CC how long does it take to work? How long do you leave them before you give up?

[Cnix]

I've been trying CC with my 6 month DD who was waking every couple of hours. It's working reasonably well as the night wakenings have reduced to just two. Here's the scenario:
Bed time 10 mins crying
1st wake up any time between 11:30-2pm which she will eventually self settle after one check.
2nd wake up: this is the problem. The other night she woke at 3:20 and still hadn't settled back to sleep by five so I gave in and took her into bed because I just thought she was never going to settle. Should I have left her? And persevered ? Also I thought CC was supposed to stop the wake ups ( she's not waking for hunger) id really love to hear your opinions and experiences.

If she's 6 months old, waking and not settling I'd say its very likely that she is hungry. Cc is not really recommended under one year as far as I'm aware. 6 Mo is still fairly tiny.

Little babies wake. Some might sleep but plenty wake. That is what they do. It is ok and biologically normal. Just do whatever gets her back to sleep fastest. " wakings is really not that bad especially if she gets herself back off after the first one!

Did you know that in actual fact doing sleep training does not tend to bring any long lasting benefit? Babies will tend to revert back to their normal waking patterns.

6 months is so tiny, she still struggles with the concept of people coming back once they go away. Leaving her for so long is not nice for her.

Look here for great information on normal infant sleep.

not sure I breastfed my DS and he was definitely still hungry in the night at 6 months.

I did CIO for getting him to sleep though (CC - just made everything worse, every time I came back in the room he would fly off the handle and we would start back at the beginning so for us CIO was actually kinder and involved FAR less crying). It took 3 nights to get him to self settle at bedtime - I would still get up and feed him in the night though.

Sounds like hunger to me, or the room is getting cold as it's the wee small hours and therefore can't settle back. DS has self settled at bedtime and for months but still wakes in the night, reasons include: teeth, hunger, temperature, illness, loneliness, getting stuck in the cot in an uncomfy position, or just plain old wanting a quick cuddle/feed. I think 6mo is very young to categorically say that they are not hungry.

Thanks for the advice. I would never have done CC if I thought there was any other way. We tried some ideas from NCSS but although she went to sleep herself was not able to settle after sleep cycles. The reason I say she's not hungry is that she has three good meals a day and plenty of milk. The crying is not a hungry cry but a frustrated tired cry. I do feed her when she won't settle and she doesn't really take that much before falling asleep beside me where she stays until morning. So I guess she's getting mixed messages.

I know some Mumsnetters won't like this and don't agree with CC but here is my experience....

We did CC with our daughter when she was around 7.5 or 8 months old as she had started waking up all the time in the night and was exhausting herself. She also wouldn't go to sleep in the evenings either. We had tried everything else but she was totally unable to self settle and was miserable.

It took 3 nights. First night was awful, one of the worst experiences of my whole life - more than 2 hours of crying, second not much better (maybe 1.5 hrs) and the third was still very distressing (20ish mins I think). From the fourth night....she slept and when she woke she simply settled herself. She was still having a ten o'clock(ish) feed at that stage but then was able to sleep through til morning.

We had one minor regression as we went on holiday shortly after (we didn't really think through the timing) where we had to do it again for around 20 mins one night and since then she has slept beautifully and is totally refreshed in the morning. She is now over 2 and we never have to go to her in the night unless she is ill. Sometimes we hear her wake but she just settles down and goes back to sleep.

I now have a 3 month old daughter and I have all my fingers crossed that we don't have to contemplate doing it with her as it is really, really hard and not something we did lightly. But the bottom line is that it worked, both for us and for our daughter.