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Baby sleep and sleep training: Part One
By ella | September 1, 2008
Edward is now an irresistible five months old. I adore everything about him. From his shy smile to his chilled personality to his feisty boob-bashing hand, he is already the minature version of his adult self. Or at least that’s what I like to imagine, because he is so perfect. Right from the word go he was easy: he spent his first week and a half asleep allowing me to entertain endless visitors, he slept through his baptism at five weeks even when he was partially drowned by the vicar, and he regularly slept three, four and five hour stretches at night as a newborn (which is quite manageable for a sleep-deprived mother, at least for a little while). He’s had a few problems along the way: he has had physiotherapy for weak neck muscles and he’s also had a urine infection, followed by chronic constipation giving me minor worries as these were the beginning signs of Ben’s failure to thrive. But the most perfect thing about him, probably the one thing that may have prevented me from suffering post-partum depression and also my biggest secret about him is that he slept through the night from eleven weeks old. And when I say slept through the night, I mean really slept through the night. Twelve hour stretches. Perfect baby indeed. I was the most well-rested new mama of anyone I have ever known.
I consider it payment for six years of hard labor looking after small children.
Unfortunately the encroaching wrinkles paid no attention to the fact that I was drunk on sleep and continued their advance, eliciting comments like ‘oh, you look tired Ella’ and ‘not getting any sleep?’ from friends. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the truth because, first of all it sounds so smug to boast that your baby is a fabulous sleeper, second, mothers of non-sleepers want to smack you about the face - very hard - and, third, to tell them the truth would be to admit that the wrinkles are actually all mine. So I kept quiet.
Unfortunately, the downside of these marathon nighttime sleeps were that he never slept once during the day. Not even for a second. Except perhaps secretly while he was feeding and I’d look up from homeschooling and find that he had been on the boob for two hours. Yup, maybe then.
But there was no way, absolutely no way, I was going to start making him nap because you don’t mess with a newborn that sleeps for twelve hours every night. (This was the time he had the urine infection so that may have had something to do with why he was sleeping so long. A few weeks later his wee started to smell again and I’ll admit it did cross my mind - just fleetingly - not to hurry to get it tested because of the possibility of returning to those beautiful coma-like nights. Bad mother.)
Sleep training and I have form. Harry was a terrifically bad sleeper, partly due to reflux and also partly because I evidently missed the bit in the baby care book which said you should treat the nighttime feeds and changes with dark and quiet to help your baby to learn to be sleepy during the nights. Harry and I would be downstairs watching TV while he fed, making cups of tea in the kitchen and changing dirty diapers in the brightly lit bathroom. No wonder the poor boy had no nocturnal skills.
Again, bad mother.
We tried controlled crying with him when he was about nineteen months when I was almost dead from exhaustion. It was the most horrendous thing I have ever done and it didn’t work. Terrible times. We tried it again when he was nearly two and it worked quickly and without too much distress on either part. I still don’t know what made him ready then, when he wasn’t before. All I can say was, I am glad I had already had a second baby by that point - an easy, second baby - otherwise Harry might have been an only child. (Just kidding, Harry, if you’re reading this.)
I learnt my lesson about sleep and number two came along, my cosy, sucky William, and he was a fantastic sleeper. I’m going to take all the credit for this - even though it was just his personality - because I’m his mother and I can. No need for any kind of sleep training for him. Also he shared a room with Harry from six months old and they both went to bed at the same time which may have made it easier for him to settle than if he was on his own and we had a strict bedtime routine.
Both are now fantastic sleepers bar the odd nightmare.
Then Ben came along. My poorly, failure-to-thrive baby. At six months I was struggling to get him to go to sleep alone in his cot or get him to sleep through the night even though we had quiet, dark nights and a bedtime routine. He co-slept for several months and then slept in his crib next to my bed where I found it quick and easy to settle him at night. The downside of this was that I had to stay with him while he went to sleep - easy when the older two were at pre-school, not so easy at other times. Because he was poorly, he didn’t start sleeping through until fourteen months. At fifteen months I did controlled crying with him. It took one night. He too is now a fantastic sleeper (if you don’t counting teething waking and spider fear wakings).
