Your Controlled Crying POSITIVE stories

I would love to hear stories of peoples positive controlled crying efforts.
Please dont post if you have a negative story because I have read the negative side of things. I know this is a gentle parenting site but after the last 2.5 months that DH and I have had with Georgias sleep and trying many things we have decided that this is the path that we are going to take.
We have had a chat with a sleep counsellor and we will be starting this weekend, we are going to use the method that requires listening to the different cries not the method that requires you to go in and out of the room at different times e.g every 3 mins etc

So you stories and any tips you may have to offer will be great. Thanks.

:hug: hun. We too got to a point where what we were doing wasnt working and I was due to be going back to work so something had to be done.

I dont know if we did CC but did do something similar to what you have explained.

I would put DD down awake but ready to sleep and would put her on her side pull the blankets over her and say I love you and goodnight. I would then walk out and close the door. I would always give myself 4 minutes.

I did listen to her from outside the room. If she was crying, I would go in but if she was just doing sparatic whinging then I would leave that.

Would you believe that she put herself to sleep within about 2 minutes and now for the last month and a half (since she was 6months), she puts herself to sleep within a couple of minutes for every single sleep! :clap:

She goes down at 7pm after a bedtime routine of dinner, bath, book, boob and then her sound machine goes on (heartbeat sound that she associates with sleep) and she's out to it. Doesnt wake until anytime between 6:30 and 8am.

I hope that helps. Hoping it wont be long until you get some good night sleeps :hug:

Thanks Alibaby that is exactly what I need to hear, thank you so much.

we have done something similar, I know DD is only young but she used to only sleep on me during the day and while I loved it, it meant I wasn't getting things done (besides getting fat and lazy sitting on the lounge all day!). If I put her in her cot or bassinette she would wake up in about 10 minutes and wouldn't go back to sleep and that was driving me mad!

I don't know if what we did was actually CC, but whatever it was it worked and if I put her down when it is sleep time and pop her dummy in she usually goes off to sleep within about 5 minutes.
I'd wrap her up when she got tired and it was sleep time then we would close the curtains in the bedroom, i'd give her a kiss and tell her sleepy time/good night and that I loved her, put her down and tuck her in, stroke her head and put her dummy in. I'd leave the room if she was quiet and if she started crying would go in after a couple of minutes and tell her it was alright and pat her shoulder (I was patting her bum but was too hard pulling back the sheet/blanket all the time!). If she kept crying and it escalated i would pick her up and resettle then put her back in her cot. 90% of the time it worked the first time, but sometimes I would have to go back in a 2nd or 3rd time.

She is usually pretty good now, and i feel so proud of her that she can put herself off to sleep without me having to pat her or cuddle her until she goes to sleep. Sometimes I do feed to sleep, but that's usually her last feed before bedtime and she falls asleep during it. There have been a couple of times when she has screamed hysterically, to the point she made herself sick and nothing would console her except a bottle, but other than that she sleeps really well at night now! Well..I bet that is until teething starts. Lol.

We do hands on settling (just a fancy name for controlled crying I think). We watch for the tired signs and as soon as DD/DS shows any of them they are wrapped and popped into bed. If they are crying (not whinging) we go in every 5 minutes (this time varies depending on their age) place our hand on their chest for the count of 10 and then leave the room again. When we go in we don't give eye contact or talk to them. DD was extremely stubborn and sometimes it took us up to an hour to settle her in the first few days/nights. This process took us a week and we have never ever looked back. It was the BEST THING we could have done for DD and us. DD loves a routine and to know what is coming next. DD and DS self settle 99.9% of the time now. If they don't we know that there is something wrong/or they are getting sick.
The best tips I got from my the sleep school I attended were:
* Consistency is the key. Discuss with DP exactly what your plan is and no matter what stick it.
* Give yourself three nights/days before you expect a change
* Monitor your baby closely for the first sign of their tired signs and pop them to bed straight away.
If you want to know what the tired signs just let me know.
This technique worked brilliantly for us and even through the first few nights/days were really hard it is fantastic now and we have the most brilliant sleeper.
Best of luck with making your decision. You need to do what is right for you and your family. If you have any other questions please feel free to PM me.

