Ok...cant cope much longer. We're going for it tonight. Advice needed please, please.

[lionsandtigersandbears]

Ok....hope not too long. Me and DP cant carry on like this anymore, we've had literally 9 or 10 hours sleep all week. Very briefly DS 6mnths has gone from pretty ok sleeper (never needed loads, and late to bed but not bad) to up every 3 hours, then 2 and for the past few nights every hour. We think dummy majorly to blame (saw other recent thread on this. V.similar) and he has plainly learnt that he needs dummy to settle. We dont lift him out cot or make a fuss, just a quiet sshh. When he wakes there isnt any real crying, just fussing and fidgeting but we're in one bed flat and its keeping us awake all night hence relying on the dummy. I'm now just lying there waiting for the next wakeful spell. We made him go to sleep without dum last night, it was awful listening to him scream but I just felt at wits end, however an hour and half later he was wide awake and grumbling again and cos we are in same room the dummy went in. Tonight DP and I are sleeping in the living room. So...few questions...how long do we leave him to cry for before going in? If we want to go cold turkey with the dummies is that consistant throughout the day as well...eg naps, in the pram? Has he just learnt that its ok to wake up and be seen to all night and can he 'un-learn' it? Please help, I feel lost and tired and teary.

I would suggest the pick up put down method, when they wake up you pick them up/sush calm them and then put them down and so on and so on and so on and so on.

you will need to do it in shifts, it well be hard but it will sort it out.

Please do not leave him to "cry it out" it is very very harsh to leave them screaming.

Hi lions, we didn't use a dummy but did have a problem with our 8 mth old getting totally dependent on us to resettle him.

We did CC two weeks ago and it's revolutionized our lives - we went in every 5 mins and patted his back and then out again really quickly. First night it took him an hour to settle, 2nd night 10 mins, from then on he slept through. He also now has two x hour long naps in the day which he never used to.

It's really really tough but it works - or at least it did for us.

Good luck .

Sorry, I think that cold turkey is not the way to do this. He is 6 months old. You have let him settle with a dummy, then you are now deciding it isn't helpful. He is too young to understand, and will just think it is lost.

I think you need to work on a more gradual approach, tbh. I am speaking as someone who has been there, albeit with falling asleep on the breast.

However, I am sure that there will be some Controlled Crying advocates along soon who will give you tips. I personally think that it is too, too young

Just seen the other posts. I think Controlled Crying will seem to work for some babies. Not mine. I do think that pick up put down has a good effect, and helped a little with DD2.

What really cracked it was a gradual (over about 3 months) transition from breastfeeding to sleep to sleeping independently. Long winded, but very little trauma for DD.

He might just be having a bad spell due to teething. Imo 6 months is too little for CC. It's meant to be for kids over a year tbh.

Babies do this crying at night thing, it's just something you have to find a way of coping with - or try something like PUPD as Cargirl suggests, it works for some. CC is not fair at this age.

lionsandtigers - much sympathy. it is rotten having a non-sleeping baby. we did CC when our DD was 6.5mo, for the same reasons you describe ie dummy addiction.

CC is not an easy option, as it is hard to hear your baby cry. But for those parents who really are at the end of their tether it can be a life/relationship/sanity saver.

It doesn't work for every baby. If you do decide to try it, perhaps do so just for 3 nights, and stop if there's no significant improvement in this time.

The stuff about CC being only suitable for 1 year plus is not correct, but seems to be repeated a lot on here.

You can do as gentle a version of CC as you feel comfortable with. eg - go in every 2 minutes, pick the baby up, soothe them, and then put them in the cot once they've settled. I think it's important to remember that CC isn't actually about the crying, but about babies learning to settle themselves. So you can go in as often as you like, rock them, soothe them , as long as they are place in the cot without whatever prop they need to fall asleep.

I would rather not be described as a CC advocate, but rather someone who was so dangerously tired she was at risk of becoming ill, or crashing the car, with a cranky, overtired baby who herself was in desperate need of a good night's sleep.

If you have a one bed flat, have you tried co-sleeping? If he's in there with you anyway....? Personally that would be my first option before cc... like flightattendant said, ds could be going through a rough patch, teething or something bothering him so when he wakes up he finds it hard to get back to sleep. It depends on your ds, mine was always much happier in bed with me when he was upset, but I know someone who's ds hated co-sleeping.

I would settle him by gentle shushing and cuddles, tiring I know but I don't think CC works on many babies this young. And even if you do it and he starts self settling, another stage of development will occur and you will have to do it again. I cut my babies some slack until 1 and then did CC and it worked fine.

I hope I didn't sound too harsh. I have a thing about babies being left to cry/ expected to sleep well...iMO they just are like that! And remember clearly being left to cry as a 5yo which was just awful...worse if you are so tiny i think.
So am a bit biased.

