at the very end of my tether - please tell me controlled crying might help for 7-month-old

[bean612]

DD has been screaming for the last 45 mins. She went to sleep at 7.45, woke up at 8.30 but we managed to shush her back to sleep. This time though she is furious. At the moment she's like this every night - 3 wakings with varying degrees of screaming before we go to bed, then up 2 or 3 (or 4) times in the night, sometimes just grizzling, sometimes screaming. We don't feed her, just give her water, but it's not food she wants. She CAN get herself to sleep as we used to put her down for the night awake and she'd get herself to sleep within 5-15 mins without much problem. But now... I vacillate between sobbing myself and feeling furious and having to leave the room to calm down. I can't take it much longer. Seems to me like CC is the only option left.

My DD1 slept through like an angel from 3 months (bear with me!), but from about 9 months she started waking up between midnight and 2am every night. She was inconsolable, and the only thing that worked for me was taking her to bed. I thought I was starting something I'd regret (rod, back, etc.), but I actually really enjoyed sleeping with her.

Our early days were marred by me being ill for 3 months after her birth, and early sleeping patterns were actually established by grandmas who were helping out. She never slept much during the day, was a very busy baby who didn't want to sit around being held, and at some level I think these night-time cuddles gave us both something we'd missed out on in the early days. Over 6 months, her time of waking gradually got later and later, until it reached the sticky time of 5, when she was ready to get up and go.

DD2 made her sleeping intentions clear to me from the start, and moved straight into my bed. She moved out of my bed at about 6 months, but she was about 15 months before she dropped a night-time feed, so they both ended up in the same place at the same time from very different beginnings.

None of that necessarily has anything to do with your situation, but we found remedies that worked for us by trial and error, and it didn't permanently damage their ability to sleep soundly on their own in the long term.

Reading that back, I'm not sure whether I'm advising you to co-sleep or call in a grandma!

Good luck, and do everything you can to get enough rest yourself.

h dear...well, even if mothers suffer less PND I do wonder where it leaves the babies' likelihood of depression later in life.

I presume the 'research' cited doesn't follow that up, as yet.

I can understand why controlled crying is not an appealing option for many people, but I do believe it has its time and its place, and perhaps for bean that time and place are here and now (now and here?). Yes, babies change over time and eventually she will grow out of this phase. But in the meantime, her mother is exhausted and worn out, and not knowing how many more days/weeks/months of this lie ahead is extremely debilitating. Of course it is awful to hear a baby cry, and not respond immediately, but if CC works then isn't it saving on a whole lot of future crying? Surely an infant who learns to fall asleep on her own and resettle herself will produce less cortisol in the long run, as she'll be less distressed and won't freak out every time she wakes up in the night.

bean, good luck with whatever you decide to do, whether it be CC, co-sleeping, or something else.

The NHS Birth to Five book has a section on sleep. Controlled crying (though they don't actually call it that) is one of the 'suggestions for coping'. See p56.

I understand what you are saying about baby-led methods Starlight. I am BLW, and I breast fed on demand (and often co-slept) for the first six months. But it's very, very difficult to maintain this baby led approach when you rejoin the real world when maternity leave ends.

OK, I'm going to wade in - the question was whether cc might help and yes, bean, I think it might. CC is generally something people try when they feel like they've exhausted all other options, which usually means that what WAS working (bfing / rocking to sleep etc.) isn't working anymore. This is what happened for us at about 7.5 months - I'd been feeding / rocking to sleep until that point. But then I just couldn't get him to fall sleep in my arms anymore, and he has never been able to co-sleep peacefully (and neither have I)... Still, as others say I really. really wouldn't rule out hunger at this stage - when she wakes in the night, that is -, but maybe tackle how she gets to sleep in the first place, which might well have a knock-on effect on night wakings.

I actually found Penelope Leach really helpful on this question. She says that while on the one hand leaving your baby to cry and cry is sending the wrong message (yes, you've been abandoned), the other extreme, ie. always putting your child to sleep, sends a message which might be just as unhelpful in the longterm, though perhaps less distressing in the shortterm (yes, you're right to call for me when you wake in the night, your bed IS a scary place to be, rather than a safe one, etc.). She suggests a compromise - not really a 'method', but a balance between reassuring your baby that you're nearby and making it clear that they do need to go to sleep without you - whatever that entails for you and your particular baby. That made sense to me, and we did our own version of 'cc' mixed with 'gradual retreat'. It was very hard for 2 nights or so, but he's been regularly going to sleep peacefully and sleeping through more or less ever since.

