Some of you may have read other threads of mine and will know my DS is not such a great sleeper. We have patches of good nights but rarely do we make it through a whole night without being resettled in mummys arms or bed. To begin with it wasn;t a problem for me but now i am back at work three days a week and he is almost one and i am scared of forming "bad" habits not to mention exhausted.
So thinking i was being proactive and responsible i contact our local sleep settling clinic for some help and maybe a day stay or home visit. my MCH nurse has suggested way too many times to let him cry it out but i just can't and honestly i thought there would be more options. BUT apparantly not basically thats all they told me they do i feel so let down i could just cry and cry. I rang for help and some options that didn't involve letting my little man cry his heart out.
I don't want to let my baby scream to sleep but i am not functioning after being up so many times during the night I am petrified of falling asleep on the way home while im driving.
Has anyone had success with controlled crying and how did you get over the guilt or has anyone got other ideas or methods that work.
this thread is not for judging what others do or don't do but i genuinely want to hear all ideas please post what you have done for your children.
Oh Hugs hun... its aweful isnt it... I'm sure there are many mums on here that sympathise with you...
Have u tried a sling to help settle him down???
I did controlled crying with my DD... every sleep school recommended it and i was sick of trying and failing... Its very hard to hear ur baby crying. Our problem was feeding to sleep. DD depended on it. when we started i cried while she did... It broke my heart. i used to get the routone started by dinner, bath, massage dressed, story cuddle feed and into cot. same every night. i would put her down put on her music not look at her not talk and walk out. i would then be so sad i would have to check the mail or bring washing in or something to get away for those 1st 2 mins...
If u dont want to do controlled crying i'm sure there will be plenty of people here to give u ideas... But i found once DD learnt to fall asleep by herself things started getting easier.
I'm sorry Kimmy, i don't have any advice, just wanted to come and give you a My little man was born on the same day as yours...and he is still waking twice a night, I just give him a quick comfort feed on the boob and he goes back to sleep. BUT I don't have to go to work like you do, you must be very tired.
You poor thing. It is so draining not getting a proper nights sleep AND having to work on top of that (I can only imagine how hard that is, it's hard enough staying at home).
I only let him cry it out when he is past it. For me that means he is not happy being cuddled and I can't cope with the screaming/crying anymore. So I pop him into the cot ( and usually close the door) and give him and me a chance to calm down (I know it is supposed to be even more stressful crying but when he is crying either way what difference does it make) and he usually falls asleep in 2 or 3 minutes (this is usually only during the day tho)
Are you feeding him when he wakes overnight? I found that I had to go back to feedng Flynn overnight when he was between 10 and 11 mths. He would just not resettle otherwise.
I don't really know what else to suggest. Have you tried or is co sleeping an option? I got to the point where if he woke more than once overnight I would just bring him into bed with us. I find it much less draining to comfort etc when I'm lying down.
We still use a dummy and generally if he wakes overnight he just needs his dummy put back in and he is straight back to sleep.
Personally I have never done CC overnight, usually if he is really unsettled DH deals with him (he has the knack...seriously he's amazing!) I think it would be too stressful.
Hope you have a breakthrough soon.
KimmyF - not sure if it will help you but we found our DD had food intolerances. We had our GP put DD at 6mths on phenergun to sedate her which I refused to do, it wasn't until she was 15mth when a friend suggested we do an elimination diet. Her sleeping improved dramatically within 3-5days
Before
bedtime routine
Dinner, bath, bottle/BF, story, rocking
She would be very hard to settle, she seemed hypo and her arms and legs were always moving.
DD would wake 15-20 min later and then every 5-15min until midnight when she would sleep for about 2-3hrs wake again BF, sleep for 2-3 hrs wake for BF and this would continue until she was awake around 8-9am
She would nap for 20-40 mins 2-3 times a day it was draining and I was at my wits end.
Now on a salcilyate free diet she sleeps from 7:30 until 2-4am when she might wake or 60-70% of the time she sleeps through until 6:30
Check out the website fedup for more info on food intollerances. Not sure if it relates to your situation but it made a huge difference to us, I had no idea food could effect sleep so much.
I do modified CC, I call it "whinge it out" rather than cry it out. I let DS whinge and carry on like a pork chop when I think its necessary, but if he gets into serious crying or what I call a "state" then I get him up, calm him down and we try again. My reasoning behind this is that once he crosses a certain line, even if he did fall asleep, he hasn't actually learned to settle himself. He's only worn himself out from bawling and/or given up, neither of which really get you anywhere. But as long as he's just whinging or mildly crying, I will let him go if its a habit I really need to break (like waking at midnight for no real reason, grr). Only you can know where the line is for you and your LO- what constitutes whinging and what constitutes serious crying.
This method has worked for us so far, although it may well not work for everyone or work for us forever- I dread the day when Peter realises all he has to do is really cry in order for him to get up!
