What pushed you to sleep train using the CC method?

[oneseriouslytiredmumma]

Curious to know how bad exactly other parents DD or DS sleep had become before you were finally pushed to a point that you thought sleep training them using the controlled crying method was the only option left?

At what ages have people used this method with there little people and did you have any success with it?

I was absolutely desperate, being woken every 45 minutes through the night and no chance to catch up. I sobbed to my health visitor who suggested cc and it made a difference from the very first night. I really was in a terrible state (twins, one awake by night and one by day) and I just don't know what else I could have done.

With my first, he woke every two hours and he was 10 months. With my second, he was similar but we did it at 6 months.

With both kids, there was no sense of progress without cc. My friends' babies for the most part gradually improved their sleep and had mine been doing that, I might have waited it out. It worked in 3 nights for both of mine and I have no regrets

We weren’t. It was a decision from the start that establishing good sleep early on was best for my partner and myself. Having said that, we didn’t do it until 10 months and it worked within a week. We spent the first ten months fostering good habits with a bedtime routine, nice relaxing bath and story time, dim lights, hushed voices, would close our eyes and snooze while giving the night feed etc.

We did, however, plan to use cry it out when we felt it would be the most beneficial from the moment the pregnancy test turned positive, maybe even before that. That is - controlled crying, not cry it out (which is the extinction method).

14 months of no more than an hour sleep.

Strangely I think the breaking point was Xmas eve trying to build a sodding playhouse at midnight and Dd still screaming. 1 st January I decided to try it using minute chart from Ferber. Had already tried gentle sleep training and everything else.

First night took forty minutes, then it was done. Following week I tried naps and it was like she had always napped there.

I would say now I wish I had done it earlier.

I think for me it was learning the difference between a distress cry and a cross cry. Life changing. Since January she has woken three times with a distress cry, had done a poo or was unwell. Very different and I was straight in to her.

I'm absolutely shocked that this thread hasn't gone down in flames as usually Mumsnet is so anti sleep training it's unreal.

Second DD I was utterly desperate. Like, going to check myself into a MH facility desperate. She just didn't sleep. Night or day. She was a year old and I had to do it before I cracked. She needed to sleep, she was miserable because she was always tired. I was miserable because I couldn't function.

Took a lot to get my DH on board, and like PP said it was an angry cry not a distressed cry. First night was about 90 minutes. Second was half an hour. Third was 10 minutes.

Blissful sleep since then. She was a different child.

Do whatever works for you and your family.

The anti sleep training crowd are probably still trying to sleep.

Seriously though - we all do what we think is best and should respect that.

I did cc with my eldest at 7 months. It helped, but wasn't a magic solution. After having DC3 I now realise that DC1's sleep wasn't as bad as I thought it was!!

Like @Settlersofcatan we did it because there was no sense of progress, although our situation was less extreme. DD was 8 months and I was about to go back to work. She was still waking twice a night even though she was on 3 meals a day plus snacks and milk and I thought it was habitual rather than down to a need for milk.

It worked in a night for us. She is 3 now and a great sleeper and a very contented little girl.

We are following a similar pattern with DS so will likely do the same with him.

My first DD had been waking every hour from midnight til 7 for three months and I just literally couldn’t do it anymore I wasn’t enjoying life or her and was worried it wasn’t doing her development any good. I was bottle feeding so couldn’t even feed her back to sleep. My second had been waking hourly for about a month but I felt that because of my previous experience I knew it would just not stop so started CC and also after first time felt happier and more confident with that decision. Was breastfeeding him. Both six months old. Did 2,4,6,8,10 mins and both DC were sleeping through after about 3-4 days of it. Never regretted it.

10 months and never slept more than 20 mins in the day or 2 hours at night (and that was rare). Like PP had spent months slowly and gently implementing an age appropriate routine which he loved, he was never fed to sleep, he could really happily drift off for naps and night time sleep in his cot but every wake up thereafter (and there were multiple multiple wake ups from naps and at night) he had to be fed back to sleep. He was breastfed and never took a bottle. Tried every gentle method to night wean out there, hours of my DH trying to settle him and nothing. I was on my knees but it wasn't until he was really established on solids that I thought something needed to change. He would need to feed back to sleep but wouldn't be hungry so would cry for hours until he'd worked himself up enough to be able to feed. That's when I knew it was bad for him too. One day he'd eaten basically an adult sized portion of chicken korma for dinner, gone to sleep lovely, woken up half an hour later crying and I just thought no. He's not hungry, I'm not doing this anymore. This isn't good for either of us. It took two nights and night weaning did not lead to complete weaning - we BF for months after no problem.
So I didn't do it because of my exhaustion, I did it when it started affecting him badly too, and I have no regrets.
Having done CC I really don't have a negative opinion about it, apart from I think baby should not be too young and I think slower but gentler methods should be tried first.
But I personally don't think it's cruel and I'm not going to judge anyone that stands up for their own need for sleep.

I was pretty much suicidal. The only way she'd sleep was in bed with me, attached to my breast. So I was in bed from 7pm every night unable to even roll over without waking her and then she'd howl. She woke up so often and frequently wouldn't go back to sleep for ages. DH had to sleep on the sofa and this went on for months.
DH insisted on doing the Ferber method after coming upstairs one morning at 3am to find me sitting up in the middle of the bed sobbing, holding DD out to him, begging him to just take her away from me.
I know people don't like it, but DD got far more benefits from having a mother who didn't spend her days crying and seriously considering walking out. I got help for the PND but I don't think anything would have helped while I was still that exhausted.

