Can anyone make me feel better about controlled crying?

[MrsSleepless]

I have an 8.5 month old, she doesn't sleep through the night- I usually feed her when she wakes and she goes back to sleep.

We have a consistent bed time routine, which we have been doing for a few months now. I put her down awake and she sucks her thumb to sleep. She used to go to sleep quietly, but the last week she has really been screaming- tonight she screamed or 1hr and no matter how many times we went in and cuddled/patted her, she still didn't settle. SHe eventually cried herself to sleep and I feel like my nerves are torn to shreds.

I really want her to sleep through the night, I'm exhausted and I want her to stop crying herself to sleep, as it makes me feel really down.

So I'm thinking of controlled crying. I cant think of any other way. She used to sleep in our bed until she was 4.5 months in which time I barely slept, so I really dont want to go down this route again (in fact that thought scares me). Can anyone tell me that controlled crying worked and that it hasn't damaged the bond between you? I hear different things about controlled crying and I'm worried it will damage her somehow.

Thanks in advance

Never did CC but did GF, which did involve a bit of leaving a baby you know is really tired and ready to sleep and not belting straight back in the minute they cried, and it worked a charm.

However I still have to clamber in bed with DC3, until he gets to sleep and at any sundry times he decides on in the night, so I have obviously buggered up the "Let your child settle themselves" bit with him somewhere.

I think everyone has their own "enough is enough" point, both for their own tolerance of broken sleep and their being able to bear their baby crying. Most people find a point in between that suits both them and their baby at some point.

I would wonder whether your DD is warm enough. It has - significantly - turned colder in the last week. IME, the more toasty warm you are, the quicker you drop off.

You can always uncover her later on if you think she is too warm.

Haha Gloria that made me laugh.x I've taken opposite ends of the spectrum with my 2 children, because I had them 13yrs apart. The first time, I never, ever let her cry, walked or drove or breastfed her to sleep and co-slept. I couldn't even bear to hear her whimper. I got severely depressed with the sleep deprivation, and eventually had to do CC when she was 3, the memory of which still haunts me. I wish so much I had done it earlier so she could've adapted quicker. 2nd child I did CC at 7 months. First try failed because I caved - it just didn't feel right. I decided to try again a few weeks later, and it was far less painful for both of us than I'd anticipated. I could never leave the intervals longer than 3 mins - that didn't feel right to me. It took 3 nights and that was 6 months ago. He is the most amazing sleeper now, and I enjoy him more for being rested. I don't feel it has damaged him, or our bond in the least. I feel it has benefitted him because he loves his cot and self soothes like a pro. He beams now when I tuck him in bed. No3 is due in a fortnight, and I will definitely be going down the CC route with her at about 7 months. I think it's worth doing plenty of research and asking around until you find a plan that feels fair to you. You don't have to do it exactly the way someone else does it.

I did CC when ds was 9 months old. It worked. Two years on he's (generally) a good sleeper and we're incredibly close, he's not remotely damaged.

The term 'controlled crying' is a bit useless and can mean one thing to one person and something completely different to another.

We went from never letting DS cry (for fear he might be damaged by it - he was our pfb, yes), to a stern crack down which we knew as 'controlled crying'. We went to him every 10 minutes, reassured him in his cot but didn't pick him up. The first night it took 3 hours of that, the second night 90 minutes, the third night 30 minutes, and after he went to sleep on his own with no tears. He was never left to cry longer than 10 minutes.

When I have more children, I may well end up inadvertently doing 'controlled crying' with them, as I don't see how a busy parent with multiple kids, and probably a job and house to run to boot, can ever not let their child cry at night.

With time comes pragmatism. It's not a Romanian orphanage. It's a few tears. It's fine. Don't beat yourself up about it. And believe me, the next phase will come soon enough.

I think BallonSlayer's sentence is as good a definition of what 'controlled crying' is as any I've heard:

I think everyone has their own "enough is enough" point, both for their own tolerance of broken sleep and their being able to bear their baby crying. Most people find a point in between that suits both them and their baby at some point.

What did our parents and grandparents call it I wonder? Parenting?

I think our parents did just the same as we do, muddle our way through, but without the fancy labels. I know my parents tried most things with my brother who used to be a terrible sleeper - in the end he just used to get into bed with them and they barely noticed they were so used to it.

You are right though, that everybody is different. CC didn't work for us as I said earlier (worked intially and then just stopped working for no reason and I wasn't going to go through it again for something that appeared to be only temporarily successful) but it might well do with other children and parents with different temperaments.

