Running out of options...Controlled Crying

[Ellie78]

I feel I am constantly up against my son's inability to sleep....Here's another post about me failing to get him to sleep.

Anyway, after a relatively good period where I was able to get him to nap twice a day, I feel we're back at square 1. My only method of getting him to sleep seems to be failing - I think he's getting too big for it (not rocket science either, just shush patting in a swaddle). I can no longer get him in a comfortable enough position for him to get sleepy in. Consequence: one tired and grisly 5 month old baby, one frustrated and teary mum.

I feel at my wits end tbh _ I never wanted to do controlled crying (always been told that it's dangerous/damaging etc) but I don't feel that I have a choice now, particularly as winter is approaching and I cannot countenance spending hours outside pushing him around in the buggy.

We have signed up to sleep training with Millpond, which I'd hoped to start in the new year (as various things happened to make it difficult to commence in November) but tbh I didn't feel I connected with the advisor they gave us and didn't trust her advice, therefore. Seeing as we've already paid (makes me feel the whole thing is a big con really) we kind of have to go down that route or risk feeling complete idiots for giving them the money in the first place.

Argh! Don't even know why I'm posting. Just wanting to vent. ARGH!

[Ellie78]

Argh! Sorry admin - can you move this to family discussion area?!

Brain not working

[Saffron]

Five months old is a little young for controlled crying. Dr Christopher Green, the originator of the modern controlled crying method, only researched this method down to 6 months old.

There should be other techniques that are "gentle" variations on this that would be appropriate, if that's the path you want to take.

If you're not happy with Millpond, just tell them. It's your money. Ask for a different advisor. Ask for other explanations.

Did you contact Nicola Watson on the Forum? I haven't used her, but her sleep seminars are very popular with other Forumites.

Lots of sympathy for you. Little Saff is a rubbish sleeper. CC/CIO was a no go for us for many reasons, mainly b/c it's not recommended for children with nighttime separation anxiety, and also anything that vaguely resembled CC/CIO had hideous knock-on effect on her daytime behaviour. I went back to cosleeping instead.

Hope you find something that works for you. xx

[Ellie78]

Thanks Saffron for the support.

I know it's young isn't it. 'Controlled crying' covers a variety of sins though, I'm always confused about whether something is CC or not.

My son was 4 months when we signed up to Millpond and the advice she gave us was what i would call controlled crying. But she said it wasn't.

I've asked for another advisor so I'll see what happens with that.

I'm just so tired of all of this.

[shaunag]

Hi Ellie

Do you think there is a chance he might be hungry? Sounds odd I know, but my daughter was a terrible sleeper until she hit 8 months and we introduced wheat into her diet. She had been on a restricted diet up until then owing to allergy (so specialist told us to keep her off eggs and wheat as well until 8 months). As soon as she started on wheat she started going to sleep at about 7 vs the usual 10:30 pm. Up until then we had no evenings off and it was totally knackering as never got to 'sleep when baby sleeps'. The only theory we have come up with is that she was just hungry owing to restricted diet. Realise too early for solids, but if bf'ing maybe try a top up bottle (or two or three of formula)? There is a lot of protein and other goodies in formula that are more difficult to digest and keeps little tummies full for longer than breast milk.Weight gain doesn't mean little one isn't still hungry. I might be way off but guess its worth a shot if all else failing? Know how emotional sleeplessness makes me,so can only empathise. This is a tough time but u will come out the other end of it. Best of luck.

[Belle]

I know you feel you've already paid out - b ut if you could get on a seminar with Nicola as mentioned above, th is could be a cost effective way of trying another route. I used her on a one to one basis and she was brilliant, and laid out a full spectrum of techniques - from controlled crying to v v gentle and she advised which was best for our son's age etc. Really helpful. I did do a v gentle sleep training wiht him at 5 months (didn't ever leave him more than 3-4 mins)and it was effective but we had since relapsed and Nic was fantastic at helping us (with a v gentle no cry technique I should add). My son had slept through maybe 3-4 nights in 13 months, and since I had my consultation with Nic he's started sleeping in his own bed (big breakthrough!) and sleeping through most of the time (only doesn't if ill/teething which is fair enough!).