So I can do it - teach my children to sleep. But I’m too soft, I know I am but I can’t be any other way. I can’t put them down as babies and let them learn to settle themselves. And so the hardest, absolutely hardest, thing for me about having a baby is dealing with sleep problems and sleep training.
You know where this is going, don’t you?
Recently Edward has started waking at night. A lot. (Not so perfect baby.) And the wrinkles are chiselling deeper into my face after each terrible night. And so I’m now faced with teaching him to fall asleep in his crib before he can really keep himself awake. To say I’m dreading it is the understatement of the year. Having needles stuck up my backside is going to be more fun. I’ve read all the sleep books: The Ferber method, The Pantley No-Cry Sleep Solution and everything in between. Most of the sleep gurus agree that controlled crying should not be done under six months, I have never had any success with controlled crying with babies and it doesn’t suit me - all that emotional distress in a young baby and even more emotional distress in me. So no controlled crying. Instead, I’ve opted for rocking him until he is almost asleep and then putting him down in his cot while he is still awake but beyond the point of being able to keep himself awake thus teaching him that it’s okay to fall asleep on his own in his crib. That’s the theory. In practice I’m thinking do I have the time and patience to do this twenty or more times each evening at bedtime and twenty or more times twice a day for naps AND even if he learns now, will he keep that skill when he is able to keep himself awake and still settle himself? He has a muslin comforter but it’s not me (nor, more importantly from his point of view, my boob) - will that, a cuddly bedtime routine and some sleep training from me be enough? I want to have a positive attitude that it will work, but I don’t feel at all positive about tackling this.
So does anybody have any tips? Anything that worked for them? Has anyone done controlled crying under six months and if so, how long did it take to work?
I need help to get this right. Think of my wrinkles.
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If you’re a blogger, have you got a sleep training post, either current or in your archives, that I could link to at the bottom here for other mothers in the same predicament? Two of my most visited posts are the two above, detailing how I tried to sleep train Ben (one visitor came to those posts this week after googling ‘can a baby die from crying’, which made my heart break). I’ll be trawling the internet to add links here as I find them. Let me know if you have one to add.
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Read More:
- Sleep training: Part Two
- Sleep Training
- Teaching a baby to sleep by himself
- Sleep deprivation, continued
- The first week with a newborn
You must be hard, girl! You are creating a rod for your own back!
I did controlled crying with mine at around seven or eight months I think. It took longer than I hoped and I can’t say it was easy but the alternative ie a baby that wouldn’t settle or stay asleep at night wasn’t possible as I went back to work.
But you have got great sleepers now so if it is easier for you to wait until Edward is a bit older then that has to be the best solution for you. In the meantime best of luck with settling him. You may find he is like William and you never have to do the dreaded cc.
And that rod hurts! I know from experience.
I’ve found that there are so many factors that can upset their sleep in the first 2 years that it’s not really worth doing something extremely work intensive early on. I too have always tried to put my youngest into the crib during that sweetest moment of almost, but not quite asleep.
It works when he’s not teething or sick or over-tired or going through a normal bout of separation anxiety. One or more of those things is happening 5 days out of 6, so it’s frustrating to know that he can go to sleep on his own…but not tonight. Basically there are perfect days or weeks of easy bedtimes surrounded by lots and lots of bedtimes where he resists for understandable reasons.
Right now he’s 18 months old and it’s worse than it’s been in a long time. I’m contemplating controlled crying, but hate to do it because he sleeps like a champ as soon as he’s not sick or not teething or not worried about separation. It’s so worrying to think that I might make him cry when he’s really bothered by one of those things and actually NEEDS me.
But I’m exhausted and it would probably be a relief for him as well as for me to teach him to roll around awake but calm in his crib for a while until he can get comfortable and then fall asleep on his own. We spend a lot of time confined to the rocking chair with him on my lap, either nursing or rocking, waiting for sleep to come.
On the other hand, we’ll probably move him to a regular bed in six month or less, so I dread doing any sort of sleep training regime now only to have to re-do everything when he’s tempted by freedom from the crib.
