Support thread for sleep deprived parents doing or considering CC

[babybouncer]

Seeing as our last thread got a little hijacked off track, a new one seemed a excellent idea.

DD is 7months old and I'm about to start night 2. Last night took 90mins to settle, including a longish quiet time. This afternoon's nap took a long time, but in both cases she slept week once asleep.

Fingers crossed for tonight!

Ps please don't post any anti-cc comments - it's not something a parent does lightly so I ask that you respect our decision.

What made you decide to try again magoo? I'm too tired to contemplate long term slow solutions, but last time we tried (at 9mo) I had days afterwards where she was really clingy and her naps have been shit since

im nearly afraid to see last night was a good night. He woke that one time at 0130 cried about 45 mins then zonked and didnt waken again until 0655. Im shocked as normally he wakens approx 5-7 times a night and sinks 2 9oz bottles. last night the only milk he got was a dream feed so i knew he wasnt hungrey. looking forward to nap time to see how that goes. did u ladies do cc at nap time too?

Girl, i did controlled crying 9 years ago with my daughter who is now 10 and it worked beautifully although she wasnt as "determined" as this wee man. 😺

You guys should come over to the multiples threads! There's a lot more tolerance for CC over there... and anything else that helps you get through the day/night!

So last night I caved with DT2, having tried everything else for the 4/5am wake I made her a bottle. She fell on it like a starving woman and then went straight back to sleep. I don't know how impressed that my over 6-month baby, who is now above average weight, is waking for a 4am bottle, but since she sleeps so well for the rest of the night I'm going to assume she needs it and go with it. DH was a bit, hrm, what if she gets used to a night feed again? But we weaned her off the 3am feed a couple of weeks ago just by reducing it each night by 15ml - we can do that again in a few weeks I think.

girl we're first-timers so no advice, good luck though!
chubby congrats! I'm so glad it's working.

girlwith the science of mom blog that I linked to upthread says that cc is less likely to be successful between around 8 and 11 months so it may be that your dd was within that developmental period when you last tried.

And when I did 'spaced soothing' with ds1, he definitely escalated the crying by day 4 but cracked it on day 5 - he is stubborn like his dad so I'm not surprised that it took him a little longer!

So might be worth another try now?

Hi girl we did it again because he wasn't get half enough sleep and was cross and cranky. He is 14 months old and has been running around for the last 3 months so really needs his sleep.He doesn't nap well-does one 45min nap in the middle of the day, sometimes only 20mins so he really needs his sleep at night time. Last night he went to sleep at 6.30pm and I had to wake him at 7.30am ! he woke twice briefly at 4.45am and 5.45am, we're delighted, it was really taking its toll on us. Im still upset when he cries and I hate thinking of him alone and crying but there's no other solution, we've given him 14 months to get into the swing of things himself but the we had to intervene and 'train' him. When I woke him this morning he smiled at me usually he used to be cross and tired in the morning. The only thing I don't like is that when he knows he's going tp bed ie the last programme he watches before bed comes on he gets upset and clings to me and climbs into my lap, cries all the way up the stairs, then roars as I put him in the cot, he stops within a minute of me leaving the room but I hate it maybe he'll stop doing it in a few weeks when he's into the swing of it.

help ladies i need more advice. the wee man is on his second night of trainig and did well tonight going to sleep in 20 minutes. however hes awake now since Ten past one (40 mins) and hes not crying but trying to climb out of his cot and generally just being mischevious. im carrying on the routine of putting him flat saying go big sleeps and leaving but he is laughing now and thinks itsnamgame. any advice?

I did CC on my DS. He is a happy, smiley two year old now who is happy to go to bed (to the point where he will go and get in bed when he's tired!). It took 3 nights of CC to get him to sleep at bedtime without aid of a bottle. After that (bar one regression) he's been a good sleeper. Before that, he wasn't aware he could self soothe and was miserable. When he started sleeping better, he woke up in a better, bouncier mood. He was about 5mo when I started CC, and about 3mo when we started a gentle routine. It doesn't do them any harm, so long as you don't leave them screaming. You need to know they are fed, clean, winded and safe. That's it.

Chubbiemomie, just don't make eye contact and don't speak. Swiftly and firmly put him back down. Unless he can't physically get out or get hurt, in that case I would leave him. How old is he?

chubby I've no advice as mine are much smaller than that, but I've got to say, at least he sounds like he's happy enough in his cot! Hope it went well...

well after making the big decision the night before last to cave and give DT2 a bottle at 4am, tonight she slept right through. Did beyoglu sleep through? Oh nonononono. I woke at 4 full of anticipation for the crying to start, went downstairs to make a bottle, left it at their door and went back to bed to lie awake waiting for her to wake. I fell into a really rubbish sleep and woke again at 5 with my heart racing. Is she awake yet? Now? What about now? Well it's quarter to seven and she's still asleep. Bloody weans :)

hi cordelia he is 8months almost nine months.

I would just leave him to it. He's doing it to get you in the room to play. If he's safe and he can't get out he's fine. Have you got your cot set to the lowest setting? X

chubby - I would leave him too it, remove cot bumpers and lower the cot so he won't be able to get out.

Well DS woke up every single hour between 7pm and 7am last night and I absolutely can't cope with it anymore. Sitting here in the dark with a hand on him while he cries and cries in his cot He's not hungry, he's clean, he's not in pain...

Elphaba i'm feeling for you. just try for another 24 hours. see what happens then. what else can you try?

Elphaba - Is this the first night?

