Is 8 weeks too early for controlled crying?

[debster]

OK here goes.

My ds (now approaching 4) has always slept very well from an early age. We achieved this by using some controlled crying. The trouble is I can?t remember exactly when we introduced it as it was very easy to get him into a routine. I know that by the age of about 4 months he was sleeping from 6am-6pm with two 2-hour naps during the day. I now have an 8 week old dd and have been shocked at the difference in her sleeping pattern. The main difference (and the bit that is causing the most angst) is her refusal to sleep in her cot until about 10pm and only after she has been given her bottle. I am mixed feeding (breast all day except for one bottle last thing at night). Her ?routine? (if you can call it that) involves me waking her up between 7-7.30am for a feed. She is then so tired from not going to sleep until 10 the night before that she drops back off to sleep at about 9am. I then have to wake her up for another feed at around 10-10.30am. She then stays up for another couple of hours (although quite drowsily) and conks out about 1.30pm for about 2-3 hours, especially if she is out in the pram. I then pick my son up from nursery at about 4.30-5pm. If dd is awake then I put her under the baby gym while I get ds?s tea. This is where it gets really stressful. I then bath dd & ds and then get them into their bed clothes between 6-6.30pm. Whilst giving dd her last breast feed of the day I read a bedtime story to ds (talk about multi-tasking!) I then put both of them to bed at about 7pm. Ds usually drops off within about 5-10 mins but dd will sleep for about 20 mins and then start howling. She will continue to do this until we go in and get her up by which time she appears to be wide awake. However, if we hold her (partner has by now arrived home from work) she will drop off to sleep in our arms. If we then put her down, either in her cot or rocking chair, she will wake up within a few minutes and grizzle until one of us picks her up and we go through the same thing again. This will continue until about 10pm when we give her the bottle and she goes to sleep like a dream until I have to wake her up again the next morning.

Now I know I should be very grateful that she sleeps through the night and I am but we just don?t understand why she won?t go to sleep in her cot until after the bottle. Could it be that my milk just isn?t satisfying her enough at 6.30? Is it worth giving her a bottle at this time? Is 8 weeks too early to start controlled crying? Or should we accept that this is the way it?s going to be. I suppose it?s the thought of having one child who wakes up a 6 in the morning and the other who doesn?t go to bed until 10 at night that fills me with dread. 16 hours of constant childcare with no time to spend together as a couple in the evenings. Anyway, apologies for the long ramble but can anyone offer solutions/advice/sympathetic ear?

(Please no arguments about the rights/wrongs of controlled crying ? only whether it is too soon )

I too loved the flexibility of a baby you could take anywhere in the evenings and enjoy. And I loved the time we spent just sitting with babies in our arms (did it with both kids) and it worked really well, we seemed like a wee family all snuggled up on the sofa and I loved it!
Both of mine also fed a lot in the evening at this stage, but I was told by a bfc that it was because they were keeping my milk supply up - it is naturally at it's lowest in the evening and so babies naturally feed more then to stimulate the supply. If you go to a boittle you risk having less milk, not more.
You are lucky to have had another baby who sleeps sp well. Our dd went throught from 10-7 form 8 weeks but ds was still waking up twice at 6 months. We used a little controlled crying at about 7-8 months with them both, when they were both going off the dummy, but apart from that things with their sleep have alsways been fine. I couldn't leave a tiny baby (and 8 weeks is still pretty tiny) to cry, and am sure I read that 6 months was the earliest you could do it, and that it wasn't alwawys succesful as young as this.
HTH

Message withdrawn

They're all different aren't they !

bloss, I'm with you here! Before I had ds I had blithely imagined taking him here there and everywhere in the evenings while he was little. I tried it once (dinner with friends, so not even any stress about being out in a restaurant!) All I remember is trying not to spill soup on my breastfeeding baby, and taking it in turns with dh to pace up and down rocking him, or swinging him in the car seat. Relaxing, not!!!
Getting our evenings back was a complete liberation - even better than when he started going through the night.
So yes, I'd have loved the flexibility too, but it just wasn't like that!

aloha, yes, and parents change too - when I had dd1 I couldnt wait to exert some control over her sleep and really wanted to have an evening with just dp. With dd2 I feel all silly and soppy and cart her around all evening with a glass of wine and the tv remote control. When she starts going to sleep in her own bed at 7 I shall feel sad, rather than liberated!

I still have guilty feelings now that my son was one of those babies that would not be helped to sleep. At four weeks old he was only getting about 12 hours sleep a day because he wouldn't just "drop off" when he was tired like the books said he would! I tried rocking him, tried a dummy (that just meant he woke up every 20 minutes looking for it!), tried removing the dummy at various stages of almost asleep, tried stroking his forehead, tried having a light room, in his moses basket, in a bouncing chair thing, walking around, etc. In the end I found it was quicker and less distressing to introduce a routine (which happened to be Gina's for me - I had tried Baby Whisperer before but it didn't work for me), use repetition of a nap time routine (certain song etc) to warn him it was time to sleep and to let him cry for five to ten minutes in a dark room on his own before he'd drop off without any other prop.

I still feel evil for it, and that five minutes felt like an eternity at the time. But compared to a much greater length of time of him screaming while I tried every other method to get him to sleep it was better (even though in some ways it was worse not doing anything while listening!).

NB, I wasn't trying to cut down feeds or anything like that when he cried to sleep, I'd triple checked that he wasn't hungry, didn't have a dirty nappy, etc. He just wouldn't go to sleep any other way. Once he started getting a reasonable amount of sleep each day, he was a changed baby and me a changed mum. I'm sure it saved my breastfeeding and stopped me getting postnatal depression (which my mother had had quite severely with me).

Georgina, I think letting your baby cry himself to sleep for five minutes is different to cc, which can go on for hours. I don't think that five minute cry really counts as crying at all, personally, as they aren't really upset, just protesting a bit and tired and crotchety with it.

Debster, just sounds a bit coliky to me. Both mine were very restless in the evening. At 8 weeks neither of them were asleep before 10pm - I think you were very lucky with your first. With regard to cc, most advocates (Richard Ferber etc) do not suggest using this method of sleep training before 6 months.
Your baby will settle soon - just give it another months or so.
Good luck

Dd has caught ds's cough and cold and is now sleeping all day and night. She won't feed properly and is having to be fed expressed milk. Just goes to show - be careful what you wish for