Can I please have your honest opinions on CC? HV is recomending I am not sure.

[eenybeeny]

My HV is recomending CC for my 6 month old.

Our problems with his sleep are these:

1. He only naps in his pram. He screams and screams when I try to get him to nap in his cot during the day.

1. He wakes up to 6 times a night for one thing or another.

1. He wakes anywhere from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. and is ready for the day.

Please give me any advice you have and let me know... is CC cruel? I really dont know. Normally, the thing is, when he cries I want to rush to him to help him. I dont know if I can leave him to cry. Please help!

For me, it's a NO. Can't do it. Sorry.

Pick up put down, yep.

The No Cry sleep solution, yep.

CC, no.

expatinscotland i agree with you but was told by someone on mn ,my doing pupd was as bad as cc.i disagreed as i was with ds whole time!

Don't know if it was cc or just letting her cry as she was just tired but I used it with dd yrs ago ,can't remember how old she was ,but a baby.It worked a treat ,she's 15 now ,no emotional scars .

I know what you mean about the reason I want to pick him up is sound instinct. That is how I feel. I love him more than anything and when he cries he gets into a REAL state and chokes and splutters loads and cant breathe. So I think (rightly so) that I just can not let him get that upset if a cuddle with me stops it.

But my HV and MANY MANY people disagree. I DO need him napping in his cot during the day and I really want him sleeping through the night. I just dont know how to do it.

go to the library. ask for 'understanding your crying baby' by sheila kitzinger. and ask for 'no cry sleep solution' by elizabeth pantley. or if you are flush go buy both. there is no need for cc with a 6 month old baby. even the guy, ferber, who is a massive cc expert has revised his advice to say it should not be done with a child less than 12 months old.

I learned long ago that, for me, going against my instinct/gut/whatever you want to call it, isn't a good idea.

If you have a baby monitor, however, I'd get rid of that.

I do believe babies do wake a lot, not necessarily to cry, and can settle themselves often enough. I've heard my own daughters doing this.

But the monitor just keys you up.

Tried it with my first, seemed to work. But, having read more about it and having thought more about it, I'm veering to the No camp now.

We did a type of cc with my dd1 who was one at the time. I was pregnant with DD2 and just desperate to get some sleep.

I really regret doing it now. In the long term, it didn't solve any sleep problems. And it still makes me feel guilty now when I remember her crying.

What has helped in the long term: a very strong bedtime routine (it took a lot of perseverance with the routine, it didn't make any differnece for months, then suddenly seemed to clip into place.), lots of reassurance and going to her when she cried, and soothing her.

His cot is in our bedroom so we can hear every little noise without the aid of a monitor!

I didnt know they say you shouldnt do CC with a baby this young. My HV clearly doesnt know that either.

click into place, not clip.

We do have a great bedtime routine. He goes to sleep at night no problems. Its the napping in the pram and also the fact that he is up from 3 onwards that is the main problem.

When he naps in the pram, how long would he sleep for? I only ask because I'm a firm believer that to a certain extent sleep breeds sleep. I think if yoy make a concerted effrt on the daytime napping, and crack that, he may be more inclined to sleep welland in his cot at night. Maybe try and have a bedtime routine for the day in the same was as you do at night - i.e. upstairs, in grobag, snuggle, to sleep.

He's only 6 months so too young IMO for anything hardline.

At that age, ds went down in his pram (lying flat) in the morning for about 1hr at 9ish (having woken at 6am ish. Then in his cot for an afternoon nap at 1pm ish until about 3pm. Sometimes longer and sometimes shorter and did depend what we (me and dd) were up to during the day.

Now I know people say that you shouldn't rock/feed to sleep, but I was feeding at that time and he used to fall asleep after his feed and I put him in his cot asleep. No probs for us - just what suited.

Now when dh puts him to bed during the day (only has an afternoon nap as he's 18months) he is put in his cot awake and falls asleep himself. I still (because I want to) have him in my arms and he nods off quickly. In the evening he doesn't fall asleep on either of us, but goes into his cot awake and sometimes has a little moan, but literally only one cry and then he falls asleep.

If you are not sure, then cc is not going to be for you, and I would agree that your lo is still too young. There is a 'positive cc experiences' thread at the moment which you can search for.

Well his day time naps (in the pram) are anywhere from 30 mins to 1 hour 30 mins. But he is a HUGE baby and he is just getting too big to sleep there now.

