CC - when is a "good" age for this ?

[kopoli]

I have to say I hate the idea of controlled crying or any other sort of crying. But DS is now over 5 months old (exclusively BF and do not intend to begin solids until he is 6 mo) and has NEVER slept through the night. In the past couple of weeks he has become worse (if that is possible) and has at least one session during the night when he is fully awake and we have to help him go back to sleep. This can take up to 45 mins. by which time DH or I are fully awake ourselves and find it difficult to go back to sleep. Please let me know what cc is (i.e what do I have to do - I don't have a clue) and what you think is an appropriate age for doing this to help DS sleep better. He is also a very difficult napper.

I think I am at risk of starting a new thread here which was not my intention : )

I think I have got myself into trouble here by criticising Gina Ford ("GF")! We are all entitled to our views and I was only expressing mine. It was not meant to distress any GF fans. Wordsmith I am an avid reader of baby books and have so far read 6 by various eminent sleep experts. I enjoyed Dr Sears and Elizabeth Pantly in particular, and although some of their methods have worked for my DS, he is still a frequent waker which is why I began this thread to find out about other methods. There is a huge diversity of views even between the eminents !

I mentioned GF because she not only recommends cc, but as a breast-feeding mother (I am an avid follower of BF information and facts issued by WHO, UNICEF, La Leche League, etc) I take serious issue with her schedules for feeding. I read her book cover to cover when I was pregnant, but got rid of it when my DS was born last June simply because her schedules run counter to a BF baby's, (esp. a newborn's) need to be fed on demand in order to thrive. I must add a disclaimer here, I know absolutely nothing about bottlefeeding and GF's methods may work well for bottlefeeding.

Just to give you an example, my DS has been fed on demand (sometimes every half hour when he was going through a growth spurt) and had doubled his birth weight by the time he was only 15 weeks old. I know someone who has been following GF's 3-hourly feeds for her exclusively BF baby, and she now (very unfortunatley) has a baby who has failed to thrive, not for any other reason might I add, but just because he has been on a feeding schedule. Furthermore, babies do not just want BF for food in order to thrive, but they need the skin to skin contact (and it's lovely for mum too who equally needs this skin contact of a cuddly baby !). It seems to me what GF ultimately does is to deny a newborn these survival instincts. I would NEVER, EVER force a newborn to go hungry for 3 hours (she suggests a 3-hourly routine for a newborn to begin while still in hospital !). I am no world expert on sleep (which is why I began this thread to help DS sleep), but I know enough about BF to say with conviction that Gina Ford is WRONG ! If I ever have the pleasure of meeting her, I would say this to her face: "Gina, you are wrong" !!

As for everyone else who has kindly taken the time to comment here, thanks so much, I have found all of it extremely interesting. I have not decided what to do yet, but cc is very certainly an option perhaps when DS is past the 6 mo stage, which is end of December.

Kopoli, I'm glad you prefaced your post with the "everyone's entitled to their own opinion" bit, because the rest of it is a little inflamatory really.

I am not at all a Gina mum, but my babies were exclusively breastfed and I found they generally fed to a 3 hourly schedule. As my HV told me, most mums who insist the GF routine has got their babies into a pattern would probably have found they got into that pattern anyway - babies don't read the timetables after all!

There is nothing wrong with giving a newborn lots of cuddles and feeding on demand - indeed its positively advisable to do so. But feeding on demand means feeding when they're hungry and not just whipping a breast out every time they cry. If you offer the breast the minute the baby fusses, soon enough the breast becomes the only comfort the baby will accept.

With my first baby I did this and found by the time he was 4 months, I was the only person who could settle him, and only by feeding. This left me totally exhausted and quite seriously depressed. With my second baby, I've left her to cry a bit - not hysterically, just to see if she'll settle alone - and generally speaking, she does.

I also found that by BFing her every time she cried, she ended up only feeding for 5 mins at a time every hour. Once she was 6 weeks, I tried just distracting her a bit, offering a dummy, etc, and her feed times immediately stretched out to more or less 3 hourly. I never made her wait if I knew she was hungry, but in general I found that by stretching the time out like this, she then took "full" feeds of 20mins or more and would last longer till the next feed as a result

It is understandable for first-time mothers to read all these parenting and baby manuals and get in a bit of a state about what they "should" be doing. But you sound like an intelligent woman and your statement "Those of us who [have children] are in constant anguish over how not to permanently damage the physical and emotional well-being of our babies and children" really alarms me. Being a mum is supposed to be a pleasurable experience - albeit with some sleep deprivation and general frustration - not some sort of Herculean test. Being in constant anguish over the potentially damaging effects of any attempt to regulate your child's behaviour doesn't bode well for when you have a demanding toddler/teenager! Babies are babies and I don't think it's right to impose rigid schedules on them; but you have needs too and you have to find the balance between those and your babies needs, or you will go mad.

You have a 5 month old baby. At 5 months old babies know what they want and are learning all the ways of how to get it. For goodness' sake stop reading all these WHO/Gina Ford/La Leche League edicts and take the approach that you feel is right for you and your baby.

Not sure if this is helpful, but we have practiced gradual withdrawal with DD1, now 3.7, when she was 6 months, and found it great. I found it hard to leave a crying baby, this way you don't. I have also done it with DD2 and it is in the process of working!!

