Gentle Self-settling: on the right track?

[Clarrie]

IK - it's funny, because I'm kind of stuck between the two parenting camps. I started out feeding on demand, but it just wasn't working out for us. Bonnie is quite a, umm, "spirited" baby and if I didn't get her cues right, she'd get hysterical. For example, she makes her booby face when she's tired, bored, has wind, or is hungry.

Until recently, I'd offer her the breast (I'd breastfeed her all day if she let me) but if she wasn't hungry she'd feed for a bit and then pull off screaming, and she'd end up more distressed than before. I felt like a failure because I couldn't read her cues properly - so then I did try a bit of a feeding schedule for her, just to help me work out what it was that she needed. It's working for us, it really is - and it isn't the path I would have chosen to go down (since I am a total hippy in real life) but she really is a happier baby for it.

For the record, by "schedule" - if she really is hungry, I'm not going to keep her waiting on anything. But she rarely is hungry, more often than not, she's tired/overstimulated - and I wish the boobs could help her out when she's tired, but they don't (except during our nightfeeds).

However, the pressure to self-settle is massive - the horror stories that we're told by the early childhood nurses - "45 minute sleep cycles once the baby hits 6 months, so if they can't self settle you'll be up every hour throughout the night", "babies who catnap during the day will never be able to sleep properly at night", "you're spoiling her if you go to her every time she cries" etc etc. When the CIO method was suggested, I was sleep deprived, and Bonnie's temper was wearing thin on my nerves, and BabyLove said it was OK....

[Smoke Jaguar]

Well, for the record, Oscar hardly ever completes a 45 min sleep during the day and we have a great sleep of a night. We co-sleep and neither of us fully wakes for night feeds, so we are not one of those horror stories I can't believe health nurses purvey that crap! Mine has obviously been a good experience through the MCHN system!
ETA: I can fully understand how sleep deprivation can make you desperate for some kind of answer, ANY answer and that in the heat of the moment, CIO could make some kind of sense. It is absolutely not recommended for babies under 6 months of age because there was a time when parents were using this and there were infants presenting with dehydration, failure to thrive etc because the babies needs were not being met. As I've said in another thread, there is no study available to suggest that Controlled Crying/Comforting (CC) is safe. Ethical boards just wouldn't permit such a study...that, to me, is an indication of the 'merits' of CC. I'm glad you've found a happy medium for now! Someone else said it, too, but babies' needs change so much even within the first year, so flexibility is the key