Is crying it out my only solution? please please help

[Tish]

hi everyone,

we have had continual sleep problems with ds since he was 2 weeks old. when he was 9 months old I was in the same place - we have to cry it out, i can't do this anymore. i really didn't want to do that but it felt inevitable.

we scoured the web for "gentle" sleep consultants until we found someone who said they didn't do controlled crying. she did a sleep plan for us and then we spoke to her after bed time every day to get support and tweak the plan if necessary. we could also call during the day for extra questions if we wanted to.

she says you usually get results in 5-6 days (we have a stubborn mooper and it took 3 weeks, she said the most stubborn 9 month old she'd ever dealt with LOL) but we have gone from taking an hour or so of active settling at each sleep time with 6 - 8 wake ups over night to he puts himself to sleep and stays asleep for 10 - 11 hours. he wakes 2 - 3 times overnight but generally self settles within 2 mins.

the method changes depending on your problem and age i think, and there is some crying involved, but you are always there with them, and can pick them up of you feel you need to. i found the course very, very hard to do but tried to think of it as him learning a new skill.

we had tried with the ncss but were too tired to strategise properly! LOL

oh, and i forgot to say that it is mainly for night sleeps though she says day sleeps should improve too. he goes to sleep easily during the day but still only cat naps. but because nights are now so good it seems less of an issue. also what we were trying to achieve was DS falling asleep and re settling without extended intervention from us, so obviously not for everyone here.

anyway, if anyone would like her details please PM me. i'm so glad that i persisted in more gentle methods and didn't just leave him to cry alone.

in any case bl00dy big hugs to all of you, and i hope things are looking up soon. in the meantime just do what you gotta do to make things work for you.

tish
xx