CC doesnt seem to be working- what am I doing wrong?

[kbaby]

Ive been starting lots of threads recently in the sleep conversation. DD 7 months keeps waking in the night for upto 2hrs to play. She doesnt need feeding as ive tried and she turns her head away. Because weve got work the next day only having 5hrs sleep is tiring. I decided to do CC.
The first night she woke at 4am and grizzled until 5 and then cried from 5-6 before going to sleep.
Last night she woke at 4.30 cried until 6.30 where she finally fell asleep.

I thought that subsequent nights would be easier but last night she cried more than the 1st night. The only thing I can think that I am doing different to ferbers book is probably not leaving long enough intervals. IE we leave 5 mins then 10 mins, then 15 mins but if shes crying to hard I go back to every 10 mins. I just cant sit there for 20 mins and listen to her cry without checking on her.
Is the increase in interval timings what makes the CC work? and is this where I could be going wrong.
She does have a dummy and I dont know if this is making her cry more when it falls out.

Any advice greatly appreciated. I feel like jacking it all in as its so heartbreaking with no improvement.

Ive heard that actually the 3rd and 4th night are the worst of all so it may not be that you are doing any thing wrong it may just be the normal turn of events. Keep at it . Though its hard x

I think the increase in intervals is fairly important so if 10 mins is your max, maybe start at 2, then go in after 4, then 7, etc. You can stick at your maximum once you've reached it. It doesn't sound like you're doing much wrong though. You've had 2 hours awake for the first 2 nights, so you should start to see improvement soon. Are you using the chart in the Ferber book? I found that useful.

Hugs, and good luck to you.

I'd say the dummy is possibly part of the problem. When we did it with DS1

1st night we did 2,5,10,and 20 minute intervals - took 2hrs 52 minutes - and a whole bottle of wine (for me LOL) to get to sleep the first night). Amazingly he stirred only once during the night and went back to sleep on his own (this was from the previous 6 months of his life waking every hour for a 1hr feed!).

2nd night we did the same thing - but only got to 45 minutes (no waking up)

3rd night was 15 minutes - and he stayed at 15 minutes for about 3 weeks after that (although after a few days we just left him to it rather than using the intervals).

Within a month we had crying as we walked out of the room and then he stopped crying - he's still a great sleeper 3 1/2yrs on!!

With the dummy if she's losing it she's going to get more upset - and the idea is that they learn to go to sleep on their own - therefore a dummy 'helping' her to sleep is kind of mixing up the process - if you see what I mean.

It sounds really frustrating. A few questions:

1. How dark is your DD's room?

2. What do you do when you go in?

3. Does she have a structured day? If so, how does it go?

4. How does she go to sleep in the day, how does she go to sleep first thing at night?

5. What did you used to do when she woke up to play in the night?

I'd agree that the increasing intervals are key. What rouge says is correct, you do stop at a maximum, though. The book says to increase twice, so 5, 10, 15, then keep doing 15. The next night, you should do 10, 15, 20, but you can probably stick to 5, 10, 15. (or 2, 4, 6, or whatever you like) Also, if she's just grumbling, not crying, let her be, she may well be settling.

I found middle-of-the-night CC very hard - I think DH and I took turns and used earplugs so the non-working partner could get sleep.

With my ds I adapted CC to suit me. I only left him until his cries became a certain hysterical "Where are you?" pitch. it did work, as it took him longer each night to get to thyis pitch, and eventually all he did was whine for a while and then go to sleep.

Babies know when we feel guilty, in a caveman situation their life may depend on it, so it's little wonder they are so good at it!!

Thanks. Last night she slept right through but I think that may have been a fluke rather then the cc. Tonight I think I will start off on the lower 2 mins interval.
Notquite cockney
1)The room has a blackout blind and is quite dark but perhaps not that dark. I could make it darker if it would work.
2)When we go in we say nothing, we find the dummy, turn her on her back or side, smooth her face and then she quietens down. once we leave she screams again.
3)tbh the structure is a bit hit and miss. She has a routine in the am and bedtime but the bit inbetween varies. She is a dreadful cat napper and only goes to sleep in the day if held. She wakes at 7am has brekkie around 8-9ish then at 9.30 she has a 40 min nap, she may then have another nap about 1ish and again at 4ish she very rarely sleeps for longer than 45mins-1hr. At 6 she has dinner, 7 bath, milk and bed at 8.
4) during the day you have to cuddle her in a blanket to get her to sleep. Once asleep you can put her in the cot. At night she is excellant. She has a bath and milk and then she goes in the cot awake and may talk for a bit before going to sleep.
5)when she woke at night we did one of two things. a) bring her into bed and breastfeed her where she may fall sleep after pulling our faces and playing for a bit. b)bringing into bed but if she carried on playing we used to put her back in the cot where she would play on her own before falling asleep.

I know she can go to sleep on her own because she does it every night I just cant work out why she wakes in the night. Its not even a sleepy wake, she is wide awake and raring to go. On average she sleeps for 2hrs in the day.

It sounds like you're generally doing CC just fine. It just may take a little while to really work.

Dark is really important - do you turn on the light when you go in? You want as little light as possible in the night, if you can find the dummy using a low light or a torch (or a dimmer light), it's worth considering. I don't think talking when you go in is a problem, as long as it's low and calm.

It may be that letting her play in the night is what's got her in this habit. It just takes a bit of time to get her out of it.

