@PorridgeOaf
I started teaching DD to self settle when she was around four months old as I was getting tired of the bouncing and rocking to get her to sleep, and my neck was aching from the sling naps. I just gradually reduced my input - so from bouncing vigorously I started rocking more gently, then got her used to settling just in my arms, then I started settling her in a sleepyhead with my arms around her like I was cradling her, and then just stayed with her until she was settled, eventually moving on to just chucking her into the cot and leaving the room (that’s a lie, we have a lovely, snuggly sleep time routine, but you get the gist).
This did involve crying and she was at times genuinely upset. She was never alone until she could settle by herself, and if she cried and was upset I would always pick her up and soothe her - but I was very consistent with making sure she settled where she was going to sleep.
I found it really tough to have her crying, but I also found that when she was tired she cried anyway before she slept. So I realised that although she was upset, she would have been upset in my arms being bounced or falling asleep independently. Overall, she has cried much less than she would have done if I hadn’t helped her learn how to go to sleep by herself, but she has probably cried more than she would have if I’d always fed her to sleep - I’m guessing at this, my friend feeds her DD to sleep always and that is not without tears either. So it’s not something I regret, rather it’s something I would have liked not to have to do!
DD also used to wake very frequently for feeds, and would take hours to settle after. So when she was around five months old I tried spacing her feeds out and not feeding any more than every four hours. This was quite effective and after a few rough nights the feeds spaced out again and we could both get more sleep. This was when she was still in my room so when I was settling her she was with me. After this, she got very good at just going straight back to sleep again after a feed and when the frequency increased I found it easier to just feed her than to stick to four hourly feeding. That worked well for a bit but then the feeds were becoming more frequent and much shorter (90 seconds sometimes), so that’s when I decided to cut the feeds altogether.
As she’s gotten bigger I’ve found that she has a broader range of cries and she does (frequently!) cry when she’s not getting her own way/she’s frustrated. So when her feeds had reduced to that point, I decided to do controlled crying to try to eliminate the feeds. I decided to do it when she was eight months old because her feeds were short, and I felt she was simply waking out of habit. If your DD is having full feeds I would try to reduce the length of feeds first and also make sure she isnt falling back to sleep on the boob before doing anything like controlled crying, as if she is genuinely hungry it’ll be difficult for her to go back to sleep and will be much harder for you to stick to your guns! I also felt confident that although my DD would cry, she would be crying from frustration and being cross, rather than distress. I wouldn’t have done CC until this point just as a personal choice.
I found CC hard and it went on for longer than I expected it to. My DD is tenacious! It wasn’t the three nights you often read about for us! Though anecdotally I have heard that ten nights is not unusual. With my DD I find that she often adapts well to changes with her sleep but then sort of regresses again - someone referred to this as an extinction burst up thread. Whenever she does this I find I have to double down and just stay as consistent as I can.
Even though I knew she was okay, it was difficult not to go to my baby when she was crying for me. However, I knew that if I picked her up, she would stop crying but then start again as she would still be awake and would still be cross about it! So that helped me to stay firm. I knew I was teaching her something that would help her and would reduce the crying in the long term.
I would recommend if you decide to do CC, pick a time when you’re going to do it and prepare yourself. Try to get your DP to take time off work if you can. And if you do it, make sure you stick to it - don’t put yourself and your DD through it unless you’re going to follow through! And if I were you I would imagine it’s going to last for ten days - 2 weeks and prepare yourself emotionally for that. That way, if it’s much quicker you’ll be pleasantly surprised, but if it takes longer then you’ll cope better with it.
In terms of the technique, I spoke to a friend who used the Millpond crying down technique and I used that technique rather than the Ferber method. Basically you start with 2 minute intervals on the first night, and go in every two minutes if your baby’s cry is escalating. You stop the timer if your baby’s cry starts to deescalating, and restart it again when it starts to escalate. This way, you only go in when baby is ‘crying up’, but if baby is very distressed they are not left like this for longer than 2 minutes. I found myself being very generous with the timer as she very rarely ‘cried up’ for more than 2 minutes. But when she did, I could go to her quickly. Each night you increase by one minute up to a maximum of five minutes. We didn’t increase the intervals as she rarely cried up for longer than 2 minutes as it was.
Like I said, I found it really hard, and I have found myself holding DD for her second nap each day because part of me misses the snuggles of night feeds. Having said that, DD looks so much brighter and happier as she isn’t having two hour wake ups anymore! I can see that our relationship is as strong as it was before - in terms of attachment she is wilful and confident and really only wants to cuddle me when she’s unsure, has had a tumble, or is sleepy. Otherwise she’s off exploring the world! All really positive indicators that I’m her safe base and that we have all the makings of a secure attachment. She is also happy going to bed and happy when she wakes up, so although of course I worried that she might be traumatised by it (I certainly was!) I really don’t think she was.
I have also found recently that her sleep seems to have really matured and she is somehow less babyish with sleep. It’s just more reliable and more sound, so it’s possible she would have just stopped waking by herself, but to be honest I don’t think she would have.
I don’t know if any of this is helpful!! Let me know if you have any questions, and what you decide to do/how you get on.