Dr Christopher Greens Crying Techniqus Its not working

[Louise1970]

I should write my own colum on this mumsnet. I am always asking for all your help. Here goes again. I have the aboves book and many others. I have a very strong minded, very loud, determind 19 month old son. From only a few weeks old alot of neighbours and friends and midwives, hv and docs have said i would have my hands full with him. He requires a lot of attention, demanding and hard work. I am sure a lot of children are but believe my i have an enormous amount of friends with children and babies that i have been around for years and babysat etc and i have never seen anything like it. The sleeping/crying technique is not working as all he wants is me. I have left him for 5 mins and gone in to him and then increased this until we are at 3-4 hours per night for 3-4 weeks. This has now gone on for so long i am now well past the getting upset stage, i just want to be more successful at this before he gets to the age of 10 and i am still trying it. (he! he!) All i have noticed is that he is even more clingy, is even louder during the day, really stroppy and moans like hell and still keeps waking in the night. I have been told that he thinks i am abandening him. So what else can i do.

Hmm, saw the babywhisperer (RIP) crack this on tv once by sending the mum off to stay with her dad for two nights, and leaving the dad and granny to break the I need my mummy cycle....and get the child to sleep, they then brought back in mum and let mum and dad deal with it, was cracked in a week! (but that could have been luck) Good Luck

is it controlled crying you are using? If it is, with some babies this can lead to them becoming clingy as they do fear that you have abandoned them (it works for some babies, but not them all).

I have always used the babywhisperer methods for sleep issues and this is what she would probably suggest (if she was still with us!!):

you need to rebuild your lo's trust that you are going to be there for him - if necessary sleep in the room with your lo (on a mattress/blow up bed)for a few nights/a week to reassure him that you are there when he wakes. You can progressively move it further from the cot/bed. Alternatively sit in a chair in the room and move it further from the cot over a period of a week or two. Whenever your lo cries/stands up, lay him back down again and say 'its time to go to sleep'. You may need to do a lot of lying downs but he should eventually go to sleep by himself - the important thing is not to leave the room during this time as you are trying to build up his trust again.

Also, during the day, try to be more attentive to him and get him involved in play with you. You can then get him used to you going away for short periods of time e.g. a couple of minutes at a time which you can then increase gradually (a trip to the loo, get something from the kitchen, etc etc).

well, thats my thoughts anyway, hope there is something you can use. take care, Seona

Sorry to gategrash here, but what's all this RIP babywhisperer etc?? Is she dead???

Many thanks, Frizbe for your message. This is the 3rd time i have let mum and partner take over. It works for about 1-2 months. Then it goes back to the same again.
Seona1973, i thought about trying the sleeping by the bed technique but i thought that maybe he then would be even clingier and not let me out of his site at all. I did do the chair tech but he would never let me do the last stage of standing outside/behind the door. I have even thought about hiring a supernanny to help me. But i have rung every agency on earth and they say that they do not exist. i Just need him assessed at home, whilst it is going on....

Have you tried "the Fussy Baby" by Dr Sears - a totally different approach to what you have been accustomed too I would have thought.

Pupuce, can you let me have an insite, thanks........

Sears is a peadiatrician in the US, well known for his pro-attachment parenting.
He has 6 kids himself and one of them was very demanding... he wrote the book based on her. He was quite surprise that nothing worked with her (and I think she was his 4th so they kind of thought they'd know how to deal with her)... anyway he won't suggest control crying at all....

cheekygirl, she died last November of cancer. Her last book came out not long after she died but a lot of her info is really useful.

Pupuce, so what does he suggest...

Sorry can't remember tonight, can look at the book ASAP and let you know. And anyway it's not something I can summarise in a paragraph. I am sure you can get his book at the library. I bought my copy from Amazon.

i will look into it, thanks

He has a website too if you want to get more info on his techniques too. It is here

Many thanks Seona1973. (Work in progress)

Hey Louise, my DS sounds a bit like yours...he is 18 months & full on - always has been. Anyway...I have 2 bits of advice - not for day time..

1. I was at my wits end with the clingy-ness & all-he-wants-is-mum, until a child education expert friend of mine just told me to chill out & LET him be clingy. She said it was really normal & to just go with it, pick him up alot, cuddle etc. It seemed like strange advice at the time, but somehow things changed after that...!
2. Homepath!! I was sceptical, but homeopathic treatments really helped.

As for nite time, what time does he go to bed? How often is he getting up etc? We have to be really strict with DS as otherwise he would be a nightmare! He has pretty ridgid naps (in cot) & structured bedtime. It took a while to get there, but with hard work it WILL pay off! I'm not sure exactly at what stage you are at - is he waking every 3-4 hours? Couldn't quite work it out.

Hope I can help a bit!?

hiya sonnysmum. He never slept during the day until he was 1 years old, then only since in the car in the mornings for an hour. From the day he was born his bed time has always been 7pm. 6pm if he is ill. At night he was so clingy he would only ever let me put him to bed and i had to be in the room until he fell asleep. If not he was up all night every 15 mins screaming and during the day he would also be sreaming and clingy. We tried many times for weeks to get someone else to put him to bed but his screaming day and night got worst and tantrums and clingingness too. I now go for a few weeks where i can leave the room at night when he is fully awake and he lets me go downstairs, without so much clingyness and screaming at nght and in the day. But then i don't know what happens one day it just changes back to the old days for about 2-3 weeks and i can't leave his side again. I have been monitoring myself to see if i or there are any circumstance that change but there isn't.

I really feel for you as my ds is almost exactly the same. All my friends had lovely babies and they actually pitied me for the constant attachment and screams when I left the room for a moment. Controlled crying also didn't work but this did for us (thank you babywhisperer!!):
Put the baby down and stroke him/pat him whatever and talk very quietly - good boy, time to sleep, mummy's here etc. until he is quiet. Then leave the room. As soon as he starts whimpering go back in and do the same again. Keep doing it until he goes to sleep. Do it every time he wakes up.
Ds wouldn't go to sleep, wouldn't sleep through and was then waking from 4am onwards and I was at my wits end so I tried this. The first night it took 45 minutes to get him to sleep. the second night we had 15 minutes of screaming and the next night he settled very quickly. Very occasionally I have to do this again now (DS is now 16 months) but this 'never leaving them' technique really worked.
I wish you the very best of luck and although I hated it when people said this to me - it is only a phase.
Just a thought -does he go to nursery/a childminder at all. It was really tough when mine did but he has been so much less clingy since he started nursery at 10 months.

DS has been a terrrible sleeper for most of his little life (he's 22 months). He still gets up once at night but that is sooo much better than every 2 hours we put up with it. One thing that helped was saying a little prayer for bedtime, along with 1)establishing bedtime routine and 2)controlled crying (said I'd never do it and after 10 months that went out the window!)
Here is the one we use:
Now I lay me down to bed
Great Spirit bless my sleepy head
Mother Earth and Father Sky
Watch over me here where I lie.

When he wakes in the middle of the night and has trouble going back down we say it again and it generally does the trick. He just calms down and lays his head down.

I think controlled crying works, but I don't think all babies are ready fro this particular technique at 19 months. with ds2 it was a year when it worked OK, ds3 did it at about your childs age but with ds1 it was nearer 3 before he would go.

I don't know the baby whisperer method myself but it sounds sensible that it is based on trust, I would try this, as your little one is just not ready for controlled crying.

I would say this though: having three and having worked very long and demanding hours through the first two's toddlerhoods, i feel very lucky that ds3 IS the clingiest- I reckon it shows how much he has bonded to ME! Not dh or my Mum, but ME!! And hurrah for that!