Controlled crying not working

[Laura1609]

In desperate need of help. We have been doing controlled crying with our almost 8 month old DS for 5 weeks and still no improvement. Bedtime is so stressful for all of us; he can cry for up to 40 mins. We go in after 5 mins, then every 10 until he’s asleep. This was our absolute last resort as he’s always been a terrible sleeper. I spent the first 6 months of his life cuddling him to sleep for every single nap and every bedtime and he’d wake up every hour if not more. For naps in the day he goes down in his cot no problem, I very rarely have to go in to him as he’s asleep within a couple of minutes with no crying but night time is horrendous. We’ve tried tweaking timings so he has more daytime sleep, less daytime sleep, earlier bed, later bed and nothing has worked. He gets himself so worked up. He’s already been going for 20 mins tonight and I’m at the end of my tether. Please help!!

Have you tried reading the gentle sleep book? He's only very small still and they don't learn to sleep on their own for some time.

@hannahs87 Haven’t tried that one. We did try Lucy Wolfe’s The Baby Sleep Solution which involved staying in the room until baby falls asleep and after a couple of weeks theoretically we should have been able to leave. That never happened as he seemed to be even more upset with me in the room and not picking him up. We spent a long time co-sleeping too which stopped being effective after about 5 months and none of us had any sleep whatsoever.
I feel like the worst mum in the world for putting him through this but I genuinely feel there are no other options.

Sorry I have no help with sleep training. I cosleep with my boy as he's such an awful sleeper. Don't feel like a bad mum at all! We all go slightly insane with lack of sleep. I really recommend the gentle sleep book though, some calm gentle techniques which may help. From what I've heard from others sleep training can be a short term solution.

Hiya,

Just to clarify a few things...

• Is DS sleeping in his own room?
• and is it pitch black/free from distractions etc.?
• do you have a bedtime routine?
• is he off night feeds?
• does he eat enough during the day?

It sounds like you are doing the Ferber method? Where you go back in after 2,5,10mins etc. This just annoyed our DS. We did the ‘Weisssbluth method’ so put down and no going back in.

If he cried during the night, knowing that he had eaten and drank enough and hadn't done a poo, we would just leave him. I think sometimes they are crying because they are tired but have woken themselves up an annoyed that they can't instantly nod back off again.

We listened to this book as an audiobook (too tired to actually read lol):

"Brain Rules for Baby (Updated and Expanded)" a.co/3oQnsnj

The main thing I found from the research is that whatever you do be consistent, the worst thing is if you sometimes go in, sometimes don’t etc.

We did all this at around 5/6 months. DS has since then been a champion sleeper (naps and night time). I like to think it was our hard work that paid off (it took 4 nights of crying, 40mins, 32mins, 18mins, 9 mins) but it may just be that how receptive babies are to this depends on their temperament.

Good luck OP! X

Sorry, no help but I had a child who just didnt sleep either. And sleep training didnt work on him either.
Kids like that do exist.
Do whatever you need to in order to survive. It WILL get better. If nothing else, he can be told to stay in bed and not to wake you until 5am (yes, yawn, that was our hard limit in the mornings) in a couple if years.
My 10 year old, imo, still doesn't sleep through. I often gear him in the night, but can just roll over. It was hellish at the time, but we survived, and he's lovely jow.

Stop! It’s not working! It doesn’t work for every child. Some children just don’t sleep. You just have to ride it out.

He’s tiny. Pick him up, cuddle him to sleep.

I’m sat next to my 5yo as he is trying to sleep. He was very much like you describe, always wanted to be held to sleep. He’s starting to sleep through the night now, but not reliably. I have another child who has always been a great sleeper. I think some are just made that way

We used the little ones method and app. It's been great!

Maybe stop for now if it isn't working and try again a bit later? If it's not working then it is probably causing both you and your baby unnecessary stress.

Ferber method worked for us and for most mums I've talked to much quicker than you've described (noticeable results in 3/4 days). Perhaps your baby sadly isn't ready yet.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

You have my sympathy op , it's so hard when your baby struggles with sleep. Of my three , only my first was a reliably good sleeper. I'm typing this now with my 2 year old laying beside me , I'll move once he's settled.

I do have a couple of tips for you, but they may not be what you wanted to read when you came here. First of all , please stop letting him cry , it's not working and he needs you. Also they do all learn to sleep alone eventually, my first was 12 weeks , second 4 years , my third...fingers crossed for soon because I'm bloody exhauated! My final tip would just be to go with it as much as possible , catch up one sleep when you can and accept the fact that you will rarely get a full night of sleep.

Imo it's one of the hardest things about being a parent , but you will get through it.

@yippeyo Hello, yes, in his own room which is completely dark. He’s on 3 meals a day but he does still feed once at night. We do have a bedtime routine which we always stick to.
Sleep is such a tricky thing, I just hate to see him so upset.