Sympathy to you - I have a 20mo who doesn't sleep either!! (tho he did for the first 6 months!)

Thanks for the afterthought FA27, all opinions are having me in tears today tbh. Funnily enough I'm a flyer too and in a coupla months back to longhaul...we cant have this sleep pattern continuing then, it simply wouldnt work with DP having to work all day while being up all night. I posted about CC out of desperation. I can cope on little slepp but I actiually feel poorly now and although I know there is always some poor sod who has it worse we just cant carry on like this. Plus, DS is knackered....I just want him to learn to resettle himself.

Hi I posted on a dummy dependent thread earlier in the week. We had this problem with DS and at 5.5 months we went cold turkey and did controlled crying. I said on the last thread I'm not sure I would go down this route again even though it worked and worked amazingly. Our DD is 3 months has a dummy and if she developed a problem similar to DS (and your DS) I would try pu/pd first.
If you want to know how we did cc with our DS say and i'll post it. There was really good advice on the other thread from someone who had used a sleep consultant.

aw, flight, I hope I didn't imply that you were being harsh. I do agree that in an ideal world all babies would learn to self-settle in their own time, however long that takes.

But if sleep deprivation is becoming so acute that maternal mental health is placed at risk, then CC is the lesser of two evils, rather than a mother becoming unresponsive to her child's needs through exhaustion or depression.

That's not to say that those who don't use CC aren't suffering too, but we all have to be honest about our own limits.

Only the OP knows if things have reached this point. I know that I did.

Paddington....I agree with you. I'm not an 'advocate' of CC and it's certainly not an easy option. (If this mummy lark has taught me one thing it is never to judge another and we all do things that feel right or seem right at the time). I love my boy so, so so much and want to enjoy every moment with him but right now I'm a mess, and I dread bedtimes cos I know whats to come - so even if he did sleep I wouldnt at the moment. I guess I need to retrain too!!!
Lulu I would be interested in your story as a blanced view is always welcome...and thanks to all the advice.

it sounds like teething to me. have you tried letting him gnaw on your finger when he's grizzling? that's a way to tell.

we tried CC with our then-6 month old and tbh it didn't really work. everyone says oh it's 3 or 4 nights but we've been trying for a month now.

it seemed to work for a while and he would self settle, but then he starts some serious teething, or gets a tummy ache, or a cold, and it's all gone out the window.

i'm just waiting for the solids to kick in - that's the dream at least.

with mine, only my boob calms him down - PUPD, shushing, patting, dummy just make him scream louder.

but there usually does seem to be a reason and sometimes he is only up once in the night. (has never slept through, now 7 months.)

hi ya - my thread about getting rid of the dummy, I was going to keep putting it off til I had decided def on what to do (I really want to avoid CC at all costs, mainly for me, I don't think I could bear it)...we went and lost all our dummies tonight so did PU/PD. In some ways it was horrid because DS does not comfort easily, and at points he was realy upset, but I found it much easier to cope than I normally do when he's crying and no amount of cuddling will soothe him because I was focused on the method (I normally sit there crying wiht him)...he fell asleep within 20mins. Will let you know how the rest of the night goes. The scary thing is now we can't give it back to him otherwise the trauma would have been for nothing

lions i was going to post something similar about being a mum being tough and we only do what we feel is right. So with my DS i just knew the problem was the dummy. He had it to fall asleep at each nap time and bedtime and then whenever he woke during the night. It got to be he would wake every 45 mins sometimes taking 2 hrs to finally resettle. I spent most of my day moaning about his sleep or lack of it. I read loads about sleep/sleep patterns/sleep associations etc etc. and I knew cold turkey was the way we had to go (he didn't feed to sleep anymore and pu/pd would have driven him crazy). So the first night we did his usual bedtime routine and put him in his cot awake. We left the room, he started to cry and after 3 minutes DH went to him, rubbed his tummy, reassured him, then left. Our plan was to do 3 x 3 min intervals, moving onto 3 x 5 min, then 3 x 7 min and so on until he fell asleep. He cried and cried pretty hard for 17 minutes then fell asleep (DH went in 3 times during that period). We went to bed shortly afterwards expecting to have to repeat the procedure through the night, the next we heard from him was 630am. I put him down for a nap 2 hours after he woke and he hummed to himself for 10 mins then slept for 1 hr, same at lunchtime and he slept for 1 hr 30 mins. His afternoon nap was more difficult, he didn't cry but he didn't sleep either so rather than risk him becoming upset in his cot at this time for the next month I took him out in his buggy. The second night he cried but for a few seconds and since then he has hummed himself to sleep every night. It really was the most incredible outcome. I don't know if I would go so far as to call what we did cruel but for that first night it must have been a very unpleasant way to fall asleep for our DS. It wasn't so much the sleep deprivation that got to me but the sound of my own voice moaning to everyone about what an awful sleeper he was, it just didn't seem fair to him anymore.
So if I had any advice (if you've got this far because this is v long - sorry) it would be go cold turkey for night and daytime sleep, pick a method and stick to it, its only fair to be consistent with them and think about things such as early morning waking (when do you start the day) and how long you are aiming for for naps (ie i wouldn't have done cc to extend daytime naps which were only 45 mins before we did cc).
Good luck!

