PDA

View Full Version : resisting wind-down routine since starting CC



sasholi
17-09-2005, 16:25
Hi all.
On Tuesday hubby and I "bit the bullett" and committed to controlled crying for our little one whose dummy addiction was getting us up and out of bed 4, 5, 6, or one night even 12 times a night. Our bubs is over 6 months old now and has been struggling with the dummy since he was 12 weeks old. So we kind of thought we really need to do something about and just get rid of it cold turkey. I was soooo nervous as I've never ever left him to cry before - except on those rare occassions when it was leaving him to cry for five minutes while I went outside and took some deep breaths or me jump through the window! And that's only happened a couple of times when he was really little and colicky.

Anyway, CC has been going really good. The first night he went to bed without a fuss really (after three sleeps that day without the dummy) and woke up three times overnight - chatted to himself for 5 minutes, then went back to sleep. We didn't have to get out of bed for 8 hours!!!!

However, I have a general question:
before we started controlled crying (we are going in/coming out at intervals from 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 minutes) I used to put bubs to bed like this:

take him into bedroom. Look out the window at the trees blowing in the breeze and have a really quiet little chat. Close the curtains and pop dummy in mouth. Sit on chair together and have a cuddle then I hum his bedtime song a couple of times. Turn on relaxing music and hold bub in my arms while we sway to the music. When his eyelids started to get "heavy", i'd then pop him into his cot and he'd drift off to sleep on his own without so much as a peep.

Now what happens is I take him into his room and as soon as we get in there and close the curtains he really starts struggling and arching etc and grizzling and crying. I still hum and rock and listen to music with him, but he really gets worked up and by the time I pop him into his cot he's crying (not a hard "melt-down" cry but the monotone "mourning" cry).

Has anyone else had this problem when doing CC? How long before he goes to sleep without crying first? (he drops off to sleep anywhere between 3 minutes and 30 minutes - no pattern has emerged yet. I guess it depends on how tired/awake/overtired he is). I can't wait till we can get him to sleep without fuss like what used to happen with the dummy.

I don't miss the dummy as it was really disrupting his night time sleeps and getting worse and he was getting more unsettled during the day and since turfing the dummy his night time sleeps have been pretty much perfect! I have only had to get up to him twice overnight since tuesday...

But I miss him going to sleep peacefully and comfortably and happy during the day like he used to.

Any tips/suggestions? I'm not going to give him a dummy during the day but not at night and that could be confusing and not very fair on the poor little luv to go through all this just to get the dummy again...

Happy parenting!

jembelina
18-09-2005, 06:49
Congratulations on your success so far :D ! I can't help with dummy issues as we have never used one ( we tried in desperation only to have DS gag and spit it back at me!) but we started cc about 6 weeks ago. It was immediately successful, but like you i wondered if my baby would be crying himself to sleep forever :( after the first night it never took very long but he was always crying. At about the 2 week point I was ready to try something else as I felt it should have been working beter by then. I was worried he was starting to have a negative association with his bedroom. Hubby convinced me to persevere just a little longer... so, so glad I did. Most sleeps he will go down without a fuss ( often whinges, but more just winding himself down) - now I am at the stage where i put him down, tuck in, close blinds, tell him its time to sleep, mummy loves you, kisses, etc then leave. I wait 10 mins and he always falls asleep before that time is up. If he doesn't then usually he isn't tired or there is some problem. Ocasionally he will cry, but this is usually if he is overtired. Or sometimes he just wnts to play so as soon as those blind go down his lip drops and i feel horrible! But once again, the crying will wind down very quickly.

I've babbled on and I don't know if this will really help?! but I think if you can, try to persevere as it does get better and easier. My little angel now has 2 big and 1 little day sleeps plus sleeps 11/12 hours overnight (used cc to cut night feeds a week ago - only took one night!!!) so we are in heaven :D

Good luck!

sasholi
18-09-2005, 08:20
Hi Jembelina.

Well I have one success this morning.
bubs went down for his first morning nap this morning without even a peep!

Yes, I wasn't planning on stopping just yet (we decided that whatever we choose to do we have to stick to, as it wouldn't be fair to him to chop and change anyway!). OUr small successes are still better than I thought they would be.

Our next step will be to cut out the dream/sleep feed at 10pm. Which will be hard as bubs takes about 200ml of formula at that feed. Will have to do it gradually I think!

Cheerio
Happy parenting.