control crying

[2CheekyMonkeys]

DD2 usually cries and carries on before she goes to sleep even when i am rocking her so i decided to put her down in her cot and let her cry or a while. she went to sleep after about 5 mins of crying. (and yes it did get pretty hysterical but as i said she does that sometimes even when i am holding her and rocking her to sleep). she woke up after about 40mins and started crying again. my question is.. what should i do then. let her cry for 5 mins til she goes back to sleep or just get her up and try rocking her to sleep again? i thought if they put themselves to sleep they will sleep through the first sleep cylce cause they know how to get back to sleep themselves?

[Janie]

Yeah, but she'll only put herself back to sleep in the way that she knows how - in your DD's case, crying . My DS did the same thing for a long time, he has always fought sleep in some way. I personally didn't feel comfortable with letting him cry on his own. I know he was still crying, but at least he could feel comforted while doing it. I figure when I'm upset, it's nice to have someone caring with me - I'll still be upset, but won't be alone. So I have always held my DS while he's going to sleep, crying or not.

And cc in any form is not recommended for babies under 6 months, as the damage it can cause is now known. Not trying to upset you, just letting you know

[kelebek]

it's pretty frustrating when they cry themselves to sleep isn't it?! My DS always cried himself to sleep (still does) and more often then not wake up crying. I think like Janie said her settling technique is crying to sleep. I rocked DS to sleep up until 10 mnths and then it just wasn't physically possible at that stage. I did try in desperation to put him into the cradle but we had 30 mins + of crying

Most of the 'experts' (and by this I mean places like Trisillian/sleep school where we did end up going) don't recommend cc until after 6 mnths but they do distinguish between cries (I was never good at this hence it was after 10 mnths before I took things further iykwim?) so I think until at least 6 mnths keep her in your arms, after that maybe try and give her a few minutes to see if she resettles if that is what you want to do.

At Trisillian they encouraged me to leave him upto 30 mins (he was 10mnths) before going in and settling him, I am not able to do that and the most I leave him is about 5 mins to check on him.

Sorry for the ramble, ultimately you have to do what you are comfortable with and you know your DD best.

[Janie]

Sorry to hijack, but Kelebek were they serious???? 30 minutes for a 10 month old? No wonder you couldn't do it hun, I don't think many of us could. Good on you for figuring out what worked for you guys

[Miss E]

If your bub is used to being rocked to sleep it will take awhile to get them used to going to sleep on their own or resettling after the first sleep cycle.

I know there are a lot of strong opinions out there surrounding controlled crying but at the end of the day I think you should do what works for you. I do think that for some bubs it is traumatic but for other it isn't. It's important to remember that for babies crying is their way of expressing themselves, whether it is that the are upset and miserable, frustrated, tired, uncomfortable, over whelmed or some other type of emotion. IMO it is important that babies do cry and do learn to express themselves and as parents we need to let them express themselves in a COMFORTED environment so that they learn to process their emotions independently. When we do everything we can to not let them cry, one can ask if we are teaching our children not to express themselves... Anyway that is an area where there are a lot of different points of view so I might leave it there...

Personally I couldn't do controlled crying in its true sense. But we have done it in a different form and found it worked wonders for us, but every bub is different so what worked for us might not work for your bub. When DS was first born he was great at self settling, we'd just put him in his bed and he'd fall straight asleep. But when he got to 4 or 5 weeks he decided that he didn't like sleeping during the day, so we started rocking him to sleep. Then when he'd wake up we'd come in and rock his cot to settle him. We were lucky because he would still self settle at night, but I could see that we were very quickly developing a sleep association that required him to be rocked to sleep. A friend gave me a copy of an article about sleep associations that put forward a technique which we used.

Basically if bubs cries once you put them in their cot you spend 2 or 3 minutes patting their chest and doing what you need to do to calm them down. But if after 2 or 3 minutes they're still crying then you still leave the room. If after 5 minutes they're still crying or have started crying again for 5 minutes you come back in and comfort them for 2 or 3 minutes. Then you leave the room again. If they keep or start crying again you give them 7 minutes before you come back in, then increase it to 10 and so on. The idea is that when you go in to comfort them you are only going in to comfort them and reassure them that you are there and you will come when they need you. But the key thing is not to have bubs fall asleep while you are comforting them or in the room, because then they will develop that sleep association. They say that with naps that if after an hour of doing this bubs still isn't asleep then you should abandon the nap, but with night sleeps you should keep going.

For us this technique worked really well. We never had to come in to comfort him anymore than 3 times. Each time one of us would come into the room to comfort DS he would stop crying and try and engage us which made it much easier to leave him because he clearly wasn't distressed. However after a couple days he did try continuing crying to see if that would get us to pick him up, but we remained strong and stuck to the routine (which was really hard as a mother) and within 2 sleeps he'd given up on that. We did this about 3 weeks ago and I haven't had to go in to comfort him in over two weeks. Now he just lays in his cot and might chatter a little bit to himself before he goes to sleep of his own accord (sometimes that's within two or three minutes, other times it's half an hour). But we did implement it before he had developed really strong sleep association so that might be why it was reasonably easy.