Whatever you choose has to be right for the whole family. You also have to stick it out, or I feel it sends confused messages to the baby.

BTW, DD1 slept through from 3 months, but would not go to sleep without our help, this is why we felt she had to learn.

lulupop - thanks so much for your thorough reply. Let's get something straight. I have made comments about an author and her methods (which I will not retract), and not about any single individual's parenting skills. Anyone reading what I have said carefully would see that.

You on the other hand, are making many incorrect ASSUMPTIONS about how I BF and look after my DS.

I agree that offering a baby a boob whenever he cries is like offering him a pacifier whenever he cries without trying to find out WHY he is crying. I have never done either. He hates pacifiers (I have purchased at least 4 different types since he was born and he simply spits them out) as much as he hates being fed before he is hungry. I did demand feed initially because that is what he wanted as he was learning to latch on. Babies are not born with a latch technique. But in fact he has been on a 3 hourly feed (all of his own choosing and without force) since around 3 mo. During the night he can go much longer, sometimes up to around 7 or 8 hours without a feed. I totally agree with your HV, she seems to know what she is on about !

Furthermore, I am extremely lucky to have an ever present DH who feeds DS my expressed milk when I am too exhaused to BF late at night. DS therefore has acquired an equal attachment to both parents. He will feed from both of us (boob or expressed milk) play with either of us, go out with either of us alone, and he will go to sleep with the help of either of us.

The fact that I and many others like me worry about our first born and hence read lots of books, is not because we are in constant panick as you insinuate, it is because as you say, we are intelligent people (I am a lawyer) who believe that "knowledge is power".

So instead of rushing into decisions about what to do, I wish to make informed decisions, as I do with everything else in my life. As for pleasure ? I cannot think of anything more pleasurable than having and looking after babies ! Thank you lulupop, I think we better leave it at that.

littlerach - I was fascinated by what you said. What do you mean with "withdrawal" ? Can you please expand on this method ? Many thanks.

Gosh, you really are a rather strident person, aren't you?

1. I DID read ALL your posts "carefully", so I was not "insinuating" anything at all - YOUR words are "in constant anguish over how not to permanently damage the physical and emotional well-being of our babies and children". That does rather suggest a degree of panic.

2. I haven't made any assumptions at all about how you BF or anything else. I read your posts and thought you sounded like someone going through an experience similar to that which I had with my own first child. I thought perhaps offering the story of how I managed it, and how I've done things a little differently second time round might help. You started the thread asking for help, after all.

3)I was trying to put the point across that I don't think we all need guidelines and edicts from organisations about how to be a good parent. Surely, since you are, as you say, so perfectly bonded with your baby, you know what to do without reading everything going? How the hell did our parents manage? And I really don't think one's level of intelligence determines one's thirst for this sort of "knowledge". I have a first class degree from Cambridge and I can't say I've ever felt the need to read WHO recommendations on breastfeeding - I just knew it was best and got on with it. It's not exactly rocket science.

4. If you start a thread asking for other people's experience of CC and dealing with fussing babies generally, that does actually suggest you want other people's opinions. However, your last message seems to be saying "I'm fine, I know what I'm doing is right, my DH is wonderful and our child is perfectly attached to both of us". Great! If it's all so perfect, what are you doing asking for advice in the first place? There's really no need to attack everyone who is out of line with your ideas you know.

It's a real relief to read all this stuff. I live abroad and do not have the support of my family and friends around me.
My son is just six months old, seems to have been teething forever (nothing to show for it yet) and getting moire difficult to get to sleep and then stay that way.
Am I the only one feeding their child to sleep? I do this on the bed and then my husband and I get into bed with him later. He used to sleep for about 4/5 hours at this stage but hasn't done more than two or three for a few months now. He wakes so often but is always happy to go back to sleep after a little feed. I guess we have to count our blesings that he doesn't want to stay awake but I'm still tired!
I am so hoping that when I start giving him solids next month it will make a difference OR is he only demanding a feed because he wakes up, doesn't know how to get himself back to sleep and thinks - ha ha - there she is, I think I'll have a little feed!

I'm reviving this thread as am at my wit's end with ds's sleeping pattern. He woke up as an infant every 1 1/2 to 2 hours until almost 9 months old. I thought I would lose my mind. Gradually he cut down to waking only once. Bliss! then about 2 months ago he had a bad cold which caused him to start waking frequently again. Now we are back to getting up with him every 2 to 3 hours. Dh's blood pressure has started fluctuating alarmingly and I think lack of sleep is contributing. I tend to not be able to go back to sleep after the first or second waking and wind up walking around in a fog the next day. DS insists on taking a full bottle of milk while being rocked and then drops back off fairly quickly so we have debated about just trying to make it through and hope he grows out of it but it is still so disruptive that I don't know...Have tried CC a bit, maybe we haven't stuck with it properly though. I also heard of someone who said when her 2 year old kept wanting to get up for a glass of water she got him out of bed and down to the kitchen to fetch/drink it. Once it wasn't so much fun he stopped doing it. Have considered a variation on this. ANy advice?

I guess I should add that ds is now 16 1/2 months old.