Controlled Crying: For and Against

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DH and I are considering whether to try CC soon. DD is almost 6 months and too big for her crib. We have been co-sleeping for about a month but are planning to buy her a cot and move her into her own room soon, as we really want our bed/space back.

She will only settle if I get into bed with her and hold her hands, put in her dummy (repeating ad infinitum every time she spits it out or pulls it out, hence the hand-holding) and lie with her until she is sleeping. Naps in the day involve either the same, or holding and cuddling to sleep. She is still having one breastfeed at about 3am, but she wakes up several times a night and cannot settle herself down again, which is why we wonder if CC would work.

But we are open to other techniques as we haven't really tried anything yet, we have been waiting until we feel that she is old enough to move into her own cot/room. And we don't know whether it would work with the dummy, or whether we should combine it with getting rid altogether - she sucks her thumb when it falls out sometimes, so guess this would replace it.

We are list people, so I am trying to put together something which will help us weigh up whether CC is right for us - I am posting here for help/support/advice and any pros and cons I have not considered. TIA! x

For:
It seems to work!
I know that she has not been allowed to develop self-soothing skills, been too quick to step in etc.
Know when she is overtired as opposed to hungry, needs changing etc.
We are about to move her into her own room

Against:
Will it have any long-lasting emotional damage on her?
Is 6 months too young?
Can it be done if she still needs a night feed?
I am a bit scared - the prospect of leaving her crying for 15 minutes is dreadful, will a few nights trauma be worth it?
Is there something less hardcore we could try first?

my ds was exclusively bf and in our room for 7months so everything we tried up until he dropped the night feeds made things a lot worse. i cut the night feeds down gradually, increasing daytime food and used a dummy so he was still half asleep and had 10sec bf then dummy and go back to sleep - eventually he dropped night feeds then we moved him to his own room and did sleep training.

wasn't quite cc cause we didn't time anything but the main aim was to get him to settle himself to sleep by himself. he has a dummy and muslin to cuddle - think that really helps cause the minute those are in place he knows it's time for a sleep.

we worked up to it gradually cause he was in our room/bed and getting lots of cuddles to sleep so didn't want to suddenly make him go to sleep and sleep all by himself. i read elizabeth pantley's no cry sleep solution which was really good and helped drop night feeds.

we had 40mins screaming/crying at almost all nap and bed times to start with! you have to do exactly the same at nap times and bed time so baby knows exactly what to expect every time.

took about 4 weeks to say it properly worked but then he got a temperature - back to square 1, then i got a bit soft and let him nap on me on the sofa - back to square 1.

i found the 40mins of screaming v.traumatic but we had tried everything else and believe he was old enough at 7 1/2 months, and now he wakes up chatting to himself and much happier cause he's slept better. i started off sitting with him for reassurance then just put him down and left him to settle himself, going back in to give back dummy/muslin if he got too worked up.

You might like to read this.
It's not something I personally would be prepared to try.

I think it can work but I would say 6 mo is too young. We tried it with DS1 at 15 mo (he was a dreadful sleeper) and it worked really quickly. I think at 6 mo you'd have to be doing it repeatedly as they are growing and changing so much in that first year.

Other options: baby whisperer, the No Cry Sleep Solution (E Pantley). The NCSS is more a variety of techniques to try.

I would find it too heartbreaking to leave my LO crying for 15 minutes alone. I have just used pu/pd from the Baby Whisperer to encourage my son to settle for sleeps without the dummy and it has worked. Basically I comforted him when he was crying and as soon as he calmed I put him in his crib and continued pu/pd until he was completely calm and fell asleep. I think it's a more gentle way for parents and babies.

Also I should add that he is 5 and a half months old and the dummy was affecting the quality of his sleep as every time it fell out he would wake and wouldn't settle agin until it was back in. Although the dummy was great in the first 3 months.

No evidence to suggest it works. Babies move through many different phases and some begin to sleep through with cc at this age, and some begin to without cc, - so althought the cc parents claim it is their 'hard work' there is really no evidence.

