Question for those who are anti-cc

[sleepwhenidie]

DS2 is 10m and bf. He often wakes every 2-3hrs through the night for a feed and I am exhausted. I am thinking of using controlled crying and I know its an emotive subject on here. So to be clear, I am not looking to start a debate about whether it is good or bad. I wondered today though, about the parents who say they are anti-cc but had babies who were poor sleepers like mine...

If you are such a parent, how long did you carry on without taking some kind of action to get your DC to sleep through? What did you then use - no cry sleep solution? PUPD? Or did you not take any action and it suddenly resolved itself - if so when?[desperate emoticon] Or are all the people who boldly state that cc is cruel actually (as is my sneaking suspicion )the lucky ones whose babies slept through at not necessarily an early age, but a reasonable one - say 6m?

Anyone?

DS wasn't a great sleeper and also woke to bf every few hours for a long time (think he was still waking at least once, sometimes twice by 12 months).

I couldn't face CC, I still can't bear to hear him crying and he's 2.5 now [PFB]

DS always settled after bf, so I usually got up, fed him in a half asleep state and then managed to get straight back to sleep.
His cot was next to our bed until he was about 14 months so I didn't have to go far.

I did read No Cry Sleep Solution book but didn't particularly follow any of the techniques.

I think the most useful thing was posting and lurking on the MN sleep thread and getting reassurance from other parents that some babies take longer to sleep through than others.

DS eventually started sleeping through reliably at 22-24 months and it's amazing how quickly you forget how exhausting the broken nights are.

I think they just sleep through when they are ready and some take longer than others.

It is a short time in the whole scheme of things but can be exhausting I agree.

DC2 due anyday now and am sure it'll all come flooding back, we deserve a good sleeper this time

DD1 was a nightmare and still has bad nights at 4. She is much better than she used to be and I used some ideas from the no cry sleep solution.
DD2 was much better but was still waking 2 or 3 times a night at about 9 months. I used to feed her to sleep. Once I stopped that - Sat with her and rubbed her tummy etc - the night wakings just stopped

A friend of mine started sending DH in to resettle at this kind of age and that worked for them.

My non sleeper was my second i smugly felt like a sleep expert with dd who slept through from 5 weeks then I had ds! No cry sleep definitely helped, but even at nearly 3 yo he still wakes once a night most nights but gets to sleep fairly quickly and doesn't scream himself silly like he used to. Couldn't use cc because it felt cruel to both him and dd , whom he invariably woke. Both were bf.

My 13 month DS wakes 2-3 hourly for a feed. Yes it is tough, somedays I am hideous from the lack of sleep. But we will not CC. What changed everything for us was tackling it from the perspective 'what can DP and I do to make it easier on us' rather than 'what can we make DS do to make it easier for us'. So for us, our answer is part-time co-sleeping (after we have gone to bed, he is resettled in cot before then) and bf on demand. Whatever it takes to get him quickly to sleep again. We trust it won't be forever.

I may get flamed for this...

but I think that babies who are breastfed to this sort of age and beyond are the ones that wake up frequently in the night to make sure you are there and have a comfort feed. I breastfed mine for 12/13 months each BTW so have no down on breastfeeding, just think that it often contributes to this waking pattern. Actually, it is natural for a baby to want this so I think it is normal, but obviously difficult when you can't get a proper rest.

In answer to what I did, I stuck them in the bed with me and ultimately stopped breastfeeding. DS is 4.8 and DD is 2.8. Both now sleep through the night in our bed.

So. We sleep. But not really in the required arrangement! In fact we are now trying to move them a bit so that they can stay in our room close to us, but we would like to sleep together in our bed. For DS it is working, but for DD it is difficult - need a new bed .

At 9 months old my dd was waking hourly to be bf back to sleep. I was losing my marbles. I consulted a sleep expert (Andrea Grace) who came up with a plan that didn't involve cc. It was basically refining our routine and then putting her down while she was still awake - but staying with her while she fell asleep. The reasoning was that although there would be some crying, because dd was cross and out of her comfort zone, she couldn't get traumatised with her mum sitting beside her, patting her back as necessary.

There was actually very little crying, and dd was sleeping through by day 4.

It's not rocket science, but it was beyond my wit at that stage - sleep deprivation makes you functionally stupid, doesn't it? Andrea Grace has a website and you might find some useful information on that.

well... at 9/10 months ds2 was still waking every 45-90 minutes for a feed at night.

i finally had enough and got a copy of the no-cry sleep solution.
i introduced a dummy, which took him ages to take, but i persevered and he did take it.
introduced a comfort blanket.

it worked. he did still keep waking, but i could nearly always settle him by giving dummy back. i ended up re-settling with dummy mainly, and feeding maybe 2-3 times a night instead.

gradually he stopped waking for the dummy. and then gradually the wakings went down to one a night.

then when he was about 15 months and his one waking was at about 5am, dp used to give him a small bottle of oat milk instead.

Mine was a really bad sleeper, breastfeeding all night - did partially (sometimes totally) co-sleep through first year. It got better when he went in his own room at 9 months but still was waking 2-3 times a night, 2-3 times a week.

