Anyone tried CC/CIO against their instincts?

[vvviola]

DD2 aged 10 months wakes every hour during the night. Most of the time the only thing that will settle her is a breastfeed. Sometimes a little cuddle will send her off to sleep again. She can self settle (goes into her cot semi-awake & wriggles til she settles to sleep, and has on occasion woken during the night and settled herself), just most of the time she doesn't.

I start university in 3 weeks, I'm absolutely shattered and I can barely walk, let alone think straight.

I've tried all sorts of gentle methods and we sometimes get improvement for a night or two, then we are back to square one again.

I desperately need to get her to sleep better. I simply cannot survive like this. Only advice from public health nurse was to essentially do controlled crying, which goes totally against all my instincts.

But at this stage I don't know what else to do. I spent most of last night crying with tiredness, as I never got properly asleep before she'd wake again.

Give it a go. I think it does work. I know lots of people who swear by it.

BUT your heart needs to be in it.

I have done it with DC1 and it worked for a while.

My DC2 is also 10mo and I am on my knees with tiredness, waking multiple times at night. But I'm not having any more babies and I don't have the heart to do CC/CIO with him.

P.S.

It does get better as they get older! My DC1 started sleeping through just before 12mo, so I'm hopeful!

DS is 3.5 yrs and I still struggle with letting him cry at bedtime - even though I KNOW he is putting it on.

DH used to practically hold me down while trying CC when DS was younger. Worked though

Yes, I did with DD, my PFB. I was due back at work so pretty much same situation as you. Our lovely next door neighbour was a health visitor. We were at the end of individual and collective tethers. She asked lots of questions about solids etc, said that DD was really hungry and said to us "You - go and make some baby porridge, you - go and get that baby." DD was roaring.

DD continued to roar but took a whole bowl of porridge (her teething was really late so she struggled with solids). Then came the hard part that I had to leave to DH. 5 mins crying, then he went in and soothed her; 5 mins intermittent wailing as in 'where the fuck ARE they?' then 5 mins of occasional yelps. She was asleep at the end of 15 mins and after 3 nights became the exemplary sleeper she is today.

She's now 5.6. If only DS were that simple!

Have you an objection to co-sleeping? Just that way you'd probably get more sleep without the crying, because she wouldn't have to self-settle and you wouldn't have to get up.

It worked for us, I hated it but after 4 nights job was done. Check out www.sleepstore.co.nz and their verbal reassurance method I found it really helped having a step by step guide, DP did the first two nights and I slept down stairs then we swapped that way you arent able to bicker or question If you are doing the right thing

I did it with both my dcs, I did it from quite young though, about six months. It was really hard, but I believe if you don't want to co-sleep, it is prob the only way to do ensure a good sleep ( unless youre lucky) and I figured that best to go through it when they are younger.
It did work for us and my husband is tougher then me, so we made the decision then supported each other to be strong whilst listening to the baby cry.
Both our kids have slept well ever since, and both have good association with there beds as they love going to bed and settle themselves without trouble.
...worked for us.

*their

I'd go with your instincts personally, they're normally right.

CC isn't advised on under 1's but I have got friends her swear by it. It's just personally not for me and it sounds like you don't want to either. I can barely leave dd to cry for a few seconds when I'm on the loo so I know I couldn't pull off a whole night of it!

My dd is 10.5 months and exactly the same with sleeping. Her sleep will be fine for a few days (still two get ups, bf then back to sleep which is manageable) it then goes out of the window and she can have me up every hour I put it down to teething and sleep regression - they're learning so much at this age that their mind is still active at night. Mine sleep crawls at the minute!

We cosleep (double bed in dd's room so if she is getting me up loads I go in there)

I nap during the day when she's asleep. Not every day but I'll try and go down for an hour to reenergise!

My MIL helps out during the week- sometimes just inviting me round for a brew and a bacon sandwich. She takes dd off me and I have a bit of me time for an hour. Any family or dp to help? Will she take a bottle of expressed milk so you can get rest during the day?

I've recently posted today about my one night off last night I'd been planning, which didn't happen (ended up coming home early) as dd wouldn't settle without me/boob, so I completely sympathise with you.

All else failing, sleeping in the back of lecture hall?

Have you tried gradual withdrawal? I've been using that method and my DS is now self settling and sleeping until anywhere between 3 and 5, when I bring him in to bed with me.

I feel for you. DD is younger but everyone is pressuring me to do CC and I can't do it. She screams and i can't listen to it. I've sat by her cot while she's screamed but I just can't let her get so worked when I know feeding her would comfort her and she'll drift off to sleep peaceful and happy. I know it doesn't help with the tiredness bit I keep telling myself that overall its only for a short period of my whole life. We're working on Elizabeth Pantley's Pantley Pull Off (google it!) and I feel like we're getting somewhere with that slowly as a first step. It's not DD's fault that she doesn't know how to self settle, it's mine really and so I feel like I can't expect her to learn it quickly the hard way. It doesn't seem fair. So I'm teaching her step by step. First learn to fall asleep without feeding, then learn to fall asleep in cot. I say go with your instincts. I don't think you'll succeed at any method if your heart's not in it.

No and I wouldn't. Plenty of negative evidence and no positive (from the child's POV). Often people only find it "works" temporarily anyway.

Seconded on co-sleeping, there's research which shows that breastfeeding co-sleeping mothers get the most and best quality sleep despite waking up more often on average than other groups.

Thanks for all the comments, real food for thought there.

In answer to some of the questions (sorry I can't scroll back up to see names, and my memory is shot from lack of sleep!)

• I've nothing against co-sleeping as such, we occasionally co-sleep for naps (when DD pretty much stays latched on for the whole time), and I take her into bed once DH has got up for work. But DH is a heavy sleeper and a bit overweight, so it just wouldn't work as a regular thing. We have no spare room & DD2 is still in our room, waiting until her sleep is half decent so she can share with her sister
• we've no-one who can come and help unfortunately. MIL lives 2 hours away and isn't exactly hands on. We've some of DH's family in the same city, but they are more 'meet at family events' rather than 'I need help'. We haven't been here long enough to have friends who could help (or rather, the few lovely friends we have, have their hands full already)

I think by typing it out and seeing the discussion, I've realised I'm not quite there yet. I'm not ruling it out totally, but I think I'll search around for some other options again (thanks for whoever suggested the sleepstore.nz - are you over this side of the world too?).

But it is good to know that it worked for some people, even if it wasn't their first choice.

Actually, because the DC are sharing, we haven't done it with trying to persuade DS to sleep in his own bed all night instead of getting in with us and ruining our night's sleep through his kicking, etc. We've used the no-cry sleep solution (for toddlers). I heard about this on MN and I think that it's working. It's taken much longer, but that is partly him and the fact he's v different to DD. I'm working full-time and I've found it really exhausting (it's 3.5 weeks and we haven't completely cracked it yet) because DH doesn't do night waking, he does early mornings (I know, but I haven't the energy to argue about it). I've pretty much had to turn DS's daytime nap into a precise science - when that goes wrong, so does the night. However, you might want to get hold of the baby version, because I know a lot of MNers swear by it.