Screamed for 55 mins, slept for an hour, now has been screaming for 20 mins. WHY does this child fight sleep so?? I just don't get it!! He doesn't settle at all with verbal reassurance/patting so CC would just be like CIO with us walking randomly in and out of the room, hence I'm camping out at cot side.

Anya It's the first night of this round. We've done this before but a cold just made the wheels fall off completely and his sleep went even worse than it ever had been before (see my rant from a few days ago on the sordid history of his awful, awful sleep). He's still in our room so I want to at least get him settling more easily and sleeping for longer periods before he goes into his own room.

chubby I've tried PUPD, pat shh and every gentle strategy Dr Sears has to offer. From the time he was 2 weeks old, he's had a bedtime routine, I tried putting him down sleepy but awake from the time he was tiny, I make sure he doesn't go too long between his (ludicrously short) naps so he doesn't get overtired. I've also tried co-sleeping, massage, we've had two sessions of cranial osteopathy (sleep's got worse if anything), he's had his tongue tie snipped to see if that makes a difference and I've had a doctor check him from top to bottom to see if there is anything medical causing him to be such an awful sleeper. This is why I get so het up at the anti-CC lot who always seem to work from the assumption that alternatives haven't been sought. I think I've officially exhausted the alternatives and if I wait and see if he 'sorts himself out in the end' he'll be without a mother. She'll be in her box under a tombstone which reads, 'At least she finally got some shut-eye.'

I worked it out, you know - he never gave me morning sickness, so I get a non-sleeper instead.

He's stopped again, thank god. Please, please let me have just a few hours before he starts again...?

I had morning sickness and a crap sleeper

CC is like CIO but you do go back into them, its shows them that you do come back and haven't got out of sight forever.

Hope you do get some sleep, its a killer!

elphaba I hope you get through it and this works out for you - you sound utterly fed up.

Can I sound you out on a few things? thinking of doing cc at the weekend. DD2 is nearly 1, so more than old enough. She currently wakes about 40 mins after going to bed, then about 2 hours after that; then, if we are lucky will stay asleep until about 2, then til about 5. She has a decent nap at around 11am, but only one (wonder if this is a mistake). So she rarely sleeps for longer than about 4 hours. She sleeps in our bed once we go up. Is breastfed.

So, do you think that putting her in cot, in own room, night-weaning and sleep training all in one go is too much? It's just that the other things are props for her now, so not much point in taking away just one of them, IYSWIM. If she is going to be angry/miserable, we may as well just go for it, right? I don't think she is just going to work it out herself...

Do you think one nap is OK? for a while we were putting her down for afternoon, but it was getting harder and harder to get her to go, and then she was tricky to put to bed. Her waking is almost all habitual - except maybe for the late evening one.

Observations welcome!

Its normal for a 1yr old only to have one nap a day.

Can't answer about bf as I was ff by then. I did do the cot, own room, and sleep training at the same time as I did think it was all better to get it over and done with.

that's what I think, Anya - sleep consultant we, er, consulted, had a schedule with 2, possibly 3! (this was a couple of months ago). I think we have to night-wean her at the same time as well...

she is a very inquisitive, lively child and I suspect doesn't need massive amounts of sleep, although she does sleep 7-7, but with lots of wake-ups (mostly quite brief...on a good night...)

I think we'll start next week, breaking her in gently by stopping sleeping in our bed then comforting her in her cot then next week we can move into a different room , change bedtime routine so she doesn't fall asleep on the bottle and try CC in the night - so watching with support and interest til then

Elphaba, I see you've done CC before and so I know my 2p worth is probably surplus to requirements... but when we did CC we did just go out of the room and let them cry, going back in at 5/10/15 min intervals to say our piece, and then we got back out of there even if they were still crying. God I sound so hard writing that. The way I look at it though is if it's harsh but it works quickly, they actually spend less time in total crying, so that's better?

rhetorician, when we did CC on our 6 month old twins we took them out of their swaddling blankets, got rid of their dummies and started night weaning all at the same time (more or less - the swaddling blankets went a couple of nights before). We figured that if we basically weren't going to touch them all night then we'd better get rid of everything that needed maintenance in the night (by that time they were getting out of their swaddles).

Just wanted to say thank you - haven't posted here before but spent from midnight to 3am reading these posts as we embarked on first cc with our 8 month old who has been an awful sleeper from day 1. Finally went to sleep at 3am and woke at 7.20. He couldn't even be bothered to drink 1 oz!!!! Hunger indeed!!!! I'm sure we'll have more of the same tonight but I'm committed now and can't wait for this to finally work.

beyo and Anya I know you're meant to go in and out with CC and then just leave them alone completely with CIO. I'm not comfortable doing CIO myself. The reason I'm not doing the in and out proper CC thing is 1) he's still in our room which makes it a bit difficult and 2) he screams unabated whether I settle him or not so I figure I may as well stay with him so at least I know he doesn't think he's been abandoned.

That said, last night was abso-fucking-lutely awful, although we did get a couple of stretches of sleep longer than we've had for quite some time - just interspersed with two hour blocks of screaming It's unbearable, but not as unbearable as the sick, sleepless, inescapable, incompetent haze I've been mired in for three months. I'm going to ask the inlaws to help me move his cot into his own room tomorrow and I think I'll start proper CC then to see if it makes any difference.

elphaba, best of luck for tonight - I think that having him in his own room is key because your presence will be stimulating him to stay awake. So hopefully you'll start to turn a corner. I really keep everything crossed for you!