I have no research / evidence etc. to 'back up' my very personal decision and am definitely not up for arguing with anyone! So I'll just wade in and wade out. Good luck bean.

Thank you everyone for messages, advice and support.

Greenmonkies -

"A tired baby will fall asleep, where ever it is, in a pram, in a sling, on your lap in a restaurant, in a highchair, I agree with Starlight that "over tired" is an overused term, they can be over stimulated, but if you settle down some where a quiet and nurse her she will almost certainly fall asleep if she's tired." - This is precisely the problem! When she's really tired DD will NOT fall asleep wherever she is, she will scream and howl and keep herself awake even when she's EXHAUSTED. Not all the time by any means, but often enough. Nursing does help but not always - only yesterday she kept pulling off to look around manically, and it wasn't that she wasn't tired, cos she hadn't slept for nearly 5 hours.

"And I think that babies who "self-settle" only do it because they have been taught to, and this invariably involves being left to cry, being given a dummy or put in a rocking/vibrating swing/chair." - As I've said previously, DD self-settled spontaneously when I put her down awake in her cot one night, and continued to do so for several weeks. She's never had a dummy, or been left to cry, or been put in a rocking chair/swing.

"I used to sit with them on my lap until they were done cluster feeding then, once they were deeply asleep I'd transfer them to the reclining chair thingy, or DP would hold her." - As I've said, putting DD into her cot - or somewhere other than where she'd fallen asleep - once she was deeply asleep only caused problems, because she'd wake up at the end of her first sleep cycle confused and disorientated (at least that is my interpretation and a common one, and to me seems perfectly logical).

So you see, GM, I'm not sure you ARE listening to me, but I am listening to you and despite our difference of opinion I do appreciate you taking the time to respond and to share advice. I know what you're saying and I guess I'm saying that responding by letting her sleep on me every evening and then co-sleeping every night isn't something I want to do. I was going to say "isn't a viable option" but I suppose that's not strictly true, because it is. I just can't face it, and that's the honest truth. I'm hoping to find a middle way between this and textbook CC, and people have come up with some very helpful suggestions. I'm thinking about PUPD and also Penelope Leach's "middle way" (as someone suggested - thanks for that).

Starlight - thank you also for taking the time to advise. But I'm still not sure what you mean about my HV giving dubious advice - how do you know what she said?! On the subject of sleep/CC or anything else? I was very unspecific. But since you mention it, she simply reinforced what I have read all over the place about sleep props and how if a baby is e.g. nursed to sleep on their mother's lap and then surfaces to find herself in her cot with no boob in sight, then it's not a surprise that she looks for it to get back to sleep and is cross when she can't find it. I also think it's a shame growingup left the thread because aggressive words like "crap" were thrown around, and she was made to feel like an idiot simply for trying to help me. If people think she was misguided there were gentler, friendlier ways to say so.

bean where is your dp in this? i handed bedtime over to mine when ds was about 9m and so not so dependent on bf.

Hi fishie, DP, or rather DH, is a bright shining star and since DD was born he has done as close to 50/50 childcare as is possible given he is working full-time. So I can't "introduce" him to try and help solve the problem, unfortunately.

I am not going to add much more, but when a 7 month old baby wakes and finds its self alone it is perfectly normal for her to want to be nursed back off to sleep. Your DD does not have a sleep problem, you have an expectation problem, you are expecting her to do something totally unnatural!!!!

I personally would rather have my baby on my lap and in my bed, sleeping happily, for a few months, than crying in a cot even if it was only for a week or so.

The half-way house for you, as I said earlier, is to make her cot into a sidecar on your bed by taking one side off and wedging/cable tying it to your bed. That way you can lay her in it awake, nurse her off to sleep in her cot and move away from her once she's asleep without having to move her and disturb her. But, she will still cry for you if she wakes and finds her self alone, (even if she is exactly where she was when she fell asleep) because that's what babies do.