[Strawbs]

I had to do sleep training with my son and it did work, he didn't sleep through properly til 10 months but I did see immediate results as at the time he was waking up every 45 mins. I also did that sleep seminar everyone raves about when he was a few days old and even though I think I'm the only one I didn't find it helpful.

I know you have your own things in the pipeline but I'm very happy to talk you through the sleep training we did. Your baby is still young so the sleep training that is relevant to him whilst it does involve crying you are with him the whole time. X

[Strawbs]

Ps a few of my friends have also used the technique I use after I talked them through it and they also saw results..x

[susyp]

Hi there no advice just to say that you are not in an unusual situation and it's nothing you are doing wrong. I rocked my daughter to sleep in my arms until she was 1 (or pushed her around the streets in the day) and then I lay down with her - that lasted until she was 3 before I could actually leave her to go to sleep by herself. And even now I have to stay with her until she sleeps if she is unwell. The baby period was the most utterly exhausting and demoralising time. But I really don't think it's unusual to have problems getting a 5 month old baby to sleep. I am not sure you need sleep training. I think you just need to give yourself some slack and realise that this will not last forever, one day your baby will be older and will sleep better (and I think my case is quite extreme so it wont be that long!). And yes, I did co-sleeping until she was 2. It was the only way I could get some sleep. It meant when she woke up in the night I could cuddle her and she would go back to sleep. Much easier.

Susypx

[snowboarder]

I remember 5m being quite a hard time for sleep - they have grown out of new baby sleep and are more alert. I rocked/pushed/fed my oldest child to sleep until he was one and then had to do some quite full on sleep training as was going a bit crazy - so I was determined to try and teach my younger child to 'self' settle - for my 2 children this has been the holy grail of all things sleep!

So - I think I've told this story before but it might help - with younger one the one thing I did do from about 3m was start to try to have the first morning nap in bed at home and to get him to go to sleep by himself. He had just started sucking his thumb so I put him in his crib about 2 hrs after he woke up (so knew he was tired), sat just out of the way and stroked his tummy and after a while he went to sleep (not without fussing, but I was sat with him). And I did this every single day again and again so that he had at least one nap at home and self settled. The other naps were usually out and about in buggy for varying lengths. Now this didn't help with the nights straight away but although he woke a lot we co-slept and he went back to sleep fairly easily (or at least would lie quietly feeding). The good thing about getting the morning nap to work like this meant that he seemed to start having a longer nap, and that he then started to do the same for other naps if at home....and when at 7m, when he was eating 3 little meals a day as well as milk and started to only really need 2 naps, we finally relocated him to his own room and I decided to stop feeding to sleep at night - and as a result of napping regime he did know how to get to sleep on his own and things got SO much better from that point onwards. I used to feed him in his room with the light on bright and not let him drift off, then put in cot, turn out light and sit with him in the dark until he fell asleep. Gradually after a couple of weeks I would quickly sneak out...

I know the thought of this not getting better immediately sounds horrendous...but maybe if you work on a few gentle non rock to sleep ideas for naps it might help the nights in the longer term?

[daisylou79]

Hi. It's a comfort to read this thread and know that we are not the only ones!

We are also having terrible troubles getting our little one to sleep - but she is eight month old. She has never slept well and cannot self settle. I feel it's my fault as I've always fed her to sleep but then that started because she had colic in the early days and would scream for hours every evening.

Tonight, we've been trying to get her down since 6.30pm. Neither of us have eaten - we are doing shift work going into to shush her/rock her etc. But as she's very active, she just springs up in the cot crying so we have to start all over again. All the above advice is very helpful. We don't want to do controlled crying. I will look into Nicola Watson's sleep seminars.

Ellie, I hope you get your sleeping problems sorted soon.

