18wk old can't be sleep trained! is this normal?? help!

[Pummy]

we have now been trying to get our 18 wk old daughter to fall alseep on her own in her cot for the last 5 weeks and we seem to be getting nowhere. with advice from our health vistor we have been trying to 'sleep train' her by putting her in her cot for naps and bedtime and leaving her to cry and settle herself. we have been going into her and comforting her throughout at 5, 10 and 15 minute intervals. after about 3 weeks of this and her crying on and off for up to an hour we thought we had cracked it when she went to sleep, sucking her thumb without any trouble for about three days. But since then she has been worse than ever and gone back to crying the way she did when we first started. now into our 5/6 wk we are beside ourselves. she will now cry for up an hour and a half at naptimes and bedtime. At naptime I have often brought her down without her having had any of her nap. also she is now not settling after her night feeds either. last night we tried to settle her for nearly two hours and finally gave up and put her in bed with us. we feel stuck - if we stop now are we going to undo our 'sleep training' efforts? Or by carrying on are we damaging her psychologically? help!! is it normal for a baby to take this long to learn how to fall asleep herself?

Hi there Pummy, How are things going. My DD didn't like going to sleep in her cot either, I used to have to nurse her to sleep which I didn't mind doing until it started taking 3 hours. We did controlled crying the other week and it has worked for going to bed, not for naps, I let her sleep in her buggy for them, BUT she is 11 months old. I know it is hard work but just keep doing whatever you can to help her to sleep, I'm sure it is just the comfort that you give her that she will be needing, and she is stil tiny afterall, sorry that your Hv is rubbish, mine has been brill so all I can say is that they are not all the same, maybe you could try a differnt GPs, get some advice from other mums in your area if you can. Hang in there, they grow so fast, just enjoy her wanting and needing you so much.

Hi Pummy,
Do you think that is might be something to do with the position? Some babies just don't seem happy lying flat, or without support. To be honest I can't remember at what age ds or dd went to sleep on their own - I'm sure with ds it coincided with when he started sucking his thumb, which was probably a bit older than your dd. We also used swaddling for him, which worked well, as he would drift off in our arms and then we would be able to put him down without him really noticing. We also found music helped (for him it was loud rock - especially Iggy Pop's lust for life!). Dd on the other hand was awful as a baby for at least the first three months (probably longer) and would only go to sleep whilst being walked around or jiggled to the sound of SimCity, and would take hours to do so. We used controlled crying with both of them, certainly before they were six months but it shouldn't take so long before it works. I'm pretty sure that when I used to watch Tracey Hogg doing it she reckoned on about three days. I would recommend forgetting about getting her to sleep on her own for a month or two, and then trying again if you want to (it is quite possible she will learn how to do it on her own). I do think it is very important for children to be able to sleep on their own, because I think they do sleep better when they know how to, and because it is exhausting and very restrictive if they will only go to sleep on you. Also some babies are just great at crying - dd could keep it up for hours with no apparent effort at all pretty much regardless of what we did (except for the jiggling/walking thing) and it drove us around the bend! Good luck with it.

Hi Vicky!! I'm OK thanks. Brighton was fantastic but sadly we haven't set up home there for good. I've gone back to work full time now, which is a struggle on 5 hours sleep a night....so not much time for mumsnet any more.

Sadly our sleep woes are far from over, but it's better than it was.

Hope you're OK.

xxx

We've been one of the lucky ones-ever since our 18 week dd found her thumb, nighttimes have been bliss!!
But she played us up for a couple of weeks when we moved house-and had to stay with parents for a fortnight between moves. We jumped at any squeak-milk, cuddles and she forgot how to comfort herself.
the tipping point was when I watched her in the dark-she'd fuss/cry for 5-10 mins, and then stop and turn and look to see if we have come to her!! Then start up the cycle again! She'd settle again after 45-60 mins, and it only took 2 nights of leaving her before she was back to normal. So I'm of the 'leave them unless they're screaming' brigade. But I do realise that ours just needed to re-learn old tricks...rather than start from scratch.

I think sleep training is useless before 6 months at least.

PS. have just read through my last post, and it sounds a bit harsh!
In case I sound like a hard-nosed bitch, in the first 3 months or so, she got all the cuddles, dummy and comforting she wanted-at any time of night and day. She just seems to have outgrown us early.

I tried to sleep train ds at 5/6 weeks old. Yes that's right I did and it was successful.
I was at my wits end with not having a clue about how to handle 'bedtime'. I had no ideas at all about how to put ds to bed for example what time? for how long will he sleep? Should wake to feed (wtf, no way!) etc etc.
Got myself in a state deciding how to get family into a routine of some kind.
My mum came over one night and she advised to bath ds around 8pm and feed him and then just put him to bed awake. He cried for around 10 mins and it drove me mad. Mum kept popping her head around the door of nursery. Then suddenly he was asleep.
We did this for 3 days. The crying changed to winging and snuffling.
I have never looked back, ds has always gone straight to sleep at night since, no crying, no problems.
A week after this event he stopped waking in the night altogether. He is now 20 months and has only woken in the night if he has been ill with a cold or teething.

One additional comment on the 'manipulative' abilities of 4-5 month olds.
We have noticed a massive change in the social outlook of our 18 week old in the last month or so. She has learned EXACTLY how to get the attention of us or any random stranger passing by-smiles, coos and squeaks, fussing-she is definitely not the innocent angel she was a couple of months ago!! And I am sure this goes for nights as well as days.

Jo.

Hi Mum...

Yes-we put ours down sleepy too.
When we were doing our bit of 'tough love', her crying (dry I hasten to add...) would turn to fussing (10 mins), which would lead to a wimper (15 mins) and finally to the odd squeak (20 mins). It took 2 nights, and to be honest even on the 2nd night, her heart wasn't really in it!!

Jo

Talking about 4 month old babies as manipulative and anything other than innocent, even in a jokey way, is abhorrent IMO.

I have 4 children and I never put themto bed awake. At night they were bathed and breastfed to sleep. They all slept all night at different stages as they are individuals. The youngest was 9 weeks, then 12 weeks, then 8 months then 4 months. The longest one to sleep through the night (8 months) had a dummy. To me that was the main problem. I think that this fad for ptting babies to bed awake is unnecessary TBH.

Babies/children are 'manipulative' - they are meant to be, that's how they get our attention etc.

But they are not manipulative in the adult sense that we usually mean.

Hang on. It's how evolution works.
They are wired to get as much attention from their parents as possible-40,000 years ago, the more attention they got, the better their chance of survival in the wild.
whatever term you might want to use-it is how babies work and have survived for 1000's of years.

Jo

"Manipulative" is a negative and unpleasant term, which encourages parents to ignore the needs of their baby instead of trying to meet them. If you want to help the parent of a young baby, talking over ways that they could meet their baby's needs would be helpful, not labelling their baby with derogatory terms that makes them think they are doing something wrong by responding when their baby cries.