@alohamore Well, stressful in that most nights he’ll start to become agitated when he realises we’re getting ready for bed. My DH and I do always stay very calm with him and when he starts to get cranky we’ll give him a cuddle or make him laugh.
We do stick to a routine but it’s flexible based on his daytime sleep and what time he woke up.

Thanks all for your speedy replies, I knew I could rely on MN!
I’m wondering if we’ve hit the 8 month sleep regression, he’s always struggled with bedtime but he had been taking between 10-20 mins to drop off up until about a week ago. He’s also been waking so frequently in the night for long periods whereas for around 6 weeks he was only waking once for a feed and then straight back down so I know he can do it. Maybe it’s a temporary regression?
I know that he’s really little and yes, I could cuddle him to sleep but I did that until he was 6 months and after 4 months it actually stopped working. He’d wake immediately after being put down and then wake every 45-60 mins so that isn’t exactly an option either.
I feel so very deflated and sad tonight 😢

i agree with @yippeyo. going back in just made my DS restart. i think it's worse. so.... I left him to cry, sorry DS. BUT it was short and sharp.. about 3 evenings weren't very nice. he slept through within a week and now he's so good. he was 15 mo though... 8 mo still quite little although i'll see if i still feel that way with DS2 currently hanging off my boob in 7 months time!

@Laura1609 do you have support at home so that you can sleep at other times?

@ovalcanvas Not really as DH is out from 8-6. If I’m lucky I can grab a 15 min power nap during one of DS naps but he’s at the age where you don’t know if he’ll nap for 45 mins or 2 hours, could be either!

I feel for you, I'm over a year with a terrible sleeper but things are slowly improving. I'm just wondering if he needs/wants more milk. You say you only feed him once at night? Or aim I getting it wrong as I have always been told even if they are having three meals a day they still need milk feed either boob or bottle until they're a year old.

I agree with other posters to stop the cry it out method as it's clearly not working. Have you tried an Ollie the owl or a MyHummy sleep aid? My little one goes off to sleep well (she's boobed to sleep) but struggles to get through her sleep cycles most of the time. So maybe just work on getting your little one to sleep which ever way is quickest for you and work on the other stuff later

If this has only become worse again over the last week or so, could there be some other underlying issue? Could it be teeth? My 11mo DS has always been an awful sleeper, but we have just had 2 weeks of complete hell with teeth, dropping the dummy and trying to gently move away from cosleeping back into cot. I have never been tempted by controlled crying as much as I was this weekend functioning on zero sleep. But last night he did a one wake up night, as if by magic. We are going to keep trying to bumble along and make it through the tough patches when they come. Do you have a partner/friend/parent who could come and give you some support?

I'm sorry to hear that @Laura1609. The system we have at home is that I (sahp) deal with night times but my husband (works 9-5) will get the baby up at 6am and wakes me when he's leaving for work. On weekends he also gets up at 6am with the baby and wakes me at around 10am.

Poor baby crying for 40 min??? Sorry to ask but what are you doing while is crying??? I never left my kids to cry more than 20 sec especially when they were baby's

@Laura1609 I know, sleep is so tricky! We were traumatised after a nasty cold meant DS would only sleep on us for the whole night. You start to get a bit of night time dread for what may be in store. Once he was totally better we decided to try it.

The first night was really hard, but me and DH had talked about it extensively and had our plan of action in place. We treated ourselves to a nice dinner and a film we'd been wanting to watch to help us through it. Night 2 was almost harder as I'd expected a dramatic improvement and that didn't happen.

Just because he is crying doesn't mean he needs something, or you (I'll probably get MN hate for saying that) but if you've met all his needs he may be crying with frustration (like they do when they're awake) or crying because he's tired.

Sleep training itself is also so divisive. I read the gentle sleep book too, alongside the brain rules one (and a few others) but my instinct, and what felt most logical was to sleep train. Sleep is so important that it felt worth helping our DS get good at it. I do think he's less grumpy, happy etc. Because he has good sleep. And obviously it's the same for us - life is more manageable on good sleep.

Best of luck with whatever you do. And like others have said, it will get better! X

p.s. I think it's chapter 8 or 9 in that brain baby book that is about sleep

@Pippinsqueak sorry, in terms of night feeds it’s just once. He’s still breastfed as well as his 3 meals throughout the day. White noise is hit and miss, sometimes he’ll respond to it and it helps and other times his crying is too loud for him to hear it.

@Babybrain77 Fingers crosses your little one gets the memo to keep those sorts of nights up then! We did wonder if it’s yet more teeth (he has 4 already) but I can’t see or feel any new ones close to his gums yet. My DH is always home for bedtime thankfully and he doesn’t have much choice but to be up with me in the night but he has to be up at 6am every day and he’s got those useless nipples which can’t soothe a baby so a lot of does fall on me.

Try following the ferber chart (google images) so you are leaving longer each day before going in. We were doing the same minutes initially and it didn't work then I followed the chart and saw results quickly

What's daytime routine like? Awake times?

He could be overtired or undertired.