Controlled Crying

[clurina32]

OK, please don't judge, but its got to the point where we are going to use the cc method to help our 6.5 month old sleep through. She has 3 meals a day, plenty of milk and water and a HUGE bottle before bed. It gets to 10/11pm and things go down hill from there, wakings every 2 hrs sometimes more. She uses a dummy and that used to work to settle her back, but we've fallen into the bottle trap and now she just yells 'til she gets it. Been like this for weeks now. I am not coping with the sleep deprivation, its driving me mental. I have a husband who works very long hours and i'm on my own quite often at night until the wee hours when he gets back. I need to improve things for my own sanity!! I am nervous about this. My husband has booked some time off work and my 3yr old is going to stay with his cousins so we can spend a few nights trying cc. I would really like to hear from anyone who has succeeded with cc - tips, positivity, ANYTHING!! Please tell me how it worked for you and that i'll never look back!!!

Mine slept through consistently at
6 weeks
3.5 months
4.5 months

I think you'd have to be VERY optimistic to think your child will sleep through every single night even after trying CC. Of course they won't. That's not what i'm expecting from trying out CC. I just want some improvement from the frequent wakings all night. If you're happy to co sleep and comfort constantly all night, then thats fine, but thats not for me as I know I just won't sleep. I will always comfort my baby when she needs me, but I can't function on hardly any sleep and I know she can't either!

I think it's very easy to judge people for their parenting styles whether it be controlled crying or co-sleeping, but it really does depend on the temperament of your baby. Prior to having a baby I was adamant I wouldn't go down the CC route. However after six months of severe sleep deprivation coupled with PND and a car accident, we decided enough was enough and did some sleep training. We'd already tried all the gentle sleep training techniques such as shush pat, PUPD, but it just pissed DS off and made him even more hysterical so CC was our final choice. There were a few nights of crying at the start of the night (never longer than 20 minutes), yet he quickly learnt to self settle. However, he was still waking several times in the night. Nothing could soothe him back to sleep except boob and even then my husband would often have to rock him after a feed for half an hour. In the end we did CC for all his wake ups too. It wasn't as bad as expected. He had one night when he whinged for an hour and twenty minutes but after that things improved pretty quickly. Now almost a month later he sleeps through most nights from 7pm- 5/6am even after illness and holidays. We are now dealing with the issue of early wakings, but we are all so much happier. It's not just parents that need a good night's sleep, but babies too.

I accept that CC will not work for all babies, but calling it child abuse is ridiculous and unhelpful. I tried co-sleeping, but DS hated it and no one slept. I still comfort my baby when he needs it such as when he's poorly, but I now know when he was crying at night he just wanted to go back to sleep and I had to teach him how to.

Be consistent. No one likes to hear their baby cry but try to remember the end goal. Also there's often a regression a few days in, but that too will pass. I found a video monitor really useful for watching him and stopping myself from rushing in. Good luck!

thanks Jaffacake, glad it worked for you. it gives me hope!

My point was that if you co sleep, or have the baby near to you - cot or bedside cot or whatever - they wake far less than when you're far away. In my experience anyway. AND most importantly that when they do, you don't have the same struggle to get them back to sleep.

I'm not doing it because I'm a martyr...I do it because I'm a lazy sod and it's so much easier! I got loads of sleep this way, most of the time.

And CC by definition involves not going to your baby when they need you, ie when they are crying, which is why I don't really like it as a concept.

But then my baby keeps me up all night in the bedside cot/ bed- noisy, takes up all the space, moves about, we wake eachother up- I'm desperate to get her out. And if she went to bed alone we could get some evening time back and maybe get our sex life back. It's not always a bed of roses.

I thought it was great that I could sling my baby and make my life easy until I noticed how much earlier those babies around me who were put down to play far more and given mat time were to crawl and pull up. Lazy isn't always best for baby even if it is best for the parents.

Oh well there you go, I don't have a sex life anyway so I'm not missing much

Co sleeping meant neither me or either of my babies actually slept. I was super aware of him and couldn't relax at all and he didn't settle well at all. As with most things to do with babies different things work for different babies and different parents.

I tried feeding ds in bed once. It was a complete disaster, milk seemed to go everywhere except for him! Resulted in everyone having to get up so that we could change the sheets. I found that getting up and feeding him in a comfy chair and then popping him back in his crib and me back in my bed (same room) led to us both very quickly falling back to sleep.

Most parenting is trial and error really. My two children were so different we couldn't have done anything else regardless, but I really think it's unfair when more experienced mothers tell new mothers that there is some magic way that will solve everything for them and if only they adopt it then all will be resolved.

I think in practice you have to get to know your babies. Learn what their different cries mean and the best way to respond to them and don't be afraid to make changes when what you have been doing doesn't work for you or for them. In the end all of them will sleep!

I always thought I'd do CC but then she turned up and I just couldn't. What has helped is a sleepyhead, a good bedtime routine and only recently I've discovered she's a side sleeper which has helped her re-settling immensely. She's 6 months and still waking quite a bit for feeds though.

