message for hulababy

[furniture]

Hulababy, I hope you don't mind me addressing this directly to you but I've just been reading your 'diary of controlled crying' as I'm in the throes of trying to get my dd to settle better at bedtime and in the night (I've got a thread about it now but don't seem to be getting much advice). It seems to have worked very well with your dd and quite quickly. So far this is my second 'real' night of doing it by the book and I'm not seeing any improvement from last night. Do you think that's ok?

Oooh, thread with my name in - very exciting!!!!

How old is your DD?

DD was 20 months when we tried so we did have an advatgae f her having a very good understanding of what was happening and why. She also had comforters with her in her dummy and her teddies/baby.

I think quite often the first week can be difficult and can go up and down. I think CC can take a couple of weeks even sometimes. But, for some children it may not work at all - worth bearing in mind.

We went into DD every few minutes, didn't really stick to the exact 5, 10, 15 minutes - went in more often. And we did give her a cuddle to reassure her. And after a longer period of time offered her water.

The key for us was to be consistent and not to give in. It was really hard to start with though, and at times I wanted to cry too.

If the book method isn't working, try adapting it to suit you all best - reducing or lengthening the times, allowing some form of contact, etc.

Do you have a nice, relaxing bedtime routine too?

Oh and something else we fond out was that DD didn't liek the dark, so we invested in a lamp and nightlight bulb for her which helped.

Thanks for replying Hulababy. My dd is 19 months old so is quite good at understanding. She knows what 'lie down' means but just seems to refuse to. She stands in the cot, making a pillow for her head with her 'comfort' toy and when I go in to comfort her I can feel her little legs buckling she's so exhausted but she just doesn't give in and lie down! Previously she's been a good sleeper, this all started about a month or so ago and we gave her more cuddles at bedtime which I think probably made things worse rather than better because then she started waking at night, sometimes 3 times but usually once or twice and settling her down took over an hour. So we decided to do this properly just last night and it took an hour to settle her at bedtime, then 2 hours early this morning. Tonight it's been an hour and a half and she's still going, so worse than last night which I wasn't really prepared for.

We have a lovely bedtime routine and she's nice and drowsy and relaxed and quite happy for me to switch the light out, even asks me to do it and says 'bed' but then when in there she just won't lie down. She's got a will of iron.

furniture. Must be really hard.

I am not sure on the standing up thing as DD is in a bed - she always hated her cot.

One thing DD likes to do is to spend 5 minutes 'reading' her baby a story after we have left her - with the night light on. Not sure if there is any distracting technique you could try?

Thanks again Hulababy, I think though that the whole bedtime routine is fine and she is sleepy and relaxed when I put her in. She just won't lie down! I've looked through all the info on cc that I can find and can't find any advice about this.

Do you think though that it takes a very long time before you see any improvements?

I think sometimes it can and maybe 3 or 4 days at least before improvements show up.

I am not sure how you deal with the standing up TBH - really sorry.

Thanks again Hulababy. I found reading your cc 'diary' was very helpful. I also lay in bed and re-read Ferber last night and reassured myself that we ARE doing the right thing. What's been happening can't go on or me, dp and dd will end up like total zombies.

Anyway, after taking almost 1.5 hours to go off last night, she did sleep through til 6.45 this morning which is an improvement though still a much shorter sleep than she used to have. She was always an 11-12 hour a night gal but I think the continuous lack of sleep of this last week is really catching up with her.

We'll see what happens tonight!

Furniture,

Just wondering --- do you have a night light in her room? Or has anything changed in her routine that she would go from being a previously good sleeper to a poor one? My dd is generally a good sleeper, but has stints of being a poor sleeper, but she's only 12 months. Could your dd be on a developmental threshold or something similar?

I'm sorry you're going thru such a hard time with this! I hope it's getting better tonight....

maomao, thanks for your reply. This all started really during a time when she had a bad diarrhea / tummy bug thing and was having lots of diarrhea in the night. I was going in to change her entire clothes, sleeping bag and sheet and give her a drink of water and then I'd sit and give her a cuddle until she was sleepy. This has happened before when she's ill or unsettled and as you say has always been temporary. But this time it was different. She started protesting at bedtimes both day and night and so I started standing up cuddling her then putting her down pretty much asleep. I wouldn't mind doing this at all, it's nice to cuddle her and I love holding her while she's asleep. But then it got worse and ended up with her waking in the night too needing me to get her to sleep. After a night of 2 sessions of 2 hours to get her to sleep we decided this wasn't temporary and was a real problem. We've been kind of shell-shocked about it as we've really had a very easy ride of it with her sleep up until now. We've kept thinking she'd settle back to normal on her own but now it's become clear she needs us to help her to relearn how to do it.