Controlled crying

[Hollie12]

My 5 month old baby has never been a good sleeper, he has went 7 hours ice before so I know he can do it!!! He won't go in a Moses basket/ carry cot/ cot and cries whenever put down in one so he has been in with me most nights. Even in the bed with me, he wakes up every few hours looking to be nursed back to sleep. I'm at my wits end as we are both not having a decent sleep and I want to break this habit asap! Thinking of starting controlled crying.. any tips? any success stories?

Honestly? Five months is tiny. Really really tiny. He wakes a lot because nature has programmed him to seek regular reassurance from you. Controlled crying at this age isn't appropriate - it's really only a method you can use with toddlers. At this age, he can't learn to "self soothe" - all he will learn is that if he cries, nobody comes, so therefore crying is pointless and he might as well shut up. You don't want him to have that as a life lesson.

It's crap, it really is - small babies are such hard work. Co-sleeping is good, bf on your side and you should be able to sleep through feeds as much as poss. Then nap yourself in the day too - walk him in the pram til he sleeps, then sleep yourself. Don't use his nap times for housework etc. You can help teach him routines - do bath, massage, darkness and no stimulation for night feeds - but ultimately this is a phase you have to get through. It's so hard but they do get there eventually.

Five months is small to try CC but that doesn't mean the only alternative is co-sleeping in your bed and being uncomfortable. I find that a lot of posters don't understand that co-sleeping isn't for everyone and some of us may not be happy to do it (or in some cases may not physically be able to due to medication).

First try and break the feed to sleep cycle - feed baby on waking rather than before going to sleep and always get baby to fall asleep without breast. If you are set on sleep training, pick up/put down is a technique often used on babies that age. Alternatively shush/patting could work. Baby will cry because they are used to getting the breast and need to learn to sleep without it but I would recommend you be there to comfort them and be consistent in your approach however you choose to comfort. Be prepared for it to take a long time for them to fall asleep the first time but it will improve and make sure you persevere - results won't be as quick as CC but within a couple of weeks you will have clear improvement.

Good luck

5 months is too young for controlled crying.

Have you tried a Dummy? How often is baby sleeping in the daytime, and for how long?

We did controlled crying at 6 months with our eldest. So glad we did - transformed all our lives.

Oh I never knew 5 months was too young, my health visitor has advised me to start! What age could you do it from?

He doesn't sleep much during the day at all, if I can get him to sleep it only lasts 20 mins at the most- unless we are in the car- or if we go for a nap together and he is sleeping on my chest

Personally I wouldn't try sleep training until 12 months. HVs sometimes aren't familiar with baby psychology, sadly.

I'm going to disagree with a previous poster about feeding to sleep, too. Breastfed babies want to feed to sleep. It's natural and normal for them and trying to get them not to do it is really hard as you're going against everything they're programmed to do. Bf is not like bottle feeding. It's not just about getting food into your baby, it's also the way your baby learns to soothe himself and makes himself feel better, and at this age there's little point in trying to counter that.

Will he honestly not sleep in the pram if he's had a feed and you go for a walk? Or can you go for a little drive then carry his car seat in? He can stay in his car seat for 2 hours as long as he's not got lots of layers on and won't overheat. Then you can have a kip.

Agreed that breastfeeding is for comfort as well as for food but that doesn't mean baby needs to feed to get to sleep. Problem with feeding to sleep is that when baby moves from one sleep cycle to the next, they once again expect the breast to get to sleep and that's how you end up in the difficult dilemma you are currently in. Works fine if you are happy to co-sleep and keep giving baby breast all night but that's not for everyone. Breaking that cycle means baby starts to learn to fall asleep, may have input from you in the form of patting but you can reduce this with time.

Also, if baby is only napping 20 minutes at a time, they have not linked their sleep cycles as still not developed enough. In this case, you won't be able to get them off to sleep with some movement and fall asleep yourself as they will wake up at the end of a sleep cycle and need movement/help from mum to get back to sleep again. Plus I definitely wouldn't be able to fall asleep whilst baby was sleeping in car seat - he would need supervision and they shouldn't sleep in car seats for longer than half an hour. If you can get them to fall asleep in pram for naps and stay asleep then that could work (from experience, this didn't work with my one, she still woke after one sleep cycle)

Riddles26 that sounds exactly right that he wakes after each sleep cycle looking to be nursed back to sleep because when he sleeps even in my bed on my chest he wakes up a good 10 times during the night and I give him his dummy and pat his back until he falls back to sleep. Do you know how to help him link his sleep cycles? Or how to break this?