Two hours during the day is almost certainly not enough, but it's hard to fix both day and night sleeps at once. At seven months, I don't think most babies can be up for more than two hours in a row without getting overtired. Having a firmer daytime schedule (if possible) can help sort nighttime sleeps.

At any rate, if she's sleeping through some nights now, it may well be all nights soon. I certainly hope so!

I disagree 2 hours may well be enough. DS1 only had 2hrs sleep during the day - and stopped having naps at 18 months,

DS2 is now 13 months (OMG!) and has 45minutes-1hr in the morning and about 1hr in the afternoon - has done for ages.

Some babies need lots of sleep, others don't. I remember when I was doing CC I was told not to let DS go to sleep after 3pm or he night not be tired enough at night time. (he went to bed at 8pm)

if she goes to sleep in the first place with the dummy, then she won't go back to sleep after waking if she can't find it/put it back in.

Sorry, I know that sounds harsh, but it is true. My babies both had dummies, and although they'd have day naps without them, bedtime always involved going to sleep with a dummy and then I was up all night.

Have you tried dispensing with the dummy?

Ive thought about losing the dummy but I didnt want it to upset her even more at the moment. I thought that if I could get her sleeping through or at least to a stage where it was only the dummy she woke for then once that had been in place for a few weeks then go cold turkey with the dummy.
So far the cc has gone like this;
Day 1 cried 4.30am - 6.30am
Day 2 cried 4.00am - 6.00am
Day 3 slept 8pm-7am
Day 4 slept 8pm-6am
Day 5 cried 2.06am - 4.16am

The crying doesnt seem to have got any less. I dont know what to do. I'm not sure whether to stop trying, Try again another time, or to continue until it works.

Have you got a dummy holder kkgirl? Dd has it attached to her babygro and so at least I don't think she wakes for her dummy (she's 1). I think in your position I'd keep going otherwise all the good work so far has been wasted effort. We're doing it too atm and it's horrible so sympathy. I haven't tried to take the dummy away though, agree with you this would be one more thing to send things in the wrong direction! Day 3 and 4 sound good! It has got less, there were 2 nights when she slept through weren't there or have I misunderstood your post?

I'm another fan of a dummy clip for this age.

I've also heard of people having luck by scattering lots of dummies in the bed, to make it easier for the baby to find one when she needs one ...

To answer your original question kbaby I think the increased time intervals is key to cc even if the crying is driving you crazy. We had to do it with dd at 15 months and the first week was pretty dreadful but did get better if we really stuck to the plan. That meant at the worst moments we were leaving her for 30 min intervals of calling / crying before going in. At some point she just kind of gave up during one of the longer intervals and from that moment it started to improve very quickly.

Also I wondered if you read the Ferber chapter on sleep associations towards the beginning of the book? Basically if your dd is used to certain comforts being there for sleep times: dummy, being cuddled in a blanket etc. when she wakes at night she'll find it hard to settle without them. I'd try to tackle the day sleep too and maybe think about ditching the dummy or making it very accessible.

Finally I think you should make that first nap of the day later. You could do it gradually, 10 mins later every day until it's more like 3.5 hours after she got up. Then you could move the second nap to just after lunch / mid-afternoon and ditch the later afternoon sleep. If she's tired, put her to bed a bit earlier.

Can someone advise what a reasoanable bedtime is for a nearly three year old? sure he's going to bed too early!

sassabee, it depends if your DS sleeps in the day, and when he gets up in the morning. DS1 sleeps 8:30 to 7:30 at night, and about an hour in the afternoon.

how's it going now kbaby?

don't feel downhearted about it all - I noticed below you said the crying hadn't got better, but it did look like you'd had 2 days with quite good nights, even if she did go back on the last night. The thing with any kind of sleep training is you must keep going. I'm certain our DS was so bad at night because of out total lack of consistency with him - we'd try CC then give up exhausted after a week. It was only when I forced DH to commit to it for a good month that we really saw results.

Have you tried the dummy clip? Maybe it would help? I used to leave several dummies around the cot but DS never ever found them, or if he did, he really just wanted me to go and give it to him anyway!

I still think losing the dummy is the key. How will you know whether your DD is just waking for the dummy? Perhaps she is associating wanting her dummy with mummy or daddy coming to give it to her - e.g wake - want dummy - see mummy or daddy. So, in Ferber's terms, she is being "rewarded" for waking, when really she needs to learn that waking brings no reward until morning.

That said, if you do have some luck with the dummy clip, and she doesn't require you to go in to her, maybe that could be the answer for now?

Hi,

We have given up. The 6th night was the same again with 2hrs of crying. We both have work tomorrow and we couldnt continue on 5hrs sleep during the week. Maybe well try again in a month or so. Last night she woke at 3am and I gave her a small feed and put her back in the cot. I could hear her playing for 30 mins before going to sleep. It seemed that she was happy enough because I had gone in and held her for a bit.

Forgot to mention that weve tried the dummy clip and the dummies around the cot but shes too sleepy to find them.

I really hate to say this but the dummy really will be having the reverse effect of what CC is supposed to do. Hope it works when you try again in a few weeks time,

Poor you, I do sympathise. Do whatever you have to do to get some sleep in the next month and try again when you've got your sanity back. We're in the midst of it but at least we're both at the home atm so can alternate sleeping during the day (and are both able to sleep at the drop of a hat, I know not everyone can). I hope you miraculously have a better night tonight.

sympathies kbaby. get to bed early so you get a good stretch before she wakes. hopefully she'll drop off a short time after a feed. i would feed at that time if dd had gone until then tbh.