Salad we have been trying a few different things as although DS goes off to sleep easily at the beginning of the night, he's not the best self settler in the middle of the night when he wakes.

Although we aren't really using 'controlled crying' as such, after always rocking to sleep we have recently found that leaving a few familar toys (eg rings/links etc, nothing too stimulating) in his cot at sleep time give him something to play with (albiet sleepily) and he doesn't fret when we leave the room, and he usually falls asleep (with link in hand HAHAHA)

I must be honest however I more often rock or feed him to sleep than let him self settle so I am well aware I am creating these habits but I'm not ready to give up those sleepy cuddles just yet. So I have to deal with getting up to re-settle him during the night but its the price I pay for my sleepy cuddles :)

I'll be interested to see how you go, as when I go back to work next year I will have to be a bit tougher and teach him to self settle more :)

GL, I know how precious sleep is

Naomi

Dear Salad,

My positive story is that I have a DD2 who is 14 months old and she was a terrible sleeper and i was physically and emotionally at my whits end with it, i was actually booked into a sleep clinic to help me until someone asked me if i had read a book called "Save our Sleep" by T**** H***...........I bought that book the same day and i have never looked back and it took 48 hours for things to take affect and she has slept wonderfully ever since. I really do recommend reading it, it gave me the tools to teach me how to teach her how to sleep and it was so gentle.

Hi, we did cc with both our cubs and hard as it was, I think it was the best thing we could have done. Once they figured out it was time to sleep and they could handle it alone, we were all happier and calmer mainly because bed time wasn't a stress anymore, and we weren't tense knowing what was coming and wondering how long it was going to take us to get them to fall asleep, how long we were going to be sitting in a darkened room patting or whatever worked that week.
With Jordy it turned out he was better if we didn't go back in at all.
Don't forget that when you first start it will be so far removed from what your little one is used to that they may well get much more upset than you would expect; they don't understand what has changed or why. Both mine lost their voices in the first week.
It doesn't mean cc won't work, just that it's new for them too.
Good luck

When DD1 was 7mo I did it. DH is hearing impaired, so he never heard her overnight. For two months she woke every hour or two for a bf. She never wanted to co-sleep and frankly neither did I. So after two months of hourly or thereabouts wake-ups I was over it.
I rang tressilian for support (they were great - supportive of whatever decision I made. Suggested no feeds between midnight and 5am) and made the decision to do it.
I think it depends on the child as to what techniques will be suitable. I personally found that my being in the room attempting to soothe DD made her all the more upset. All she wanted was the breast and got exceptionally angry/distressed at anything else. So I did something more like Ferberism - just watched the clock. I'd wrap her, kiss her, leave. She'd cry. I'd go in after a couple of minutes, stroke her forehead, kiss her, leave. I'd leave it for a good few more minutes... etc.
It worked and she started sleeping through a short time later. I can't remember how many nights - there were some nights when she'd wake before midnight but I'd refuse to feed her. If she woke after or close to 5am then I'd feed her.
The positive is that it worked. She got out of that pattern pretty quickly. The negative is that it felt awful. I was doing it on my own and DD would be so upset. I know you don't want to hear the negative, but I feel like I need to let you know it's not an easy road.
GL, and I hope it all goes quickly and smoothly for you.