Don't believe in CC really - not until they are toddlers at least.

At about 13 months I had a meltdown. I bought No Cry Sleep Solution and read it. Tried a couple of the techniques but didn't really follow it. However, after reading it, it seemed to get a lot better and maybe it was the content gave an insight into how babies sleep, why they wake up and how to manage it that was more helpful than trying to 'solve' the problem. IYSWIM. So it was more a change of attitude and management that helped. It got a lot better after that.

The other thing - and I don't know if I should confess this - is that he never went to sleep all night in a cot. Once we stopped trying to get him into a cot, it was fine. He has slept on a mattress on the floor since 15 months (when he started to sleep through) but he moves around a lot so there are lots of quilts and rugs all around the floor. He has more or less slept through all night since then. (Stopped BF totally at 18 months)

Don't know if this helps.

I think it's all about being half asleep and the sucking reflex being so linked that at anytime during night if they half wake bfding is required.

It is really hard. 10 month and co-sleeping not willing to do cc. Small improvement made by putting on me and he falls back to sleep. I refuse to bf before 5am as it is for comfort not hunger. Still wakes but feels slightly more bearable.

I couldn't bear the idea of my ds being distressed with cc but I was pretty obsessed about needing a full nught's sleep. Once I stopped bfeeding at 11 months it took a month of reassuring visits and patting and a bit of leaving him - no crying for ages at all - and he slept through. I spent ages wondering how we would get to this and some how it just happened - no theory or book. The no cry sleep solution was the most helpful for me tho.

No immediate answer here.

But yes, it DOES get better.

As a child grows he or she will often sleep better - once they start school it will be easy, usually, because they will be exhausted!
So it won't go on for ever.

I co slept with ds1 till he started school, then he was able to move to his own bed.

No problems now. He used to wake in the night until maybe 3 and I would get him a bottleof milk. He went back to sleep then. Occasionally I did put him in his own room but it was easier for me to have him in mine.

He moved out of the bed a bit when ds2 was born (4yr gap) but properly when he started school.

Ds2 is still BF and sharing my bed but I think if he was eating more food during the day he would sleep better - he still wakes in the night to BF and won't settle with a bottle.

IN short it's something I've got used to and I would never do CC because I just don't believe in the basis on which it works, ie child gives up because nobody comes.

Sorry, I don't think it's right to do cc. Good luck - enough food and exercise in the day will deffo help them sleep, though

quietlysuggests I am with you - DS2 is DC3. DS1 (DC1)was also a terrible sleeper and while DD was comparatively good (sleeping through at 6m, no need to do full on cc), I still feel as though I haven't slept for over 5yrs - enough is enough! The thought of waiting til DS2 starts school is just horrendous, I will look 20yrs older than I am by then!!

constance I am v impressed with your tolerance. DS2 co sleeps most of the night but is a pincher so getting quickly back to sleep while he feeds is not an option as it was when he was younger. Also DS1 wakes in the night maybe twice a week and while DD usually sleeps through she normally wakes before 6am so the combination of the 3 is killing me and DH.

It does get better. I coped by learning to bf while lying down - i.e. just plugged in a breast and went back to sleep. DS is 2.1 and still feeds in the night sometimes but we co-sleep and I don't really wake up properly to feed him so don't see it as a problem at all. When he grunts as if he is about to wake up, I just roll over and he latches on by himself.

Ds comes into our bed anywhere between 1.00 and 5.00 am - he has never slept through the night, but he wakes up, gets in our bed and goes to sleep. So I don't care!

He is nearly 5, btw - I figure he won't be doing it when he is 13! The time goes quickly enough as it is.

Yes, it does get better. I co slept, the last baby until he was three and a half. My really bad sleeper was dd, number two. She's still not the best sleeper at seven. A very early riser. But all three sleep through now. Youngest is four and a half.

I know I'm in the lucky position to be beyond the sleep deprivation stage, but oh, I miss my babies, and I miss snuggling in bed with them. It goes so fast. I'm sure I was exhausted and cracking up at times though.

When DD1 was that age she was waking as you describe.

In our case she had slept through from 8 weeks (11-7, and 7-7 from 7 months or so) so I wasn't the living dead from 10 months of no sleep.

DD2 is 9 months old now and she's started waking up regularly at night and she is the world's best sleeping baby TM. She is easy to settle back, but you used not hear a peep from her for 12 hours and now every few hours you hear her chatting away to herself or sometimes crying and needing a pat.

I think this is just a very bad age for sleep, even for good sleepers.

With DD1, she had gone back to her usual sleep pattern by 11 months.

Of course, you have problems with the usual sleep pattern, so that will need work.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you find things don't work right now then try them again in a month or two. It could be a phase you can't really recognise because no sleep pattern had been established.

I'm still bfing DD2 BTW and fed DD1 until 14 months.

Also, despite being blessed with DH's family's sleep genes, I have would try anything to get my child to sleep if I hadn't had a full night in 10 months.

You know what makes kids feel really secure at night?

Getting plenty of delicious, healthful sleep.

Helping them get there if they don't know how is not cruel.