Hi - I don't post very much but my DD2 is 7 months this week and I just wanted to say that it is awful when you haven't had sleep and, although some women seem not to mind it, I was nearly demented until she started sleeping through the night, and was the same with my first.

We didn't use CC but they both did it around 5 1/2 months and it was a week after they were given solids both times, so I think our's were hungry (a whole other contentious MNet issue I realise). I know some posters are very against CC but some of the solutions recommended are simply not suitable for everyone (co-sleeping, rocking all night etc etc) and I have to say that, with two under the age of 2, there was no way I could have rocked DD2 all evening having been up since 6 30 with DD1. What is more tear-inducing (having been there mysefl until a few weeks ago) is that these posters always seem to say 'my DD / DS didn't sleep though for 3 years (or similar) so it is perfectly normal', when actually that may just about finish off someone who hasn't slept for 5 months or more.

I suspect people may have more help locally than some of us have, or partners home before 7 30pm in the evening etc so their days are longer (or they are all just superhuman and I am a wimp - not really bothered which -but I just don't think these methods work for everyone!). We used a dummy with DD2 having rocked DD1 in her pram for hours and hours every evening. My only advice is that I think consistency is really important. Once we cracked it with DD1 we would go in and soothe her by rubbing her tummy etc etc but wouldn't pick her up (unless there was onbbviously a serious problem of course). Her bedtime ritual was very fixed and we had a machine that played sleepytime music for her which we then left on all night. It took us ages (til about 3 months)to start to settle her in the evening but she has always been a good sleeper since she slept through at 5 1/2 months. For no 2 we were much quicker to institute bedtime etc and she settled in the evning from early on but she was much more of a night-waker. The music machine didn't do it for her, but the dummy was great. She definitely lost the art of self settling at about 4 months (not at 7pm but when she would wake later) but we found the dummy and some boiled water helped when we knew she wasn't hungry. And rubbing her tummy to let her know we were there. SHe was a windy baby and could scream inconsolably with that for the first three months so I know how horrific listening to a child scream is and had to walk away a couple of times after particularly long bursts,but I think reassuring them with your smell and touch can help as much as holding them, and break that cycle, but it is really hard to do. You can also hire people to come in and help with sleep training. They are not cheap but I would have seriously considered it if we hadn't got some sleep by 6 months.

Not sure if any of that has helped? Hope it gets better soon.

Hi Bean, i'm sorry but i couldn't stay away any longer after reading this thread - i am fairly new to mumsnet (although have been reading it for several months) and i can't BELIEVE how unsupportive and downright evil some of the posters are - its enough to stop me from coming on here anymore.....

You have come here for support because you're totally losing the plot, and some of these posters are so holier-than-thou and clearly 'perfect' mothers - they do nothing but make you and other mums feel like they are inadequate because we don't agree with their opinions. And how DARE they accuse us of getting all our opinions from GF etc - thank you very much but we are well educated people with thoughts and view of our OWN !!!!

I am totally sympathetic to your problem bean. I too have a 7.5 month old terrible sleeper. He slept brilliantly at night for the first few months but we have just had 4 months of night wakings every 45 minutes, and the only way to get him to sleep during the day was for me to cuddle him in a darkened room for 5 hours a day.

Just remember that nobody knows you or your baby (something that these malicious posters would do well to remember. ALL babys are DIFFERENT!!!!!) Your baby is different from these mums that say 'they'll sleep anywhere if tired enough' and 'they don't get overtired' Im sick of hearing it cos i know my baby, and i know he gets overtired, and i know he won't sleep anywhere - GOD knows i've tried. And i also know that when you feel like you can't cope anymore, you need to try something different. And personally i couldn't sleep with my baby, as i am a terrible sleeper myself and wouldn't get a wink of sleep. AND it is important for me and my family that our wee one can fall asleep on his own (he wakes up screaming every 45 mins because he can't sleep without a cuddle) - and that DOES NOT make me a bad mother !!!!