I guess what we did with Isla wasn't cc as such but probably wouldn't have been considered 'gentle' either. Just before her first birthday we were so exhausted as she was waking up 3 or 4 times a night and wouldn't settle without a boob so we had to do something. I decided i wouldn't feed between 12ish and 5. We couldn't just leave her to cry but if i went to her it would confuse her about why i wouldn't feed her so we used my dh instead. Once she'd stood up in the cot and started getting upset then dh would go to her and lay her back down gently and say 'sleepy time' and walk away. As soon as she'd stood up again he was back 'sleepy time' again and again. And yes she did cry and it was pretty horrible but she'd tired herself out after about 40 minutes with the gaps between her standing up getting longer and longer. She wasn't left to cry for any length of time, each time she got upset dh would go to her and do the sleepy time thing.She was in a cot at the end of our bed and i was so sad as when she fell asleep i knew she'd got upset as she was still doing the 'sniffs' for quite a while after. Anyway, second night, she stands up middle of the night ocl****, dh get up to go to her and she takes one look at him coming to her (not me) and flings herslef back on her humphrey (comforter) and that was it. She's not woken up since and went into her own room a week or so later with no hassle what-so-ever. So while it's not great at the time doing something like that may work.
good luck

Julie x

Hi,
I'm another one to say with both of our boys, it was one of the best things we could have done. As much as I've had to really psyche myself up to do it - and it's definitely not fun listening to them crying, the results within the first day have made me know that it has definitely been a positive step for everyone in the family. Only do it when you're ready to do it. Knowing how effective it has been has allowed me to really enjoy all of the feeding to sleep, cuddles and apparently "bad" habits we've created over the last 9 months :D. Good luck!

Only thing that ended up working for DD in the long term.
We started at 7mths, and it worked wonderful. The first few nights were really hard and heartbreaking, but as each night progressed it got easier.
We would do the bedtime routine, put her in her cot, give her her blankie, say night night, then walk out, if she cried we would go in, comfort her without picking her up, then walk out and slowly would make the gap longer and longer. If she got distressed we would get her up and try 10 mins later.

We did go backwards a number of times and have to do it all over again, but that was only after some big milestones and she went back to being a great sleeper after a night or two of doing the CC routine again.

Thank you so much for your stories they have been so good and ispirational to read them, I honestly didnt think that I would get many people share their stories so thank you heaps.

I know I am mentally ready now, I have tried in the past but the crying just broke my heart but I have been very sick and I am not getting over the sickness because I am not getting quality sleep. Georgia woke at 1am after only a 2 hours sleep and I tried for an hour to get her back to sleep, I was getting so angry and frustrated and I know I was making it worse, so DH got up and had a go and she would not settle for him either. So he put her in her bed made sure she was safe and we layed in bed and let her cry and 40 mins later she was sound asleep (3am) and slept until 6:30am I then put her in bed with me fed her and she slept until 9:30am. She was not crying hysterically so I felt that us going in there would not have been a benefit so we just stayed away. For her day sleep today I fed her, settled her put her in her bed said I love you its sleep time now and left the room, she cried on and off for 25 mins then fell sound asleep.
I already feel it is working well for us and I already feel better. I worried that she would become clingy but she has been fine and I dont know if the two are related or not but she has even eaten better today.
:D

What great progress you are both making. Stick with it, be consistent and you will both be much happier for it.

I used to feed DD to sleep and when I stopped we put in place a night time routine of bath, pjs, books, cuddles and bed. To start with DH would put her to bed and stay with her for a few minutes then leave. If she cried we would go back in and pat/rock. We usually only went in about 5 times or less and within a week she was usually going to sleep by herself.

The other problem we had was night waking. We used to try to settle her and if nothing worked I would feed her. When she was about 12 months (I think) I decided I wouldn't feed her during the night anymore. It then became harder to settle her and we found that it was usually better just to leave her to cry for a little while. If the crying continues or sounds really urgent we go to her, but most of the time she soon goes back to sleep.

We just put DD in her cot for sleeps and leave her to go to sleep by herself. It can take up to an hour, but she is rarely upset, she just talks and jumps around until she goes to sleep.

I have Save our Sleep by Tizzie Hall. I think it is quite good and I have used it to help me figure out when she does or doesn't need me and also timings of sleeps, meals etc.

I'm glad I read this thread, It is nice to know there are people with similar ideas to me. I know this is a 'gently parenting' website and what I do doesn't quite fit with that. But it suits my DD's temperament and results in a happy family overall.