If you are looking for different methods, Elizabeth Pantly's "No Cry Sleep Solution" is supposed to be awesome.
[QUOTE=amberj;1747608]I do modified CC, I call it "whinge it out" rather than cry it out. I let DS whinge and carry on like a pork chop when I think its necessary, but if he gets into serious crying or what I call a "state" then I get him up, calm him down and we try again. My reasoning behind this is that once he crosses a certain line, even if he did fall asleep, he hasn't actually learned to settle himself. He's only worn himself out from bawling and/or given up, neither of which really get you anywhere. But as long as he's just whinging or mildly crying, I will let him go if its a habit I really need to break (like waking at midnight for no real reason, grr). Only you can know where the line is for you and your LO- what constitutes whinging and what constitutes serious crying.
QUOTE]
I do a similat thing.
Once she starts to cross that line, i go in not make eye contact, put her back in the right position in her her bed standing there for about 30 sec touching her then walk out of the room. Through the whole process i don't talk to her. It takes some perserverance (sp?)and i could be up 4 or 5 times in a space of 15 mins but over time she is learning that we are still here, and everything is ok and she can go back to sleep.
I also leave a bottle of water in her cot with her. Sometimes she just finds that has some the drink and goes back to sleep without us going in. Shes just thirsty not actually hungry.
I'm working 3 days a week also, and while i'm finding this a little draining at the moment, its working so hopefully in another week or so she'll be sleeping longer
I am also in the amberj and jennjorja camp and I would have written advice for you pretty much word for word.
As much as I believe in gentle parenting, my attempts to be fully gentle with our sleep settling began to turn into a really nightmarish situation over the course of a few months. I found that the more I settled with cuddles, bf, rocking etc the more DD became dependent on it to the detriment of both of our sleep. DD ended up waking more and more needing me to resettle.I know what you mean by saying "To begin with it wasn't a problem for me but now..." as this is exactly how I felt too. Like you, I don't believe in CC but I got to the point of needing to try anything as I was absolutely losing my sanity. (And I didn't even have to go back to work). I was lucky in that the sleep school I attended were not necessarily CC advocates so I really benefited from their advice.
I really try to pay attention to the different types of crying. AmberJ and Jennjorja describe it well as winging vs crying. Like those lovely ladies, I keep going in to settle my DD when she is upset to let her know I am there, can hear her, understand her needs but that she still needs to go to sleep. I make our exchanges very simple, non-stimulating events and simple re-establish that she should lie down and go to sleep. I use a cue word, "shhh, sleepy time my girl" and just go in as often as needed. If she gets too upset, I will sit in the room with her. This really worked for me and I went from a really terrible sleep pattern to a real solution. These days, if she is unsettled (Often due to teething) I can use the sleep cue and one or two settles and she gets the drift really quickly.
The biggest bit of advice I would offer though is consistency. When we made an effort to sort out DDs sleep, I had to commit to a week of pretty rough nights. I was really solid in the decision to fix this up, was as calm as I could possibly be and kept the knowledge that when we sorted this out it would all be easier. I would get out of bed when she woke in the night, put the kettle on to make myself comfortable, the internet or tv on to distract me and just focused on calmly resettling DD. This way I was not slipping back into bed between settles and gnashing my teeth every time she stirred. I just kept up the pattern.
walk in saying shhhh, sleepy time my girl
place DD back down in her cot with comfort blanket
no eye contact but continuing to say sleep cue quietly
pat on back for a sec
walk straight out again
repeat every few minutes or when she got worked up
With the tea and net I coped more easily.
It did take a few nights... but... even in the first night I saw signs that she 'got' what was going on. By the third night we were going really well.
Everyone's situations are a little different but I hope that you can find something that helps here. If you have any more questions please let me know.... I remember how bad it can be with sleep deprivation at this age so I hope I can help.
All I want to say is that I am SOOOO on the whinge it out-train, you have no idea. I'm kicking myself for not doing this to dd.
Hun do this NOW, while she is small, in a cot and can't get out of bed. I am currently suffering my butt off with a 2 year old that don't go to sleep on her own, needs her dad (or mom) to lay next to her to get her to sleep (she even had us both in bed with her last night, granted she is sick, but I saw the worst in it) and she still gets up in the night to come and get into bed with us. We don't mind the co-sleeping, but I would LOVE for her to be able to go to sleep on her own (no tanties, crying and yelling) and STAY in her bed till morning. *sigh*
So hun, if you need to do a bit of controlled controlled crying, do it NOW. It does not get better, it gets worse. It does not make you a bad mother!!!
Feeling let down :(
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My little man was born on the same day as yours...and he is still waking twice a night, I just give him a quick comfort feed on the boob and he goes back to sleep. BUT I don't have to go to work like you do, you must be very tired. 
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