't recommend it as you only put baby and yourselves through it for nothing.

Message withdrawn

bloss, I think it sounds as though Ronnie's HV suggested 'leaving to cry' rather than cc. People often confuse the two, it's a shame because if you do cc and it works you end up feeling as though you've done something dreadfully cruel as a lot of people don't understand that cc is not the same as leaving to cry.

Hi
What happens is this 3 - 4 nights in a row DD sleeps 7pm to 7am - not a problem, then suddenly usually on a thurs for some reason, about 11 pm she will start. I wait about 3 mins to see if she will resettle, when its obvious that shes not going to, I go in, I dont talk to her just shh, and there there, I just either lay her back down (if shes standing) or stroke her back, then after a few mins I leave her, then go back and repeat over and over again. I was told not to pick her up as it defeats the object.
on thursday, I was doing this so long, I eventually reasoned there had to be a reason I couldnt see, so I made sure her nappy was clean, she had some calpol (she has 7 teeth already at 8 months) and had a small bottle of warm milk, put her down again, and revisited constantly, as the time went on, she was getting more and more hysterical, crawling around her cot screaming. at about 5am (as I had my duvet on the nursey floor) I picked her up and laid down on the floor with her to cuddle her, and she just zonked out, as she was so tired.
I dont have this problem every night, about 2-3 a week max, I dont understand what triggers it, last night she slept through again, I make sure she has 2 naps in the day, sometimes she cries for 10 mins before she goes to sleep.
It really is heart breaking to keep going through it week after week. thats what i meant by controlled crying doesnt seem to work, ok for 4 days, then bad for 3.
Thanks for the helpful advice I will look at some sleep books see if they hold any answers

Personally I would advise doing it the "proper" way ie read and follow ferber. Otherwise it seems very hit and miss.

do you do anything differently during the day on the bad nights... food-wise? or routine wise? is she more/less active on those days? does she have wind?