I just wanted to post my encouragement as well. We have done modified cc and like everyone else here has said, its not fun, but we noticed a HUGE difference to DS when we did it. Once we got through the first few hard nights, he slept so much better and was happier and seemed to also develop more quickly. We were astonished at the change in his attitude, and ours- everyone was so, so, so much happier for sleeping better.

Bear in mind that there are many ways to do CC, and you will work out what is right for you. No-one likes to hear their baby cry, its heartbreaking. I always had a cut off point with cc, where I really felt DS was getting himself into a state, I would go in and pick him up and rock to calm him down. I figured that if he got to that point and then eventually went to sleep, he wasn't learning to settle himself- he was just falling asleep out of pure exhaustion, which wasn't doing much for anyone.

Best of luck on your journey.

just wondered how old your baby is?

good luck with trying it, we did it and i definitely feel it improved our situation... when my dd was little she only slept in my arms day AND night, it was a disaster....

the one thing i can say is make sure you give it a good shot, yes it is going to be hard, but give it a few days, think of how the current situation isn't working and let it motivate you to give this method a real shot... it is very easy to pack it in cos the crying is upsetting, but at the end of the day if bubs is fed, clean, warm, comfy etc, and is just plain tired, a bit of crying while they learn to go to sleep is definitely not the end of the world, and if after a week or so you come out of it all getting better sleep, then imagine how much better you are going to feel...

good luck, ignore anyone who tells you otherwise, they are not in your situation, and a little bit of crying while your baby is warm and safe in his/her own bed in her own environment with mum and dad comforting every so often is no cause of anything nasty later down the track.... sleepless nights, exhaustion, a baby not sleeping/thriving/eating well and stressed to the max parents is of far more concern...

good luck!!

We ended up doing something similar with DS at 10 months because I was at absolute rock bottom after months of trying everything to get him to sleep better.

We went to sleep school and we did what they call 'responsive settling' - which basically is listening to your baby and responding and settling the baby in accordance to their level of distress. ie if bub is happy, leave them. If bub is upset and crying go in and settle. There were no 'rules' about time intervals, how many times we could go in, we could pick him up, make eye contact, talk to him and cuddle him etc but there was definitely crying involved.

BEST thing we ever did. He started sleeping through the night for the first time EVER, started eating properly after months of trying to get him established on solids (which was important for us as I was returning to work and b'feeding) and his development took off in leaps and bounds in the following months. It wasn't easy to do and I felt guilty for a while but seeing the dark circles under his eyes disappear and removing the stress and exhaustion that was affecting our whole family was so worth it.

I guess some people don't understand what sleep deprivation can do to a family and that sometimes you can try every other method and nothing works. We tried co-sleeping, patting, rocking, singing, playing music, feeding to sleep, everything we could think of and it just. didn't. work.

Good luck!

Another success story here. Very much the same as all the posts above. We also did responsive settling, so only go in if baby is distressed. For us, it actually took a few weeks, not days, and, whinging could be up to 3 hours in the middle of the night. HOWEVER, after months and months of broken sleep, we now have a baby that sleeps all night unless sick. We have also noticed great developmental improvements since the better sleep (growth, attitude, physical milestones) as we now have a happy child instead of a grumpy tired one (and mum too ;)).

Best thing we ever did, for our whole family, including baby.

I'm another! :hello:

I used feed to sleep, co-sleeping and demand feeding and comforting successfully for the first 6 months with DD and it was wonderful. She slept "like a baby" Then slowly she began to change and become increasingly unsettled no matter what I did. After 4 months, I was beside myself with the difficulties getting DD to sleep and keeping her that way with half hourly wakes at the worst time. I was really loosing it and as PP's have said, I don't think that is helpful for anyone, baby and mum alike.

We did a modified CC also based on responding to the types of cries. I did try to do a version myself but it didn't work and it was only when I went to sleep school that we turned the corner. It was Soooo successful! I couldn't believe that she would respond so well - just as willow described.

