Starting Controlled Crying Tonight 6 month old

[ChampooPapi]

So my baby is now 6 months old and I am starting Controlled Crying Tonight. I know some people don't agree with it and I do understand that but I have made my mind up to do this.

Advice needed on techniques, and also do you do the same for when you put them to bed as when they wake in the night?

This is just so sad 😔

I thought breastfed babies tended to need feeding during the night because breast milk is digested quicker?
My breastfed baby naturally stopped wanting night feeds at about 11 months, she still woke up but wasn't interested in feeding. She naturally started to self settle during the night at about 15 months.
Each to their own but I can't imagine leaving a baby to cry for 20 minutes regardless of a monitor.
I think there are so many options between cosleeping and controlled crying. Especially with such a young child.

Can you at least give a dream feed or bottle of formula before bed? I can’t understsnd anyone who thinks it’s normal to go 12 hours without any sustenance.

A hungry baby will never go back to sleep. If OP's LO is now sleeping for 12 hours, it means she is getting enough calories during the day. Quite a few babies are perfectly capable of doing 12 hour stretches at 6 months. Food means everything to newborns but for thriving babies older than 3-4 months factors like overtiredness might have a much bigger impact on their sleep.

I dropped the dream feed when DD was 8 months, however (1) I could have probably done it earlier but dream feeding did not bother me and (2) DD used to eat much more than recommended amounts. She has always loved her food. I do not know any other baby/toddler in RL who could eat as much as she did (and still does).

All the advice I got was that most babies could go at least 8hrs at 3 months and by 6 months 12 (but quite a few can go 12 before then and there are probably some that take longer to eat enough to go that long).

Mine went 12 by 3 months. They’re doing fine. On the breastfeeding threads they’re saying breastfed babies don’t sleep worse than formula babies so I have to defer to that (my breasts are broken) so I assume it’s no different for them.

@DieAntword

You’re wrong actually. Breast milk is digested faster. No exclusively breastfed baby at three months should be sleeping through- at that age they will won’t get enough calories in daytime hours alone , and there will likely be an impact on brestmilk production. Night feeds are vital for stimulating prolactin production.

Well. What an interesting thread. It was on my 'active' which is why I looked. Lot of vipers out sunning themselves!

My DC are 17 and 19. They are as well-adjusted as you might hope so I don't believe the choices I made regarding their sleep, and my sanity- has seriously damaged them. However, I am on sites and posts where mums are actually destroyed because their DC are off to uni ('I can't function because I can't stop crying because she's off to uni..') I wonder if some of these mums are those 'I give my ALL, including my mental health, to my baby/toddler' - who is moving on. .

I CC'ed mine. Why? Because we'd all fallen into bad habits. They hadn't explored self-settling because we rushed in as soon as they stirred, us expecting crying, which surely followed. Why do they need us to come, running? "I am not wet, hot, cold or hungry (I dramatically turn from boob); I am 6 months therefore am on solids." So.... if, as so many responders on this OP appear to know their baby are they bring condemned for using a tried and tested method that, for us, took 2 nights for the child to get a good night's sleep; us to get a good night's sleep- and for me to parent better because I wasn't on my knees with exhaustion?

@TheSheepofWallSt so in that case the common argument from people trying to convince people not to formula feed that “formula fed babies don’t sleep better” is a lie?

But surely it’s about the calories not the rate of digestion? Assuming a reasonable amount of fat storage hunger is not a question of how empty the stomach is but about the overall energy balance in the body. Otherwise breastfed babies would get fatter than formula fed babies due to needing refilling more often despite equivalent caloric densities of formula and breastmilk (that’s what I was told anyway, my milk always looked very watery, the “fore milk” was actually clear so I do wonder).

Anecdotally I would actually say that BF babies do wake more, judging by my friends children. I think what makes the difference is that many more BFing parents co-sleep, so sleep is probably less broken overall than you might think.

I suspect health professionals are reluctant to admit that BF babies wake more in case it reduces breastfeeding rates further.

Two bits of science just to help you with some of your misunderstandings about BFing-

Foremilk and hind milk is a bit of a nonsense- foremilk and hindmilk are not different types of milk–they are only terms that refer to whether we’re looking at milk at the start or end of a feeding. The term foremilk refers to the milk at the beginning of a feeding; hindmilk refers to milk at the end of a feeding, which has a higher fat content than the milk at the beginning of that particular feeding. There is no sharp distinction between foremilk and hindmilk–the change is very gradual. Research from Peter Hartmann’s group tells us that fat content of the milk is primarily determined by the emptiness of the breast — the less milk in the breast, the higher the fat content.

Breast milk IS digested more quickly: Breast milk and most formulas contain the proteins whey and casein. Breast milk contains more whey, which is easier to digest (and therefore babies digest it faster) than casein. Formula contains more casein, which babies digest more slowly.

I feel a little patronised by your attempts to “educate” me.

By “foremilk” I meant exactly that, the milk that came out at the beginning of a feeding. I didn’t say it was some different “kind” of milk or that it didn’t change gradually. Started out clear, and got whiter the longer I expressed until it was like cows milk in opacity.