My daughter took forever to settle at night and was getting in the habit of falling asleep in our bed.
I couldn't bear to do it so my husband did. Hour and a half the first night, half an hour the second night and five minutes on the third night.
Never looked back, best thing we did, she was about 18 months at the time, dont think I'd have done it earlier.

I am just starting to us CC with my 17 month old. He is going through a phase of not going down at night. So now I leave him and when he gets too upset and distressed I go back to him. Usually he falls asleep on my return. If I try to cuddle him he’ll stay up for hours.

Following. This might be the next step for me. Have tried it in a half-arsed way in the past but may need to give it another go if DD's sleep doesn't improve soon.

CC/sleep train for me wasn't the only option left, it is what i always planned to do. Getting dd into a good sleep routine was important to me, especially as i was breastfeeding, i wouldn't have her attached to me all night. Me and dp alternate nighttimes, always have.

For me co sleeping would have been the absolute final resort and something i never wanted to do.

We are considering doing this soon as DD isn't sleeping too well at 6 months old (we will do it when she is 7.5 months old).

I have a question though- at the moment there is no settling her once she starts crying so she gets hysterical and ends up needing fed to sleep. When you sleep train, how do you settle them if they are used to being comforted with the boob?

We did the Ferber method at about 16 months with DS1. Wish we’d done it sooner as it fixed night time wake ups completely. We stupidly didn’t do it with the bedtime routing until about 17 months (god knows why I didn’t do both) but it worked like a charm

I’d sort of plodded along running into him or staying with him until he was asleep rubbing his back and one day realised he’s just lying there rolling around laughing away. And then when I left became angry and cried. He was never distressed. Just frustrated.

So I tried Ferber and it works pretty much immediately

There are a couple of things here.
CC = controlled crying/spaced soothing. This is where you time the crying and go in at set intervals and help the baby go back to sleep. This works very well, the only issue is that many parents go in and see their baby upset and end up staying too long or deviate from the plan. If you do it properly it is really effective, works quickly and lasts. However it is worth getting a sleep consultant to make sure you do it properly.
CIO = cry it out. This is where you close the door and leave your baby to cry, no comfort offered, for as long as it takes. This works very quickly but i would never do it or recommend it. I have heard absolute horror stories from this method.
People confuse the two. They are not the same. CC is really effective and can be very gentle if done right.

@Lazypuppy

CC/sleep train for me wasn't the only option left, it is what i always planned to do. Getting dd into a good sleep routine was important to me, especially as i was breastfeeding, i wouldn't have her attached to me all night. Me and dp alternate nighttimes, always have.

For me co sleeping would have been the absolute final resort and something i never wanted to do.

Same here - we had always planned to do CC at 6m if she was still feeding to sleep. Took one night. She still wakes overnight to feed, which I'm happy with as she has weight gain issues, but i only feed her once, at 3am, and if she wakes before that i let her settle herself back down.

When I had to get up every 2 hours through the night when I had flu to feed 19 mo DS. Took 3 nights to get perfect 12hour sleep. (2 hours first night of DH, 15 mins 2nd night and 5mins last night) In retrospect the softly gently attachment methods were selfish on all of us and I would always train by 12 months if I had any more DC.

We did sleep training at 6 months because DH and I hadn't slept in the same bed at the same time since before DS was done.

DH was getting about 5 hours sleep a night, I was getting about 4.5 hours broken sleep. DS was sleeping approx 45 min at a time, but then needed 45 min to get settled again after.

I ended up with PND and it was awful. We'd do it next time if another child slept as badly as DS did, We don't regret it at all.

I haven't sleep trained before, but I just want to say how sad it makes me that so many women have to be practically suicidal before they even consider it! My daughter is a fairly decent sleeper, but wakes 4-5 times a night (6 months old), and sometimes I'm so grumpy and tired I could see myself doing it. When I see women saying they don't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time for months on end, and that they're suffering from depression (no surprises why!) I could kick the anti CC brigade for making people feel so bad about it

It was Christmas eve just before DS turned one in Jan. It was 11pm and he still wouldn't go to sleep. Each evening was 4-5 hours of trying to get him to sleep. I couldn't concentrate on work and I felt like a terrible mum.

We worked with a sleep consultant who was great. For us... Me being with him wasn't providing comfort he was crying because he wasn't asleep so it wasn't that much different doing the CC except from night 4 he started sleeping and it's been a dream for naps and bedtime every since.

No regrets it was amazing for us

@bunters

I haven't sleep trained before, but I just want to say how sad it makes me that so many women have to be practically suicidal before they even consider it! My daughter is a fairly decent sleeper, but wakes 4-5 times a night (6 months old), and sometimes I'm so grumpy and tired I could see myself doing it. When I see women saying they don't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time for months on end, and that they're suffering from depression (no surprises why!) I could kick the anti CC brigade for making people feel so bad about it

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 100% this!

I know right!!!! I say that as my almost 2 year old now sleeps from 7pm till about 6.15, its glorious!!!

I went to a parents discussion group from when DS was about 2 months onwards and they had a week where we talked about parenting choices we regretted. 2 of the orgainsers stated CC as their biggest regrets and now only recommended Sarah OS's parenting books (all very gentle parenting stuff). They both have completely grown up kids now and with hindsight it made me so mad that I felt so guilty about it for ages after we sleep trained and I never told them we did it.

so many anti-sleep training people used to say 'Well I never needed to use it' YES, THATS BECAUSE YOUR CHILD SLEPT AND DIDNT REQUIRE IT!!

Sorry, its something I feel strongly about, all the parent guilt about sleep training