One thing that really helped me was to have a treat or task during the night wakings. If DD woke at night, i usually dreaded it, dragged myself out of bed and tried to scramble back to grab what ever sleep I could between settles. It meant that I really resented hearing her rewake or begin crying again and it really dragged the night out. Once I decided to try the resettling routine, I would get out of bed when she woke, go in and resettle her, put the kettle on or turn on the computer and make myself a cup of tea. I would continue to settle her as needed and in the meantime busy myself with tea, tv or the internet. It really helped me to have a distraction so I wasn't insanely listening to DD only willing her to go to sleep. (I would of course keep an ear on her, but it really helped to be up and doing something).

My DD responded really well and after 3 days was barely waking up again. Best thing was that if she ever had a bad night again, due to teething or something, it was really easy to get her back to sleeping through as she knew the settling routine and responded well to it again.

Best of luck

Hi there,

This is a great thread. I have felt a little nervous mentioning my use of T1zzie H@ll methods in this forum. But the routines have worked really well for us and DD is a pretty good little sleeper. It's weird but the routine has allowed us a lot more freedom to do stuff. It takes about 3 days for it to kick in well and about 2 weeks to get it really down pat (in my large randomized controlled study of 1!). I don't want to thread hijack, but I wouldn't mind discussing tips and hints in this thread as well Personally I think you can gentle parent and do a modified control crying as well....but that's just me! :)

Good luck and try to do something nice for yourself when you're having to listen to the cries! xx

We did CC with both boys... we did the listen to the style of cry not the leave them for a certain amount of time. As soon as they went from a sook to anything more we were in there.

It took only about a week to get Brendan to self settle. Now he puts himself to bed...

I have to say one thing though, so many people think CC is about letting your child scream themselves to sleep but it isnt about that at all! Maybe thats some peoples idea, but I personally hate the thought of either of the boys screaming their guts up literally... I like to think of my method as "Gentle CC"

Sally, I agree. There is no way I would leave my child to cry in distress for any period of time. I think people just don't get that there can be a happy medium between 'crying it out' and 'gentle' methods like feeding to sleep etc.

Just thought I would revive this thread to let you all know we have had some success and sleep lol.
It started off rough, as you know its hard to listen to them crying but I was so tired and over the sleep issues that I had to push through it. After a few nights it was only taking her a few minutes to get to sleep by herself, then she got a terrible cold and I thought it was all going to go downhill, it did slightly but once she was over it then we got back on track.
Her day sleeps are shorter but she sleeps better at night so I can handle the shorter day sleeps and I like her company anyway.
We were struggling to resettle her if she woke during the night but now that has got easier as well. She is eating solids better now almost overnight so that is definantly a positive.
I am so glad we tried cc , it has worked for us. I would reccomend it to anyway who has serious sleep probs but you have to be ready for it mentally going into this in two minds wont work.
Thanks to everyone brave enough to share there stories and for not making me feel bad that I wanted to go down this path.

great to hear that it has worked for you! Here's to many more sleepful (dunno what the opposite of 'sleepless' is! Lol) nights for you all :D

I'm so glad that things have worked out for you. Everything is so much nicer after a good nights sleep. Not just for parents, but babies too. It is interesting that your dd is eating better too.

There seem to be many who have had success with similar methods. That is helping our babies learn how to sleep better and listening to some crying while they do it. As someone else said there is a happy medium between crying it out and gentle parenting.

All babies are different, but I certainly know that with my DD it is usually best to leave her to settle herself. She rarely takes comfort from me being there as she goes to sleep. Of course I'm there for her if she needs, but I'm in touch with her needs and I think that is a big part of what gentle parenting is about.

Anyway, that is just my opinion. But I'm really glad that you are happy with the results you have achieved Salad.

That was an excellent post Holly I agree with all you said.
I find it better if I dont go in and comfort Georgia, it just makes her worse and upsets her when I leave. Dh does the settling if it needs it and he does a great job. If she really needs someone DH will go to her but otherwise she is left to cry and that is what is/has worked for us.
Everyone is different and you are the best judge of your baby and his or her needs.