Nooka, if that's what got your child to sleep then I applaud you for doing it! It's when people want to force their children to do things they want, and that don't result in the child sleeping peacefully, or going to sleep without tears, that it worries me.

Doing what your baby needs and wants (and asks for, in their language) is always best wrt sleep

CC worked for me. Two children both of whom sleep through - no problems. Go for it. You can do this.

Well I doubt you'd really applaud me Pipistrella because ds did cry at bed time. We knew from experience that if left he'd go off to sleep very quickly, sleep well and long and wake up a happy little boy. You could almost time him and hear the crying change from angry, you've left me, to a bit of sobbing, I'm so tired, to contented thumb sucking and then peaceful sleeping. Maybe 5 mins tops.

dd on the other hand if left could cry indefinitely, not with any great vigour, but definitely letting us know that she needed us to do something to help her fall asleep.

Honestly, then, I probably wouldn't.

I don't think it's necessary to let a child cry in that situation, and I think you might well have had a similar outcome without the crying part.

But that's just my opinion and I am sure you had good intentions, whatever you did. There are some people in the world who do set out to punish their babies for needing them; there are plenty of others who have good intentions but a different attitude to mine.

Hi all, can I ask what book / website you used to learn about the controlled crying I'm exhausted and so is my baby from lack of sleep and Iv tried everything from rocking to co sleeping and nothing works

I think the issue with it is the rise in cortisol. There is info here:

http://evolutionaryparenting.com/its-just-a-little-cortisol-why-rises-in-cortisol-matter-to-infant-development/

Pebble, sorry you are finding it so hard. Are you trying to get your baby to sleep through the night? What's your aim?

Babies do wake at odd times and cry varying amounts for varying reasons. It tends to calm down a lot given a few weeks or months.

Talk us through what's happening with you?

btw sometimes there's not much you can do excpt stay with them till it passes x

I don't mind waking to feed but staying awake for 1-2 hours at 4 am is just really really hard. He used to be such a good sleeper, I'm looking at him now and he has huge bags under his eyes he is wrecked and I'm rocking him in buggy and still won't sleep. When he does nap during the day it's only for 20-30 mins.

There's a magic thread somewhere from ages ago which comes back to life every so often called "what worked for us. Hope this helps" it is wonderful and really helped me with three year old DD.

That's a long time to be awake - How old is he? Also, what do you do when he wakes - does he have a feed, then another feed and keep going?

Or do you put him down after the feed and then he wakes again and wants you?

If you can pinpoint where the problem occurs maybe we can find a way.

He turned 5 months last week. This is what happened last night

Started bedtime at 7, fed him in darkened room rocked him a little and put him down while sleepy. He fell asleep around 8. Woke at 11 fed him and he fell asleep straight away. Woke at 2 fed him and he fell asleep straight away woke at 4 I know he wasn't hungry so tired rocking etc didn't work brought him in to bed with me didn't really settle so put him on the boob sucked for a few seconds and he fell asleep next to me that was about 5.30. He woke at 6 next to me sucked for about a minute fell asleep again same thing happened at 7 and he woke again at 7.45 I fed him again here for approx 2 mins and my husband took him downstairs so I could get some rest. He put him in buggy at 9.45 and rocked him until he fell asleep, slept for 30 min. I got up at 10 and took over so husband could sleep. Fed properly at 10.15. He was still really tired I could see bags under his eyes so I rocked in buggy for about 20 mins and he fell asleep about 11.50 for 30 mins.

I started him on a bit of sweet potato there so hopefully that helps

CC worked for us. I did it when DS1 was 10/11 months. He slept through all the time after that, unless he was ill.

He's 21 now, very well adjusted, able to form relationships, is healthy, strong and could win Olympic gold for sleeping any time, any place, any where.

It always makes me on these threads when people say CC damages children's devolpment. Do you think having no sleep is good for them? I feel like crap after a few nights of broken sleep, so a 6 month old must feel rotten.

Pebble if he's only 5 months then it's probably the regression. Wait a few more weeks and that early waking will most likely pass. Best thing you can do is lots of sunlight during the day and make night times dark, no screens on before bed etc

I'm
Probably going to get flamed for this along with everything else but I really don't find the references to 'regression' and 'growth spurt' etc helpful. I do understand why people give them and that perhaps they give comfort but they seem to provide an expectation that things will regress or go badly or whatever. When actually it's all the same thing regardless of the possible explanation. And the problem with the growth spurt/regression explanations is that they rob the parents of the ability to improve the situation. If I were to go further I'd say they divest responsibility but I won't

Rant over

Pebble it does sound fairly normal to me. He may be starting to get teeth - they take a while to move through the gums so you won't see them yet but they could still be making him wake iyswim?

You sound like you are doing perfectly, bringing him in to settle beside you sounds like exactly what he needs, and it's normal for a baby to start off sleeping for quite long periods then at about this age, they go into two hour spurts between feeds/cuddles

It's Ok, they virtually all do this IME!

It ought to pass, so in a couple of weeks the pattern will have changed again. You're doing everything right. It's tiring but it's temporary - if there's one thing you can rely on with a baby, it's that they are totally unreliable and change their patterns all the time.

Don't assume this is your life for the next 6 months. It won't be.