I never said it wasn’t digested more quickly.

As for co-sleeping, I think people should accept breastfeeding or not, not everyone is good at sleeping next to other people. Neither I nor my children seem to be. For them the presence of someone else is too stimulating for them to sleep until they’re extremely exhausted. For me I need to be able to fidget and roll around and not be paranoid about my snoring waking anyone. The one time I slept with my son when he was ill was a disaster - neither of us got much sleep. I doubt I’m the only person like that although I fully accept some people aren’t and love “nighttime cuddles” - and each to their own, it takes all types to make a world right?

Just irritating that people on the attachment side of things don’t see that.

Of course the bf question is a bit of a red herring because as a PP said, at 6 months they’ll have started solids.

No I totally get it’s horses for courses - I just wish people would understand that there is actual science and logic behind the statement “exclusively breastfed babies at 3 months definitely need feeding at night; at 6 months almost definitely”

It’s not about unquantifiable benefits of attachment parenting- it’s just hard nutritional science

A baby who has started solids at 6 months, should only be getting the most minuscule amount of nutrition from those solids at that stage. Milk should still be 95% of caloric intake

Your six month old is either hungry or they're not! I'd hope that, by that stage, you'd be able to work that out for yourselves without recourse to percentages and dogma!
No wonder so many of you are resorting to 'at x months, your baby should be this, that or the other'/ is mine?? Look at it! Assess it! Decide whether your child is hot, cold, wet, over-tired. Review when last nap and last feed was. Recognise that the ability to Go To Sleep is an invaluable talent. Nurture that talent in your otherwise unbothered infant. And recognise that with your non-sleeping 6 month old, a) sainthood for 'coping while you're on your knees with exhaustion'- isn't forthcoming, and b) you'll be hollering up the stairs 15 years hence to get them up before 12noon.

Just don't be bullied by the 'Oh! How Monstrous!' - brigade. I do not subscribe to the 'Yorr bubb yor rulz' brigade, the stuff of Child Protection, but no one on this thread has demonstrated anything other than a need for their child to learn to self-settle, and/ or their need for sleep.

Damn, sheep I had no idea! How can I undo the damage I did to my son by introducing ground rice at 4.5 months? What if they throw him out of university next week?

Either I'm wrong or you need to get a grip.

@Miljah

Well baby rice is devoid of nutrition
Weaning at 4.5 months we all know is a bad idea
And your son might be at uni.... but who knows? Maybe he’d have been a Mensa topping genius? Who knows what untold damage you wrought?

Just kidding- meeting hyperbole with hyperbole etc

Couldn’t give a toss, frankly, about your historic parenting, but where there is actual misinformation, I don’t quite know what’s wrong with correcting it...?

Sheep has self-settled... 🤔😊

@Miljah

Sheep has always been very settled- it’s the “nobody challenge scientifically and medically unsound advice in case it feels like mummy shaming” crew that were rattling the crib bars.

Night night poppet!

No, sheep, you have implied that a BF baby, at 6 mo, can only be unsettled at night due to hunger, if only due to the scant nutrition of their solids ( mind were on rather more than ground rice at 6 months!) , that the concept of a child that is allowed to learn how to self settle at night is somehow being neglected.

@Miljah

I literally cannot be bothered trying to reason with you; maybe get your very clever, ground-rice supplemented, university educated son to read the thread and explain to you what I’m saying and why.

You can try and patronise all you like, poppet- sorry , sheep but where's the 'as we all know' come from? No, as your dogma dictates. ARE you NCT?, ooi?

At the end of the day, the OP will find a way through this, one that allows her sleep, and her baby rest. What, ad MNetters surely seek. CC works beautifully for many, many DC, kids in loving, caring homes. Who go onto (gasp) thrive. Also, as an aside, without parents whose very being is invested in their child's very being, month by month, nutritional evidence states this and that (tell that to your 14 year old at Macca's). I wish you the best of luck as I suspect you'll need it.

TheSheepofWallSt you are my absolute hero

Princess would you like some pom-poms?

@Miljah now now play nicely

Dear lord....

@Miljah

You’d be surprised at how absolutely pragmatic / relaxed I am about food choices.

What I can’t find it in myself to relax my “dogmatic” stance about, is leaving small, probably hungry, babies to cry AS A MATTER OF COURSE, in fact, an active choice because parents are struggling to find very obvious, very sensible workarounds that will allow both of them if not an optimum, at least manageable amount of sleep.

CC is, frankly, against nature, and no amount of “but I was tired” “but I was grumpy” “but I had a job” , in my mind, rationalises that choice.

I work(ed) full time in a high pressure job, breastfed at night, had horrific ante and postnatal mental health issues and am a single parent. If I, with my many many many failings and foibles, can do it without resorting to CC, I am certain it’s possible.

and whilst the OP has made her choice, and it’s working- good luck to them - I don’t think it does other mothers finding this thread any favours or is at all ethical to pretend that CC is a perfect cure all without risks- especially especially for BF (until
Recently exclusively breastfed in this case) babies