I think it is also really important to put them to bed before they are over tired. As soon as DS gets tired eyes I get him ready for bed, so that he is lying in his cot before he has yawned for the first time. A bedtime routine also works wonders. For us it is a nappy change, some white noise, a 2 or 3 minute cuddle with some singing, a kiss on the forehead then it's into bed. I usually do a couple of things in his room for a minute or two and he likes to watch me move around. Then I'll kiss my finger tips and pat him on the forehead with it before I leave the room.

Hope this helps, again what works for one bub might not work for another. I think you need to do what feels right for you and your bub whether that involves crying or it doesn't.

[Janie]

It's important to remember that for babies crying is their way of expressing themselves, whether it is that the are upset and miserable, frustrated, tired, uncomfortable, over whelmed or some other type of emotion. IMO it is important that babies do cry and do learn to express themselves and as parents we need to let them express themselves in a COMFORTED environment so that they learn to process their emotions independently. When we do everything we can to not let them cry, one can ask if we are teaching our children not to express themselves...

I don't want to start a heated debate here, but I just wanted to offer the flip side of this thought.....

Yes, babies cry to express themselves......to express a need for something. Which we, as parents, are required to give them. All those emotions you listed Missexcited are negative ones, and IMO they are all reasons to comfort a baby, to STOP him or her from crying. Babies learn to express themselves in other ways too, more positive ways like smiling, laughing and cooing. So crying is not their only form of communication - just the one that they use to tell us that something is not right in their world. It can be something as simple as them being tired, but whatever it is, they are not happy about it. And that is why I feel a pull in my tummy, even as I type this, and I could never leave my babies (or any babies) to cry. JMHO.

[2CheekyMonkeys]

thanks for your input everyone. i did choose to put this in the general discussion forum though and not the gentle parenting area so as to minimise the 'debate'. each parent/child/family is different and i guess have the right to choose which ways they will interact with eachother.

i know with DD1 i could NOT have put her down and let her cry for an amount of time because she couldnt handle it. she would cry REALLY hysterically and make herself gag and vomit etc and then be EVEN HARDER to settle so the situation with DD2 is just different. she does cry but its not the same as DD1 did IYKWIM??

i just thought that since she cries anyway i would put her down and it would save a lot of dramas in the future getting her to sleep independantly. i forgot about the recommendation that it shouldnt be done til 6months of age though. and i do understand the 'better to comfort bub even though she is crying when being rocked' but it is kind of frustrating! :-/

i think i might get a book from the library and do it properly. has anyone tried the book 'Save our sleep?

oh and i tried goin back in and patting for a minute like you suggested Miss Excited but she just cries and doesnt settle at all when i go in. i think its better when i just leave her be. i havent left her for longer than 10 mins though, and i have only really done it a few times.

[Arcadia]

In answer to the OP. I always found that bubs learnt to resettle in time. I personally hated the resettle concept, so I would just get bub back up when she awoke. At 4 months it is common for babies to regress in sleep a little bit and to have shorter and shorter naps, until they consolidate into less naps, but for longer (does that make sense?)

By 5.5 months we were down to 2 x 2 hour naps, and now we're in the process of those getting shorter and shorter, until I imagine she will be having one nap by 1.

As for letting her cry a little for 5 mins. It depends on the day for me. Some days if she's really fussing in my arms, I put her into the cot, and often she will stop crying, or just whinge off to sleep. At 4 months though she would often grizzle for about 5 mins before going off to sleep.

I was lucky though that DD had a clear "I want to sleep" whinge which was very different from "I need mummy" cry.

As for CC and CIO. I think they contradict my maternal instinct. I can't listen to crying without feeling physically ill. But if you're desperate, I think try anything that works for you.

[MantaRay]

My favourite books for sleep issues are The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley and Sleeping like a Baby by Pinky Mackay. I would be very interested to know how Tizzie Hall feels about her book Save our Sleep now that she has a baby herself - I think her ideas must have seemed like very good ones before she had children herself. It's not a book I would recommend.

[Liz]

Yeah, I'm with Janie. It's a big scary world out here and babies need their mummies to comfort them and reassure them. Totally agree that they are expressing themselves.. and I think cuddling and comforting is much more validating of those feelings than a pat on the bum LOL. I wasn't afraid to put my babies to the breast whenever they needed it (stops the crying! haha) and DS fed to sleep for a long time. His association with sleep was security and comfort, not being left alone to do it himself and crying. And it wasn't a bad habit.. he grew out of it, just like they grow out of a lot of things.

Rocking to sleep doesn't last forever either and it's possible to gently introduce other sleep associations when you feel you're both ready. I rocked DD for a long time and then it just started to not work, so we started something else.. they transition naturally to putting themselves to sleep if given the chance. It's just not always within the first 12 weeks as many would like to believe (or enforce!)

[2CheekyMonkeys]

yep, been there done that with feeding to sleep. we did jus twhat you described Liz with DD1. i have found with DD2 when i feed her to sleep i put her down and she will wake instantly or within 5 mins and then i am back at square one. having two children i cant just let her sleep on me for hours as i did with DD1.

sorry, sig is old. DD2 is 5 1/2 months old now! :-)