Anyway, i'm not going to tell you what to do, but i'll tell you what we did. In the last few weeks, we now have a happy wee boy who is napping brilliantly during the day and waking up only once or twice a night (and only for a minute or two). We did a very mild form of controlled crying. We put him down sleepy, head stroke, big kiss and left the room. If he cried we went in every 3 minutes and comforted him. First 2 times, we just patted him, stroked his hair, replaced dummy etc for about a minute. Every 3rd time, we picked him up for a cuddle. Repeat until asleep.

We came up with this method ourselves after speaking to lots of mums of non-sleeping babys and reading lots and lots about baby sleep. It was a method that suited us, because i didn't want to leave him to cry for long periods, and i also wanted him to know that we were still here and not abandoning him.

It worked really well for us, first night took about 30-40 minutes, and every night has been less than 10 minutes and mostly no crying at all. I'm not saying this will work for you or anyone else but what i think is important to remember, is do something that you feel comfortable with, stick to it, and don't let ANYONE make you feel guilty about it - you love your baby and will do what is best for them and you. A fraught,upset and exhausted mummy isn't good for anyone, baby included.

Sorry for the rant, hope it helps you bean. and if i've upset anyone, i don't care because they are upsetting me, making people feel useless and inadequate and probably scaring away others too....

DS1 has always been a bad sleeper but is getting better. What has worked for us is a combination of things:

time - he definitely is getting better as he gets older

but - because he is nearly 1 and I was still feeding him at 2.30 am, I have been doing a gentle version of gradual retreat, and most nights he is now sleeping till 4. Occasionally still wakes at 2.30 but I just pat him and stroke him in the cot, no milk. It takes a lot longer to settle him but is worth it as it is contributing to him not waking and crying at this point most nights, and means I can send DP in instead of me occasionally.

We had a long-term plan to do CC but I am feeling reluctant because I am a wuss. But, if bad sleepless nights were persisting after he was 1, I would do it if nothing else worked. You cannot function on no sleep for ever.

I do think the gradual retreat works though, it just takes longer, and it's hard to wait for results when you are exhausted. My sympathy.

Just to add to my post from further up, gradual retreat worked for us too, as a couple of others have mentioned. It WAS less stressful for us, but did take longer than CC is supposed to, which was a bit of a pain in the arse. By that I mean about a week instead of a few days.

We decided on that method after CC had failed to work and just left DS1 vomiting with hysterics (and me a nervous, sobbing wreck). I felt it was a good method because you are still "there for them", but are showing them that there are "rules" about what's expected of them at bedtime, and that other members of the family need you at that time as well.

You will discover a method the whole family is happy with, don't worry, whether it ends up being CC or not.

I hope you find a solution soon.

Can't bellieve how dogmatic people are being, goodness me! We have a rubbish sleeper too, our solution so far has been to part co-sleep but I know it's not for everyone and I would never suggest that someone should do it. I think it's dreadful that you've asked for support and got a lecture! Total bollocks.
We're thinking about tackling our son's poor sleep (after 2 nights of constant feeding have left my nips v sore!) and I've found the info from both sides of the argument very helpful.
Anyway, was just wondering how it's going? Though maybe you're reluctant to say on here after the tirades above...
I don't mean to patronise but would just like to add that doing things to- gasp!- make your life more bearable is hardly selfish. Sleep deprivation is torture and a happy, sane mummy is infinitely preferable to a wired, stressed out one.

At her age if she's drinking from a bottle it's because she wants milk. She is probably in the midst of her HUGE six month growth spurt and maybe teething too. Your little baby is turning into a toddler and going through a phenomenal amount of change in her gross and fine motor skills, her verbal comprehension and in object permanence. How she was last month is gone and never to return.

Before I would do CC, even at the end of my tether I would visit a GP to ensure no ear infections, teeth issues etc. I can imagine nothing more guilt inducing than CC as it is, made so much worse if there really was a good reason.

I'm sure no parent tries CC unless they have no choice and I do hope if you try it it is resolved very quickly.

Could you try giving her a bottle in the cot?

"We did a very mild form of controlled crying. We put him down sleepy, head stroke, big kiss and left the room. If he cried we went in every 3 minutes and comforted him. First 2 times, we just patted him, stroked his hair, replaced dummy etc for about a minute. Every 3rd time, we picked him up for a cuddle. Repeat until asleep.