Gah
Breastfed both mine to 10 months exclusively.

Put both in their own bed (big cot with rolled up towel at their feet) at 6 weeks old and allowed them to cry themselves to sleep. Took one night. I sat outside crying with them.

It took much longer for them to associate a particular toy with Oh I will go to sleep now but that happened too by 4 months (a mussy for both). Occasional shush shush pat pat. Obviously there were nights they woke. Ten years later there still are if they are ill. I always hear them.

Sorry to go totally against the MN grail, but hey, some of us parent differently. Do what your instincts tell you.

Dung, if you were crying outside the room, were your instincts honestly telling you to do that? CC is hard for most mums exactly because it goes against all mothering instincts. Infant sleep is often more social ideology based than science, but no experts (either psychologists or infant development experts, who mostly recommend against it, or sleep coaches) would recommend leaving a 6 week old to cry alone. Young babies absolutely need touch, reassurance, and hydration and nutrition from milk at night as well as in he day. We can argue about CC for older babies until the cows come home, but all a young baby would know is that they had been abandoned and this is not good for them.

@Hollie12 it will be harder for him to link his sleep cycles during naps as he is not developmentally ready yet so you will be aiming for 30-40 minute naps more frequently until he starts linking the cycles.

As the pressure to sleep is greater at night, he will start linking them at night but the key to success here is for him to fall asleep in his cot and not on the breast. Whatever you do, stay consistent. It is hard and you will often feel like giving in and feeding but that really makes things so much worse in the long run so when you start an intervention, follow through religiously. I personally couldn't leave my baby to cry that age but that's not to say they won't cry with you there - they will as they need to accept that they are not going to get breast for comfort but mum is still there and will comfort them another way.

I had a similar problem to you during nights at that age plus my daughter would not nap at all so we resorted to a sleep consultant in desperation. She taught me not to let her fall asleep on the breast so I used to do her last feed of the day in a separate room and cap it at 20 minutes. This way, she wasn't fast asleep and woke on transfer to her cot so she was put down awake and then fell asleep in her cot.

I found this blog from another poster on here and the articles are fantastic for sleep advice. I've never used their consultancy services so can't comment on them but the free articles are so informative and accurate
childsleepscience.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/nap-101-post-1-does-my-baby-have-a-nap-problem/

I've just reread your post and seen he takes a dummy and you pat him to sleep - would it be possible to do this in the cot at the beginning of the night? Then continue at every wake up in the night

Hollie he WILL asleep well eventually and eh will learn to link sleep cycles. This sounds more to me like you're worried about a 'rod for your own back' than being tired but it's just not true. It's natural for little babies to feed to sleep and it won't be forever, have a look at this with regards to 'bad habits'.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2015/08/26/lets-talk-about-bad-habits-and-baby-and-child-sleep/amp/

If you can hang on until baby can learn to self soothe himself it will be beneficial for him, but if you really are keen to break the feed to sleep cycle I'm sure someone else can help you

X

I co slept and fed to sleep my baby until 6 months, when I just couldn't take any more (starting waking hourly!). I started by gently breaking the feed to sleep association, starting with day time naps. I would cuddle to sleep, offer verbal reassurance and gently moved away over time. She eventually learned to self settle for naps with little crying (she grumbles a bit when put down, but tends to just roll over and go to sleep). Concentrating on day time naps first made a big improvement on night time sleep. She's 8 months now and although night time sleep can be still a bit up and down, she generally only wakes about twice for a feed/cuddle.

I'd say 5 months is probably a little young for cc but if you tried to help them improve their day time naps you may find this impacts on night sleep.

I believe a lot of babies can't sleep through the night until they are six months or even until they start solids.
Obviously do what you think is best but your DC may just not be ready i.e. Might still be hungry in the night. Could you see it out for another month to two months and see if hey sleep through then?