Your 'fors' are based on assumptions.

'It seems to work!' Doesn't mean it will, and you need to think about what you mean by 'work'.

'I know that she has not been allowed to develop self-soothing skills, been too quick to step in etc.'

What are self-soothing skills? Does she need to 'develop' them? Did she neve manage to fall asleep in the womb? Do you imagine her not being able to sleep on her own when she is 35 if you keep going at the same rate etc etc.?

'Know when she is overtired as opposed to hungry, needs changing etc.'

What does 'overtired' mean? Can a baby really be overtired, or are you interpretting what you 'think' a baby's sleep and general needs are?

'We are about to move her into her own room'

Not sure why this is a for. Moving into her own room is not synonomous with CC.

You can probably guess that I am not in the 'for' camp, but whatever you choose to do, think about these assumptions first.

hth

Um, I don't know if this helps but I seem to have had some 'success' - in scare-quotes just because, as others have said, with babies things are constantly changing all the time - not with CC, but with sitting with my ds (7 months) and soothing him by stroking and shhing until he fell asleep in his cot by himself (ie. not at the breast, being rocked, with a dummy etc). It's only been a couple of nights, but he's since slept through and gone to sleep really peacefully (after lots of tears the first night). The reason I decided to do it was because I felt I needed to be consistent - I mean I thought it would be a good idea for the same thing to happen each time he went to bed and to sleep, so that he felt secure, knew what was happening and was going to happen, and could begin to think of his cot as a safe calm place to be, rather than a place you get plonked AFTER being in a safe calm place (in my arms for example), and that what had been a comfort when falling asleep wasn't going to disappear half way through the night (a dummy falling out). To my mind that made sense - which is why I was able to see it through. As others have said I think you really need to believe in what you're doing and more importantly why you're doing it. Things change all the time with babies, but new ways of doing things can become part of everyday life very quickly - whether that's having your baby sleep in their own room or whatever.

For what it's worth, I actually doubt whether being left to cry for 15 mins over a few nights causes lasting damage, but I do think it's a pretty rubbish way of learning that it's OK to go to sleep on your own.

Good luck!

Thanks all, I am finding your answers really helpful. I am definitely not going to try CC - agree with the majority of you that there are lots of other, less traumatic things I can do first, and that it's probably too soon and she's too little.

I used cc on my dd at 15 months and it definitely worked! After 15 months of interrupted sleep she started sleeping through reliably for the first time ever, it was amazing! I'd held off that long because I really didn't like the idea of cc. But in the end something had to give. I know several people who have used cc at different stages with success (but one mum for who it didn't work also). Now I think if I have a second then I'd get on with the sleep training a lot earlier. I reckon leaving it so late with my dd made it harder because she was so conditioned to having us with her when she fell asleep. Maybe try something a little less hardcore first like pu/pd. But if it didn't work then I wouldn't have such qualms about using cc.

It's not nice, the most stressful part of motherhood for me so far! But it was definitely worth it to have a well-rested dd and mummy. You might have to do it a few times again after illness or travelling, but after the first time they tend to get back into the swing again more quickly with less distress. Good luck with your decision!

We did pick up put down from the baby whisperer when our DD was 5 months.

We had a simliar problem as you - DD would only sleep if rocked to sleep with white noise. Once she outgrew her swinging crib and had to go into her cot we had to do something.

If you want to try it it's in one of the baby whisperer books (solves all your problems I think it's called).

Personally, I couldn't ever do controlled crying, but pick up put down was manageable (for us) because we were able to comfort her.

Of course plenty of people will tell you that there is no such thing as self-soothing. Whether you agree with that is a matter of opinion. All I can say is that DD has slept through from 6 months old, and that hasn't been disrupted even by her two new teeth.