We came up with this method ourselves after speaking to lots of mums of non-sleeping babys and reading lots and lots about baby sleep. It was a method that suited us, because i didn't want to leave him to cry for long periods, and i also wanted him to know that we were still here and not abandoning him. "

That isn't a 'mild form' of controlled crying, that is controlled crying.

For a baby of this age out of sight is out of existence. Coming back to him every 3 minutes would not reassure him that you were still there during the times when he couldn't see you. It doesn't matter how often you go back in the room or how regularly, when you walk away your baby thinks you are abandoning him, it's as simple as that. He will stop crying when he loses hope and go to sleep when he is exhausted, not because he's happy and self-settling. Don't kid yourself, or give others misleading and false information and encouragement.

bean, I'm coming late to this discussion, but in case you do read this - there are few absolutes when it comes to child-rearing in general, and with babies and their sleep in particular, so nobody has the right to tell you what to do or make you feel terrible because you have reached a decision with which they disagree. We all make our own choices based on a multitude of factors, and the fact that there are so many different opinions on bringing up children means that there is rarely a definitive answer. All any of us can do is offer you advice based on our own experiences and support you at such a difficult time. If you choose CC then that doesn't make you a failure, or a bad person - it just means that you are desperate, because nobody chooses CC as a first or even second resort to deal with a dodgy sleeper. As others have said, it's a good idea to eliminate all other possibilities for your baby's inability to self-settle and sleep through the night (which she should be able to do by 7 months) after managing it for so long, but one thing you haven't mentioned is whether she's sleeping well during the day. Ferber says that babies who don't sleep well during the day don't sleep well at night and vice-versa, so perhaps if you can get her to take two good naps during the day (he says no more than this, I think, for babies of her age, because several small naps have a bad effect on night-time sleep), it might have a good impact on night-time. And it's also easier to start CC during the day when everything seems better than at 3am when it's dark and you've been up for most of the night. I did CC with my eldest son when he was 22 months old; the first three days were horrendous, but on the fourth, he got the message, and we haven't looked back. I just wish I'd done it sooner. What did help was that finally my husband and I both wanted to do it, and on the first day one of my friends came over to give me moral support for the afternoon nap when my son howled for 30 minutes before falling asleep. You said that your daughter has never used a dummy, and I know it's not an ideal habit to get into at seven months, but it might be worth seeing if one can help her settle when she is so distressed. Good luck, bean, and let us know how you are.

ttalloo

"it's a good idea to eliminate all other possibilities for your baby's inability to self-settle and sleep through the night (which she should be able to do by 7 months)"

Really, says who????

Starlight

"Changing YOUR lifestyle and expectations can actually result in a lot more sleep and a lot more sanity. "

Exactly.

You know, GM, I think you've made your point.

Need to go out now but will post properly later. Thank you to all in the meantime who have posted supportively. ttalloo, you've hit the nail on the head re naps, I think...

Hi Bean
I have a DD also 7 months who sounds a little like yours! Without wishing to wade into the CC debate i wanted to share our experiences with you. she sometimes sleeps really well, if she wakes we still feed her (now bottle fed) but sometimes she can be awake during the night for long periods and seems to be very angry about something (I hate giving babies adult emotions but angry best describes it).

She is definetly teething. I don't think it causes too much pain but she does suffer with her ears and I think the excess fluid makes her ears uncomfortable.

She moves arond her cot alot. I think she finds this distressing. She will roll about yawning, rubbing her eyes and banging her head on the cot.

I think both these things disturb her sleep and if she doesn't settle well in the early part of the evening she seems to struggle to stay asleep for much longer than 45 minutes through the night. atm we are just going with it, we go to bed early and share the night wakings. Making bedtime as peaceful as possible helps and we are trying to introduce a comfort item.

fwiw we did CC with our DS but this was to address his dummy dependence and it worked and actually involved very little crying but he was a very different child. DD already self settles but that doesn't seem to have much bearing on her ability to stay asleep!

I suppose I am trying to sympathise, be supportive but actually say unless you know why she is not sleeping cc might be hard for all of you. But there wil be lots of support here for you if you think its the way forward.