Just did two nights of CC with our 13 mth old who was starting to refuse to go to sleep at night and was waking in the night. My husband did it yesterday during the day and it worked. Last night he cried on and off for 10 minutes then was asleep by 8pm and woke at 7.15am. Tonight he cried on and off for 5 minutes and was asleep by 7.15pm. I feel like I have my life back because his bed time was getting later and later (like 8.45pm) and we were resorting to wheeling him around in the pram. I was too scared to try controlled crying as I had visions of hours of crying but it wasn't bad at all. So we shall see how tonight goes but I actually wished we had done it earlier. I am just hoping it will stop the night wakings because the 4am wake ups are hard to manage!

My opinion is that you can tell if a child is ready for sleep training.

I can't see anything wrong with your child crying on and off for five/ten minutes. But surely if they scream for three hours solid, it means that particular approach isn't working?

I'm pregnant with my second and I do think I might have to leave this baby to cry a bit more than I left DD (DC1). It will be interesting to me how things pan out with DC2, but we have only ever done what I would class as very gentle sleep training with DD (gradual withdrawal, shush pat etc) and she did sleep through in her own time. Who knows how 'gentle' we will be with poor DC2!!

I resorted to cc with dc3. I had been apprehensive and anti the idea, but reached the point where I had to do something. It took only 3 days before she learnt to settle. She had previously screamed if we so much as headed for her cot, so leaving her to cry for short periods didn't seem any more cruel. Dc3 is now a happy, well-rested little child who will have daytime naps in her cot and who will settle beautifully at night. Coincidentally, she is making other huge developmental leaps so I'm in no doubt cc was the right thing for us.

I expect it's been mentioned but are you sure she isn't in pain from her teeth?

If she is teething, which most babies are around that age, then she might well be in pain and perhaps you ought to look at that as a possible reason for this - probably temporary - inability to sleep.

She is also at the classic age for separation anxiety, which will only be worsened if you do anything that teaches her you aren't going to be immediately responsive - well beyond reasonable necessity of course.

Please don't try CC, not yet anyway, and not at all if you can think of any other option. You could make a temporary problem into a more permanent one. Plus it will upset her. And you.

The case on controlled crying being harmful isn't any way near as clearcut as is often made out. In particular there have been a couple of studies looking at psychological well-being that didn't show any ill effects. Of course that doesn't mean that it's something that most people will find comfortable doing.

On the other hand, there's not reason why you need to leave your baby while they cry and can't gently comfort them while they stay in the cot and cry. I seem to remember that there is research showing that this is just as effective as controlled crying and as many of the studies cited about controlled crying being harmful are in fact actually about maternal separation being stressful when you go and read them, this seems like a more sensible option to me if you don't mind the time that it takes. However, if you are at breaking point, then I don't think you should beat yourself up if you do need to do controlled crying.

The thing that does seem odd in this case is the sudden change which suggests that it might have a particular physical cause.

I did it fairly recently with DS at around 20 months. His sleep had been disrupted by a holiday and the only way to get it back to normal was to let him cry for about 45 mins before he went to sleep once we got home. It was awful but I have no qualms about it as he needed his sleep (had been staying up until 11pm!) and it worked very quickly - only took 1 night.
However, I could not do it when he was much younger. I tried once in a half hearted way but it just felt wrong to me. I fed him to sleep when he woke up until he stopped breastfeeding at 15 months or so. I'm not saying you should do the same, just sharing my experience. I was shattered, but it was for a fairly limited time in the grand scheme of things. Not much comfort now I know.

Others have very different experiences as you can see here - you just have to go with what feels right for you and your DD. I will say, however, that very few of my friends babies slept consistently through the night until they were around 1. But maybe we were just unlucky!
If I ever have another baby I don't think I would worry about sleep at all until the baby was past 1. It always goes up and down and it's more exhausting worrying about it than just going with it IME.

corinthian I think the studies done on CC that showed no ill effects were all done on babies older than 12 months. Have also read that studies have shown Gradual retreat is just as successful as CC.
I think while most babies are not traumatised by CC some will find it incredibly distressing and only you really can tell how your child will react to it. My DS becomes incredibly distressed if left for more than a few minutes to cry and when he has cried himself to sleep he is unhappy the next day so I feel that CC would be cruel with him.

Agree with others above that I only managed to do this when DS was 12 months old. In fact he didn't really need it earlier - he only started having trouble putting himself to sleep when he hit 1 and then I guess being more aware and having separation anxiety he became impossible to put him down in his cot. He would start to scream even just heading into his room when he realised it was bedtime.

We are facing night 3 of CC tonight so we shall see how that goes.