I do CC with my ds1. I started with him when he was under 6 months. For me, 15 mins is a bit long, so I do it by the minute, I put him down and leave the room, he cries,I go in after a minute, settle him and then leave, he cries and I go back after 2 minutes, settle him and then leave, he cries and i go back after 3 minutes and so on. I have never needed to leave him longer than 8 minutes.
I also find tht it works brilliantly and only takes about 3 days here, and because I go in more frequently than CC states, it makes me feel a bit better about the emotional effects, although whatever studies and research show, I don't believe that if a person grows up with emotional problems it's because their mum left them to cry for 10 minutes.......I'm just not convinced....

The only con I find is that, whenever something happens, i.e. teething, when they get unwell, if you go on holiday etc, you have to do it again. My ds1 is now 20 months old and after he's been poorly and I've sat with him for even just 2 nights, I have to do CC again, or when he's been teething. I am not against CC (obviously) but I'm not sure if I'll do it with ds2

Have to say 'pick up put down' completely confused my dd, and I thought the Baby Whisperer was bonkers.

Starlight, I respect your argument but for me and many others it seems a startling coincidence that cc worked within days of starting it, especially if said child hasn't slept through the night before.

Why did it confuse you Bolter? It's fairly straightforward if you follow it correctly.

I didn't follow anything else she said though, none of the routine stuff, just the sleep training.

Oh, sorry Bolter, just re-read it and it confused your DD.

I'd still recommend it over CC for anyone with an against list that reads like this:

Will it have any long-lasting emotional damage on her?
Is 6 months too young?
Can it be done if she still needs a night feed?
I am a bit scared - the prospect of leaving her crying for 15 minutes is dreadful, will a few nights trauma be worth it?
Is there something less hardcore we could try first?

It didn't confuse me! It confused my dd - she seemed to wonder what the helI I was doing picking her up only to put her back down again - it caused louder screaming and more agitation!

Oh, in response to Starlight's query:

'Did she never manage to fall asleep in the womb?'

Yep, my DD must have been lulled to sleep in the womb by the motion and the noise - which is why she needed that to get so sleep when she was born. It's not a sound and motion vacuum in there.

Oh sorry, x-posts

Yes I agree, try other methods first, but cc did work (ultimately) for us.

x post bolter.

Boolean, I'm no expert but I'd say wait just a little longer and your DD may surprise you.

My DD is only a little older than yours but she has made amazing progress with sleep in the last couple of weeks. She never slept for more than 3 hours at a time before 6 months old but now regularly manages stretches of 5, 6 or even 7 (!!) hours. I think it's a combination of feeding more during the day now we are weaning and her being able to move into a more comfortable position on her own (she likes to be on her front and we never put her down like that). She still wakes at least once a night but things are SO much better than they were.

Please help me understand all this "jargen" im a first time grandmother andall this talk is new to me...my son and daughter in law and me..are having major sleep problems with our 1 yr old..like some of the above we can only get him asleep if we cradle him and as soon as we put him in his cot he wakes screaming ..and ends up in our beds!. My son even has to sleep on the couch sometimes as he gets kicked in the back so much he cannot get to sleep himself! We not sure how long you should leave a baby to cry and is that the best way forward?

It sounds like your grandson is quite unsettled and you'll probably have to gradually help him learn to settle to sleep on his own. You need to get to the bottom of his habits/sleep associations/actual insecurities that are making him panic when left alone.

The book recommended above "the no cry sleep solution" by Elizabeth Pantley is probably worth getting - I'm sure a few £ on Amazon is a small price to pay for the chance of a good night's sleep.

Good luck!

Hi KingRolo, thanks for that - here's hoping. We have been weaning for a few weeks but will step it up now that she's 6mo, so could be in for some interesting times!

Fingers crossed for you boolean - let us know how you get on.

I'm for, within reason. I would not leave him for longer than 5 minutes and always go to him if he cries during the night (but it's only ever to put dummy in and leave), but I have done it twice when he was not going to sleep at bedtime, both times fast asleep before the 2nd 5 mins was up. However, my DS is a very good sleeper so it's not a case of sleep training him, more just the odd occasion that he doesn't go off by himself. I know that's not the same as a baby who wakes often or just won't go to sleep alone.