[cornelia]

Ah, Ellie78, hugs to you... don't despair, it will get better. My son's sleep was woeful for the first 10 months - though I decided not to prioritise it because my priority was trying to get him to put on some weight, and so when he woke up in the night I was happy to have an excuse to feed him.

The thing that worked for me was to remember is that a baby will go through stages where different things concern him. And he's still learning about the world. He doesn't know what century he's living in and whether it's safe to be sleeping all by himself. Sometimes other things will distract him, and so there won't be a problem - at other times he'll need reassurance and just to know that if he needs you, you are there. We were lucky in that sleep associations didn't seem to be a feature - sometimes he slept in the sling, sometimes in the pram, at night I generally fed him to sleep, hardly ever did he 'just fall asleep by himself in the cot'. He just grew into sleeping through gradually.

One thing we found really useful (think we started at 7 months) was a bedtime routine. Timings varied, but the pattern was always the same. Dinner, bath, story, feed, bedtime (still the same now, though without the feed) - I think the technical term is 'positive routines with faded bedtime'. According to some research I read when I was sleep deprived (Google knows where) it is as effective in studies as cry-it-out etc. So there you are - science! :)

Obviously all babies are different... hang in there, you will find something that works!

[Ellie78]

Thanks everyone for all your support and suggestions - it's good to know I'm not alone. I love the EDF.

Daisylou - how did it go in the end?

It's incredible really - one minute, his sleep's fine; the next minute, it's awful, the pits, rock bottom. I thought babies went through stages of things, rather than up and down. oh well.

Weirdly, I actually feel worse when I've had a stretch of sleep. I was up 4 hours last night and I feel more like myself again. I've obviously become used to the sleep deprived me.

We're doing a routine, but I think he's getting more aware of it now so we really need to mark each stage better with him.

He is adorable though. Absolutely adorable. He's not just a sleep avoiding maniac, though my posts on the EDF suggest otherwise.

[Fuschia]

Google 4 month sleep regression ... You are probably at a low point caused by rapid brain development x

[sbarry]

If he's 5m, he could be starting to teethe (6m is average for first tooth appearing i think, and it's growing below the surface for quite some time) so maybe he's not settling as well as before because of this. A dentist friend once described to me how the pain of teething feels (basically a horrible horrible headache/toothache) so if there is anything at all going on in his little jaws it will disturb him.

He could also, as others have said, be hungry. He's almost at the weaning stage and I know lots of people who started their babies on solids at 4-5 months.

Thinking back, my checklist was pain?/overtired?/hungry? and most problems fell into one or other category. Additionally, i think they sense when mummy is having a hard time(which is quite often!), so if there is any way at all you can organise some cover to allow you to catch up on sleep, it might really help.

Good Luck!

[rougepamplemousse]

My little one is 19 m now and I did the controlled crying when she was 3 months.

I was really desperate and I did lots of research and there are two things you have to keep in mind: the baby has enough food during the day and that you don't use anything that the baby can associate with going to sleep.

I give my daughter more food during the day - so more often -

I never put her to sleep while breastfeeding or with a bottle, I used the E.A.S.Y formula - eat, activity, sleep, you time.

I must admit it took about 3 weeks and writing down times, quantities etc, a bit of a military operation... but it paid off.

At 4 months we went of holiday and she was sleeping from 7.30 pm to 7.30 am with only a dream feed at 11pm

She now sleeps for 12h every night and only wakes up when she has a cold/coughing etc

I don't often give advice about this as I know people have different views about the whole controlled crying thing but it worked for me whatever you choose, have a clear plan and stick to it, it is not easy and you have to be very strong.

Good luck!

[Charlotte W]

Have you tried baby massage? If not, you might like to check out this self-help video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIHNzOQynmQ. Although, Johnson baby products are promoted in this video you do not need to buy them. Whatever you use on your baby's skin should be ok.

[esme]

You have my sympathy, my son was 18 months before he slept through and when I went back to work (8 mnths) most days felt like a zombie having woken 3-4 times through the night and willed my boss not to speak to me for fear of saying something stoopid!