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?

I'm in the 'CC is cruel' camp (in general - see disclaimer below). DS is 10 m.o., slept through on 3 nights (I didn't!) but has averaged between 2 and 5 wakings the rest of the time, with the extreme being upward of 8 wakings.

I had success with now 10 m.o. DS using No Cry Sleep Solution techniques i.e. settle without feeding unless he was insistent. I also did a bit of PUPD, but only when he woke - not at bedtime when I'd feed him to sleep. I saw improvement in a few days and in a couple of weeks he'd gone from 6-7 wakings a night to 2 (only one of which was in 'my' night, for a feed). I think he still needs this one feed - it's usually around 4 - 4.30am.

Getting his nap routine right was one of the main reasons it worked though - before this, because he didn't get enough daytime sleep, and his days weren't in a regular pattern, he woke frequently at night due to overtiredness.

For us the right routine was up at 6.30, then naps at 9am (for 45 mins) and then 1pm (for 2 hours). Before that I'd been trying to follow his tired signs, which usually meant 3 x 45 min naps, which wasn't enough. Changing to scheduled naps really helped him, as did making sure that bedtime was early enough.

At 10 months you're probably feeling the effects of the second half of the 9 month sleep regression, as the second developmental spurt causing it isn't till 46 weeks. My just-turned 10 m.o. has just started sleeping badly again because of this.

If they're poor sleepers, the habits of waking often persist when the developmental spurt is over until you help them sleep a bit better (well, my DS's do, anyway).

There's more information about the sleep regression here, here and here.

mrsjuan, there is a theory that some babies need to cry to release tension and relax, whereas others (like my DS) increase tension by crying. IMO controlled crying means making a (tension releasing) baby scream for possibly hours until they eventually conk out with exhaustion. Letting a tension releaser whinge / fuss / complain a bit before going to sleep isn't CC. It sounds as if your DD is a tension releaser. :)

There's more info about these differences on the AskMoxie blog.

She has some suggestions about how to know which sort of baby yours is, and says that if you have a tension releaser you would indeed be daft to hold out for no crying at bedtime. (But she still disagrees with CC for tension increasers.)

HTH

I haven't read the thread so I'm only responding directly to the OP.

I'm in the anti-cc camp, and no DS wasn't a sleeper :) He eventually slept through reliably at about 21 months old, which was when we nightweaned from BFing. When we weaned, DH went to him in the night every time he woke, it took 4 nights to wean him. He cried, but DH was with him holding him the whole time, so it wasn't like CC where you leave them on their own.

X - posted with octopus - yes, for tension releasers, parental presence is usually stimulating and prevents them sleeping easily. Tension increasers generally need the parent there in order to relax enough to drop off.

And the improvement I talked about was at 7 months - it lasted till we hit the first developmental spurt of the 9 month sleep regression somewhere around 8.5 months, I think. We're back on an average of 5 wakings now, but I'll work on it again once the regression is over.

octopus - my dad reckoned I was making her feel seasick!

honestly - I really thought she would work herself into a frenzy if I didn't pick her up but I am amazed that I can settle her without doing so and seeing her lying there drifting off to sleep is an amazing sight - it's a skill just like learning to walk I suppose.

Still not happy to leave her crying alone and hopefully we won't need to do this.

DS was terrible sleeper - difficult about going to sleep and waking up a lot. From about 8 months we introduced strict bedtime routine and used various "we really mean this" techniques inc going out for 1min, 2mins etc. Being very firm about sleep has been the only thing that works. Except - a crucial detail was that DH (no boobies) went in to settle him when he woke up, if feeding was off.

Angeleog you sound like you know your stuff!

So I thought I had cracked it with no tears at nap time.

But tonight there were tears and yes he is stressed. As am I! I stay with him and am still co-sleeping.

Things are much better in that he will fall asleep in five minutes if on me. And no longer needs to bf to sleep thank goodness!

My question is do they always eventually learn to sleep without crying on their back after a few days?? I may lose my nerve if not.

And can anyone say in a few lines what the basic premise of nsnc is or do I have to buy the book?

Again, I haven't read everything but DS2 is DC3! DS1 was a poor sleeper, DD was an angel (I thought I was a sleep expert!!) and DS2 has been a nightmare!!

There have been complicating factors (poor gut probably causing him discomfort) and he is also small - all three are so I've stopped going to have him weighed.

I saw a sleep consultant (who had also been a health visitor) who suggested that at 8 months, babies can get most of their nutrition from food so you could consider reducing the night feeds. She suggested reducing the number of feeds both during the day and the night so that he increased the amount he was eating - it worked! I fed in the morning and the evening and gradually reduced the night feeds - kept the 11pm one for a while.

She also suggested removing the link between feeding and sleeping by doing the evening feed before bath.

When he woke at night, we shushed, patted, held his hands, sometimes picked him up. He became more settled and easier to settle quickly at night.

Recently we have moved on a step by letting him go to sleep on his own. We've given him two teddies to hold and have stopped holding / patting but stayed in the room.

Now he is 18 months old and is still waking once or twice in the night (sometimes more). We decided last week to see what happened if se did leave him to cry for 10 minutes to go to sleep, for three days. After 10 minutes we went in and stayed. On day four, he went to sleep without crying. He doesn't do this consistently and we do sometimes leave him for 10 minutes. Since then, he has had nights when he has slept through until 4 or 6 and nights when he wakes alot but I think we are getting there.

You can only move forward when you and he feel ready. You will know when the right time is, what the right thing to do is and when to stop.

Good Luck!! (and I know how you feel!! I joke that I should have gone out all night alot more in my 20's!! but really, I wonder if my body and my mind will ever recover!)

Marsha - there's lots of separate ideas to try in NCSS - not just one premise. I have a copy of the baby version that would be applicable for your DS that I'm finished with that I can send you if you want?

Ooh that is so nice of you mrsj! Thank you. I am ahem in bed already so will hopefully be about to have a great night sleep. Will come back in the morning.

*Misty" your 3 DC's sound just like mine, spookily so! When you say DS was small at 8m, how small? I don't know if you read one of my earlier posts but DS2 is small and HV I saw on Friday didn't think that trying to drop feeds was a good idea, because she didn't think he would make up for calories in the day. It is true that DS2's intake of solids is inconsistent and not great - but I am interested in your HP having an apparently different view - DS2, at over 10m, is now 6.7kg btw.

Just read the previous posts - there are sleep regressions at 13 and 18 months too which it sounds like some people are suffering from.

13 months.

18 months here and here.

I am about to head to bed too, but DS2 has woken AGAIN - only 10 mins since last fed - 'night everyone!

Enjoy your sleep, Marsha - pm me your address if you'd like the book - it did help us get down from hourly wakings to approx 2 wakings during the night & really helped with naps.

DS2 is on the 9th so not quite the 0.4th.

HP's are rarely consistent on anything everything!!

Hi mrsj here I am again in bed with iPod and haven't pm'ed you. I am on a wire with this sleep training thing. Day 2. It will work out or not I suppose.

I will pm you tomorrow sorry for absence!