Controlled crying- should I do it and does she need it?

[kay26]

Am desperate for some advice! Apologies in advance for the length of this thread!!

My DD is 4.5 months and so far has been a relatively good baby. Her feeding (bottle) is always a bit up and down ie some days she'll want to eat well and other days she won't. She slept through the night for the first time at 10 weeks and since then has been up and down but until this week, even if she did wake up in the night for a feed, would take it and I'd never have any problems settling her. For the past few days she's been waking up, only taking a couple of ounces and then crying every time I try to settle her. This has also now had a knock on effect on her settling for bed time at 7pm - something I've never had a problem with in the past. For the past 2 nights I've had to walk her up and down until she is fast asleep otherwise as soon as I put her down she opens her eyes and starts crying again. I tried to leave her for a bit at 7pm yesterday but she got herself in to such a state I started to wonder whether something else was bothering her. She has also been biting on her hands and anything else she can get in to her mouth so not sure whether she may be teething - her feeding during the day at the moment is not great. She'll take a couple of ounces at a time then need a good break before taking any more and she'll scream if you try to give her any more before she's good and ready.

My questions are:

1. is she trying it on at night and getting too used to being cuddled to sleep or is something else wrong
2. If she is trying it on, should I use controlled crying? Have heard it should only be used when the baby is at least 6 months although some of my friends say they used it earlier and it worked\
3. If I do use controlled crying, how upset to you let your baby get before you stop it? Last night after I left her to try and settle herself for 10 minutes she was screaming/turning purple to the point I thought she was going to make herself sick and it took another 10 minutes of me walking up and down with her to settle her.

Please, please help - not sure how to handle this one!

She sounds like something is making her a bit unsettled, please don't think about controlled crying, it's horrible and you'll really regret it. Just carry on doing what you're doing, she'll probably just settle down next week.

My sympathies! It took forever to settle ds (5mo) last night and it was completely draining. He also used to sleep much better (through the night from about 8 weeks) but in the last 3 weeks has been waking again.

I really, really, really don't believe that babies "try it on". It's something I've been told by people since day one "oh he's taking advantage", "oh he'll get bad habits" but I think this is us projecting adult emotions onto a baby...

Don't know what the solution is but I'm going to assume in our situation that this is a phase like all the others and it'll get better, or at least change yet again! I just couldn't leave my tiny baby to cry so I can't recommend you do that either.

I'm sure more experienced parents will be able to give you pratical advice though!

Neither of my children slept through the night when they were babies.
DS started sleeping through at 3yrs and DD is 2 and not sleeping through yet.We tried everything. Nothing worked. We did not find cc helpful for us.
The best thing we did was accept that DC would not sleep through until they were ready. We organised ourselves to get the most sleep (usually I slept with DD on mattress on floor and DH slept with DS). That way everyone got some sleep and family life was bareable.
I have lived with sleep deprivation for nearly 4 yrs and function quite well.

I've successfully used cc for my baby but i wouldn't advise you to do it because

1. bit young

1. sounds like a problem like teething etc.

try some calpol at nigth and see if it helps.

Sleep does go haywire around this age - just try to share it and get some sleep yourself when you can

i think your lo is bit to young.my ds is terrible sleeper but i realised now that thats just what babies do.

hiya - (hello ami too ! )
I would not try any sleep training on a 4.5month old lo. their sleep seems to go up the creek at around this age and nothing will prevent it. if your dd screamed last night, it indicates that she is not ready to grasp the concept of cc or similiar. I speak form experience as i tried pu/pd with ds at around the same agea and it was dreadful. sooo stressful for him and me (and dd and dh too ). I recently did cc (very gently with only a max 6 minute gap) and it has worked miracles. he is 7.5mths tho and i think he was as keen to sleep as i was. maybe go with it for now and try again after 6mths? hth

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm actually quite glad that you all think the controlled crying is not a good idea. I've had knots in my stomach all day thinking about it! She has only done this for the past few nights so I'll give it a bit longer to see what happens. I really hope she grows out of it quickly though as I'd hate to encourage a bad habit. I've probably read too many books about setting the right standards for sleeping and I'm getting overly worked up about cuddling her to sleep and thinking that she won't ever sleep any other way. Do babies develop bad habits at this age or is everything pretty random? Anyone else had similar experiences? Would be good to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel!

firstly - throw all your books away! They make ridiculous statements about sleep!

secondly - come and join the sleep is for the weak thread - many mums in same boat - we all get a lot of support from it x

kay - everyone on 'sleep is for the weak' thread is suffering like you. most of us had things go wrong at 4 mths which is how the original thread was started (by me!). you will find lots of sleep deprived mummys on there if you need company!

Thanks girlies - see you there!