Evening lions - I am a CC advocate.

It's a good option in certain situations
but only if the parents are comfortable with the approach
and know what they are doing.

From what you describe, it would be exactly the right method
and the age is just fine.

Question is: are you and your dh up to it?
And have you done your research?

lulu's post describes the approach very well.
You can tweak it so it fits your needs and
then try it for 3 nights.

CC hasn't really worked for us - have done it by the book and she just cries and cries, and though will fall asleep, it does not improve. I think some babies, some people, do not sleep as well as others, and only time helps. That said - I went cold turkey on her dummy, and it meant that her sleep went from 'atrocious' to 'OK' - I now get blocks of sleep and do not feel dreadful all the time.

No Padders it wasn't your implication, I felt I was probably too harsh initially but had to run and came back later to even it out a bit iykwim.

Thankyou for all your replies. Lulu and Mouseyhair, your posts could be me writing. We both knew the dummy was the prob, exacerbated by our living situation, which will hopefully change soon. I researched CC and all versions of sleep help until the cows came home. In the event last night wasnt too horrendous, no crying at bedtime at all, but he was very tired, a few minutes of moaning an hour later and then a few minutes again at some point in the night, but not even long enough to muster the energy to crawl from the living room to go and give a cuddle. The worse bit so far has been fairly steady crying for 15 minutes prior to nap this morning....we've decided it's not fair to whisk away the dummy only to let him have it in the day....I think that would confuse me!!! This is the only thing I have felt 'cold turkey' was a necessary intervention. His late bedtime/shortish naps are not an issue and as long as he is happy then I am too, but hourly wakings, getting progressively worse were (are) causing upset/exhustion to all of us and I felt the dummy had to go. Scary tho and I appreciate the support.

I'm glad it went well and he wasn't screaming the place down.

It's really difficult, I could never sleep with them in the same room as me - every grunt and snort and I was wide awake!

Hope this is the end of it for you all.

glad it wasn't too awful lions - our 1st night without dummy ended up being ok too, he woke several times in the night but settled himself back to sleep, finally woke to feed at 5:50am (and decided he was up for the day but thankfully played in his cot til 7am)

We've decided it's not fair to take it away at night but give it in the day too - he took his first nap in his buggy as we had to take him to my mum's - though he often even needs the dummy then to sleep. Mum had a really tough time getting him down for a second nap though, awful meltdown apparently (god it breaks my heart when he screams like that) so afternoon nap might be a bit tetsing - and tomorrow we're out for lunch so dreading that a bit

keep posting, good to know someone else is going through it too!

Thanks mousey hair, your previous thread was quite comforting and actually made me face the fact that the dummy was at least partly responsible.Last night was surprisingly ok again but naps are still a little difficult. I can't bear hearing the crying but as everyone keeps telling me he wont remember and at least today I feel almost rested for the first time in a long time!!! We couldnt carry on like that. I had to do something as opposed to being a dark eyed, crying, misery guts. Keep me posted too

we're finding it really tough - PU/PD is working to get him to sleep in the first place but when he wakes at night it takes a good 40mins of crying and PU/PD before he'll settle, and he's still napping for half an hour at a time and fights any attempt of getting him to re settle until he finally gets hungry. Oh, and he's started waking at 6am in a right state every morning and screams til he'll allow himself to be fed at 7...a horrid way to start the day which used to be all about a 7:30am wake up to smiles and giggles

On the plus side, he' sleeping without his dummy, and although still waking in the night, waking far less and also now hapiply goes in buggy and sling wihtout the dummy whereas we'd got into a habit of giving it to him at the slightest hint of public meltdown

Bloody tough though!

Oh god...tell me bout it, am writing for some morale boosting, nights still ok, tho earlier waking, but more settled in general. Naps and buggy not so good, the
tears start as soon as he's tired and its exactly when the dummy would have gone in to send him off. I feel so guilty for giving it to him and then taking it away. The naps are much shorter and always preceded by crying which is so hard. We're cuddling and patting but its hard to know how long to peresevere at nap times before gettng him up again. I dont want him to associate cot with being unhappy....