Advice please on mistake I made with cc

[forestmum]

Can anyone help. I deciced as F is 8 months old I would leave him to cry at night. I had him in our room, and bed for the 2nd half of night, up to 3 weeks ago, and had managed to wean off feeding 'til 6am or after. But he needed to suck my finger everytime he woke.
So started to leave him to cry, but going in seemed to make him scream more when I left, so did not go in at all. Two weeks later and he has not learnt to sleep better at all! Cries for about an hour on waking!
If I did the going in after 10, 15, 20 mins etc would cc be more likely to work, or do I just have a determined son!
I'm hoping that I have just taken the wrong approach to cc and a few pointers in the right direction will help, so all info greatly appreciated.

I read somewhere it can take up to 3 weeks to form a habit and assume it might take as long to break one... Persevere? Otherwise, I'm sure I saw something about sleep clinics on here. Not much help, I'm afraid, but have lots of sympathy for you.

I think you are supposed to go in when they cry, comfort them silently & then leave & keep doing this until they stop cry ?

Although with cc, you go in after 1 mi, 2 min, 5 mins etc. I wouldn't leave him to cry for an hour.

If he wants to suck - can you try him with a dummy ? of some cooled boiled water ?

Thanks mumpbump, I will happilly persevere I just kept reading/hearing stories where mums saw huge change in habits in 3 days, but maybe it's more of that exageration of facts that comes with meeting other mothers sometimes!
Still interested to hear a number of opinions about the 'to go in or not go in' question.

I would try going in at the recommended CC intervals. The idea of this is to reassure them that they haven't been abandoned. If you are leaving him totally then you are practising a method known as extinction, rather than CC. Either method should work, but CC is the more sympathetic and more widely practised of the two.

Oh, and for info, when we did CC with DD it took 1hr 20mins first night, 37 mins second night, 20 mins 3rd night, and so on.

A dummy is the one thing that he will not put in his mouth! I am thinking that I need to do the going in thing. How long do I stay, just let him know I am there and then leave? I was thinking that a hand on his chest might make him feel reassured but maybe this is a no-no!
Thanks for your help

tOO YOUNG.
hE NEEDS HIS MUMMY.
yOU ARE DAMAGING HIM BY LEAVING HIM AT THIS AGE.

Am forgeting all I want to ask! Is it normal for the crying to escalate when you leave?

Yes,it's normal for crying to escalate as they are f*cking terrified!!!

I stuck to a routine for 2 weeks but as it didn't seem to be getting a lot better I thought I would seek some supportive advice from other parents. The advice I get I will definately take on board and stick to also.

Clearly you don't agree with CC moondog, but you've offered your opinion, and I don't think there's any need to labour it.

Message withdrawn

I'd second the book recommendation. I cheated a little when we did it as you're not supposed to pick them up when you go in, but doing this made me feel better about the whole CC thing, plus she had invariably rolled and wriggled around the cot (it's elevated because she has reflux) and it didn't seem to delay the results.

After the initial night of going in and hearing the ecsalation of cries when I left, I then did about 2 weeks of cold turkey without going in. The crying time went down a little but not enough for me to believe it was sucessful, but didn't want to just revert to going in and picking up or letting him suck back to sleep after the two weeks. But realise I was going about it the wrong way. I will start the going to give reassurance but just getting all the hints I can to help me and baby settle into it best.
Is reassuring ssshhhhing a no-no too, I expect it is, but just asking

I will try the bookstore tommorow and have a good read. I imagine if it helps it's worth its weight in gold!

crying it out

Forestmum - as another mum of a non sleeping 8 month old I can sympathise with you, DD2 will not sleep without being attached to a boob. She wasn't always like this used to fall asleep quite happily by herself and with a dummy but recently things have changed and only Mummy's boob will do (much to poor Daddy's horror won't even take EBM now either).

I personally could not do CC (I'm not getting at you in any way just by personal opinion) I'm looking to gentler methods to get DD2 off the boob and settling herself, I do think she is still too young to be doing any kind of sleep training so am leaving it a few months (long months).

I posted on another thread about controlled comforting and controlled crying. The Aussie person who developed controlled comforting says you shouldn't leave a baby to cry for more than 10 minutes when you do controlled crying. I think that babies don't have much sense of time (at least that's what our nursery said) so they don't have any idea how long the gaps are, but just know you come back. I guess the gaps might be to give them the chance to settle as much as anything...

Thanks for all your information and I realise that a lolt of people really don't agree with cc at all, and I respect that. I have co-slept with my baby for the first 7 months, fed on demand and generally picked up whenever he cried, within reason (much to the shock of both sets of grandmothers!) as I don't believe you can spoil a baby. But I have decided that at this time I will try to instigate a more regular sleep pattern as baby is obviously happy without food until early morning.
This is really my first proper time on Mumsnet and it is a great resource but info about how bad cc is for baby is quite upsetting at this point as I am after pointers on how I can make it work for me. Maybe I am being too sensitive, not the first time this year!