I think you may be right detoxdiva that I am not ready. I think (from what I gather) to do CC you need to be devoted to it. I will search for that thread though.

ennybeeny - you are just where i am! desperate for sleep but unable to tolerate lo's distress. I have toyed with the idea of cc soooo many times and tried it once (dh was saying we should). it was the most horrendous night of my beautiful baby's life. he is 6 months old too. In fact i have started threads on a similar/related basis to this one. my ds, like yours only naps in his pram in the day but he does nap well there and despite me really wanting him to nap in his cot, there is nothing i can do to persuade him which doesn't involve crying so i have to put up with it for now. he screams adn sobs and it is awful. just not worth it. my ds wakes frequently just for a comfort suck (bf) but the amount of times varies greatly night to night (only twice last night). i will watch with interest.

my worry is that once he can roll over, the pram will be a no-no.

cruisemum1 - that is the problem. My best friends baby is 11 months old. He always napped in the pram. Now he can climb out of it and he also doesnt want to nap in the cot. I do think they need to be sleeping in their beds asap otherwise your DS and my DS will be climbing out of the prams!

I can't believe I'm the only one to say that CC is great!! I was getting desparate and fed-up with my son not sleeping in the day other than on me and waking up 2 to 3 times a night - he was 10/11 months old at this time, and also waking at 5.15am. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I was talking to a relative who spoke quite firmly to me saying that there was no need for it, he just needed to learn to sleep through the night and that it wasn't fair on me. Like everything else in life you have to learn to do something first before you can do it.

I did controlled crying and within 3 nights he was sleeping through the night. I desparately wish I had done it before. He has since always slept solidly through and is never a problem going to bed - so I don't think it mentally scarred him!!! I also think that it must be miserable for a baby/child going through the day being tired and having a tired mummy through lack of sleep.

I think this is a classic example of the old fashioned saying "you have to be cruel to be kind", although I am not saying it was easy at the time. BTW I think 6 months is too early.

helenn - glad it worked for you. i have felt desperately tired enough believe me. just not strong /resolute enough to try cc....yet. i think a decision like that has to come from the parent though not a recommendation from a hv.

Well I think it is telling that someone who supports CC thinks 6 months is too young. My DH and I just discussed it and we decided Alex is too young to think about it yet. So looks like I will have to try other means. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Try to get used to thinking of it in a more positive light - as it is for his/her own good. Maybe liken it to someone trying to give up smoking, they feel rough, it is costing them a fortune, would you offer them a cigarette to make them feel better? Hopefully not, because you know it is very hard and traumatic at the time but the end result will be so worth it! A baby is not born with a basic instinct to sleep between 7pm and 7am, (or whatever), they have to learn it. If everytime they wake up they get a cuddle and a nice drink of milk why should they just go back to sleep, now at 6 months they have got used to this being the norm, so it is hard for them to get used to the alternative. Suggest you read the other CC thread somebody mentioned and see if you start to feel more positive about it. Yes, it does take will power but it is so very worth it for both you and the baby!!

caveat - I only speak about CC as this is the method I used and found it worked brilliantly, I have not used the pick up put down method so can't compare the two.

I mainly think that 6 months is too young because you always have the question then as to is the baby hungry or not, especially a larger baby like my son was. When they are more established eating their food you can be confident that they are not hungry and needing a feed. Also when they are a little older they are more aware of what they are doing and the effect - not sure if 6 months is old enough for that, in hindsight it probably is but certainly at 10 months old my son knew exactly what he was doing!!

If you're not sure about it then I doubt you'd have the strength to do it properly, so I wouldn't advise it. Have heard a few stories where the parents gave in after lots of crying which, if you ask me, just meant lots of needless suffering for their lo. Done properly I think it's a very useful technique.

there is no right or wrong way. If you feel that you could manage cc and you really do want him to sleep in his cot and through the night then maybe it would be a good idea.
We didn't do controlled crying as such but we did used to look at our watches and decide how long we would leave them- when they were tiny babies 5-10minutes. When 6 mths or older maybe up to 30 minutes. I don't think it achieves much leaving them longer than that, but you can calm them down and try again. Just persevere with putting him in his cot when you know he's getting tired (or just before if you can predict it), and he will get used to the idea and settle down. At 6mo it should still be fairly easy to get him used to his cot.
Try and be as relaxed as possible, otherwise he will sense that there's something to get upset about it!