Controled Crying. DOES IT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!

[fimblesfan]

Hi i have ds 10 mths who still wakes up to 10 times a night & its now putting a huge strain on mine & dp relationship. So many people have recommended cc so about a month ago i tried but only lasted 1 day (i wasn't strong enough). Iam feeling alot stronger now & more determined.
Has anyone actually tried it & does it actually work? Would appreciate all your stories & advice please!

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It can work if you stick to it and if your ds is waking 10x a night I'm not surprised you want a solution. You do have to be very strong though - it's no fun as you already know!

There are lots of threads on cc so you could have a look through them - while you are waiting for people to post on yours, of course

Yes it does work, but you HAVE to be consistent, and once you decide to go for it don't give up half way through the process - it only seves to confuse them more - I can highly recommend a bottle of wine to help you through the first night.

We did a version of it for my son at bedtime. It was slightly different from the leaving them longer each time scenario. Bascially you left them then only went in if there if they were crying for more than five mins and you didn't stay in there longer than five mins. It was in the Penelope Leach baby book. We only did it as it was taking nearly an hour waiting him to fall alseep at night, he was just bouncing in his cot and we had to pin him down! It took 45 mins the first night and then less the following. It was upsetting doing it but it had worked for us.

My son doesn't much wakes up durng the night so it was more a bedtime & nap thing for us. The few times he has we used to take him downstairs as we couldn't take the crying in the middle of the night but recently we have done the same thing at night too (we must have got harder!) and it has worked.

And can I recommend kitchen timer and earmuffs... so you can blissfully drink the wine unaware until the next slot of time is up

lol Casmie when I did it with DS1 I was recommended (by the HV shhhhh LOL)

2 minutes - stand outside the door
5 minutes - go put the kettle on a make a coffee
10 minutes - go and drink the coffee
15/20 minutes - go open the wine and drink -

my goodness did I need it - 2hrs 52 minutes the first night for DS1 to fall alseep ((ddin't wake up thought which was pretty amazing as he'd been waking EVERY 1hr for a 1hr feed until that night).

2nd night - 45 minutes - again didn't wake up
3rd night - 15 minutes
next week or so - 5-10 minutes
after that - 10-15 SECONDS LOL

Thank u all so much for the advice you have given me so far it is all very much appreciated< please keep it coming, I have been thinking about starting it again for some time now & Ihave decided on tommorow, does anyone know where I start? is it with his first morning nap or shall I wait until bedtime?

I am going run mums now for dinner(mum is fantastic by the way)but i'll be back later to look at all your gr8 advice

Any idea WHY he is waking every hour? What puts him back to sleep? Does he sleep with you?

Your post leaves me with questions ff, as well as those morningpaper asked, does he have trouble falling asleep at naps as well as bedtime? I mean, it's a going to sleep problem as well as a waking in the night problem?

We did cc with dd when she was 15 months, previously she'd slept through really brilliantly but had got into a bad pattern of waking following an illness. The first few nights were hard but then it got easier. We didn't attempt nap times until we'd sorted out her bedtimes and once that happened the naps fell back into place on their own. In the meantime we just pushed her in the pram for naps. She's 2.3 now and has never been quite as good a sleeper as she used to be but she more often than not sleeps through and goes off fine at bed and nap times.

I recommend you read a good, simple guide about how to do it, like in Richard Ferber's 'solve your child's sleep problems' as it's important you do it by the letter or you could end up making things worse! And as everyone's said you have to be determined, if you're not and you give in after an hour's crying then you will be giving the message that it's worth him crying for as long as he can. So only do it when you think you can.

Yes, it does work for most children. Have you bought (or borrowed) Ferber's Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems? I would really recommend it. It is full of interesting info about sleep and is not brutal or cruel - I took his advice about phasing out night feeds before trying to get ds to sleep through and it really made a difference IMO - both to his ability to sleep through and to my confidence that I wasn't starving my baby!

See someone else has advised the book. I'd say read it first. Also, don't do it if there is a possibility your ds is ill. What happens when your ds wakes? I do sympathise, my ds was a wake on the hour every hour sort of boy too and getting him to sleep transformed our lives.

Sorry guys obviously I didn't give you enough info, he will only fall back to sleep with a bottle so the other problem being wet nappies & yes he does sleep with me so now you understand why I NEED to do this. I have definately decided on tommorow being the right time to start as I have a week of work. So tommorow it is, wish me luck im gonna need it.

I had exacly the same problem with my son at 9.5 months. Health vistor told us to try cc we laughed at first and said it wud never work. She was there when we first tried it on his afternoon nap; it took us 10mins to get him off to sleep for the first time on his own, i could not believe it! He is now 3.5yrs old and has slept all nite ever since. We never looked back.
The key is that they get used to seeing the cot as sleep time. I also used a blackout blind so that nothing could disturb him in the day, whenever the blind was put up he wud associate this with sleep. Perseverance is also the key!

It has for us, but HAS to be with consistency.
A routine worked this way for us. bottle, bath, bed, story, rub back and lullaby, cuddle and kiss goodnight.
Leave room, door open and avoided being seen!
Not left longer than 20 mins though.
Eventually got less crying and settled down.
I repeat the same ritual every night now and for the last four nights, no crying and go to sleep happy. Yay!

This is brll considering we used to end up pushing our baby to sleep in the stroller, then carrying upstairs asleep in my arms.

Good luck and perservere.

Also put on hold if babs is poorly or teething etc.

And also now the nights are sorted he is better at sleeping during the day, quicker to get off to sleep to.

how did it go?