controlled crying - is 8 months too young?

[potatofactory]

We have just started trying controlled crying with our 8-month-old baby. She has got into a habit of having episodes of escalating crying at night (sometimes for hours). The key thing for us in making our decision to try controlled crying was that she was getting in a state anyway, and kept crying whether she was being cuddled or not - presumably because she is tired.

We have only done one night but it has been traumatic so far. Is she an ok age to try this? Are we going to undo all our good work so far in making her feel happy and secure? We have always had a policy of not leaving her to cry up until this point.

All advice eagerly received..

Hi Karen999,

She sleeps as much as other babies I know - has a nap two hours or so after waking; one in the afternoon, and maybe one more - all of about 45 mins - occasionally she has a longer nap. During the day she seems refreshed by her sleeps

Foodwise - she has a lot of milk still (formula) and is increasingly eating more foods too.

I'm not aware of a problem in these areas..

Ok - I only ask because sometimes what they do in a day can impact on how settled they are in the evening. My dd (10 months) sleeps for a total of 2 1/2 hours every day. She starts her day at 7am and has a structured day in terms of feeding/meals/milk etc...

Sounds pretty similar to my dd - her milk and food times are regular too.

Sounds like you are doing all the right things!! Sometimes it is difficult to decide what to do for the best! What time does she go down at?

7!! Same as your dd. What to do?? I just hope it's a phase - she used to sleep better - she just seemed at some point to realise that she was being put into a room in the dark, and so when her sleep reached a light cycle she had the knowledge more of what was happening and got freaked out by it - unless that's mad.. I really don't know, basically.

Know what you mean...it is so hard working it out sometimes....I think (will be shot for this) that this is why CC works better when they are younger!

a few people said that on this thread...