Eh, I’m just as torn right now as you are. Good luck!
PS I’m glad you’re still posting when you get a chance.
Sallys last blog post..Done
Your first sentence sums up my exact feelings about the whole issue of sleep problems.
If he settles on his own sometimes could you do a gentle version of controlled crying, like sitting by the bed and then moving gradually away? If he isn’t waking at night then presumable it is just being left to settle himself that is troubling him.
I agree that moving him to a bed may bring problems, although I found that mine didn’t want to settle due to excitement and I could be quite stern about that!
I’d be interested to hear how you get on, whenever you decide to tackle it!
I like your idea of putting him in his crib and then sitting by him until he falls asleep on his own. When and if I get frustrated enough to accept the inevitable disruption any sort of sleep training will cause for my older boy…well, then I might try it instead of leaving the room. Charlie will still freak out and cry, but maybe he’ll calm down faster if I’m in there. I’ll be sure to let you know if I do anything.
Oh, and he’s most definitely NOT sleeping all night wihtout waking. Right now he’s waking up a couple of times a night, but then he’ll randomly sleep all night occasionally when the stars align perfectly and he’s not too cold and nothing hurts and his belly is full of his favorite meatballs, etc. I know that night-weaning him would probably cure him of 75% of the night wakings, but again I’m being a bit of a chicken about it.
Sallys last blog post..But I’M not ready
Hi Ella, I know you know my story but I did controlled crying after about a year. with my second we had to do cry it out after controlled crying and pick-up/put-down methods just made things worse. It was hell but, like you, I have good sleepers now. I would agree with not doing anything too early because teething, sickness, nightmares, separation anxiety all rear their ugly heads and it’s not always easy to know if the crying is because of these and also because even if you get them trained any one of these things can set them back again and you have to start all over again. Good luck.
Hunger might also be a factor at this age. I always offer milk to settle him or if he wakes because I can’t be certain it isn’t hunger making him cry.
I have a four month old and it was great to read your experiences as I’m wondering what I need to do. At the moment F. goes to sleep by herself but I guess I should start getting her into some sort of routine. How do you get your baby to sleep during the day or does he not need to sleep at all. I think F. would go mad with tiredness if she didn’t sleep so I’m curious to know ways to get her to sleep during the day if she starts being able to keep herself awake. She is my first so I don’t have other children to take care of so at the moment I can feed her to sleep without worrying about how long it takes. Do you think I’m setting myself up for problems doing this?
Thanks for writing about this. I’m sure it will be loads of help to others mums too.
Edward sleeps in the car, stroller, sling, while feeding or (don’t tell) my arms. So, yes, this putting them down when they are sleepy but not asleep is a gentle form of training for when they are older.
I would love to be able to feed Edward to sleep, that is the joy of having only one baby to look after. I certainly fed my eldest to sleep (and may have napped a little too, myself) and I can’t honestly say for me it caused problems because I wouldn’t have done any kind of sleep training with him at a young age. When Harry was older I stopped feeding him to sleep and tried other ways to settle him, like having a consistent bedtime routine. I think what most mums worry about is the baby becoming dependent on something (like feeding) in order to get to sleep and then having to have it to get to sleep. If you’re worried at this age you can always stop feeding when she is sleepy and try putting her down then but I would enjoy her being little and having the time to spend with her. Once she is 6 months or more you can try to give her sleep cues like naptime/bedtime rituals (songs, stories etc) but I don’t have the heart to leave little ones to cry themselves to sleep so you may want to ignore my advice!
We tried the controlled crying with David when he was very little (stupid stand-in for our pediatrician said to do it- he was only 4 months) and of course it didn’t work and it made me a mess. It actually made him more anxious about sleep. I nursed him to sleep so many times and that’s what worked for me until he was a little older and my husband would put him down. All my kids have generally gone to sleep more quickly and easily for my husband, so I would give that a try! You’ll have to use your own husband, of course. :>
Kristens last blog post..Into the Unknown
So when your husband put him down, did he cry and if so, did you do controlled crying or did you find that because it was husband putting him down the crying was less? I’m quite intruiged to try this.
And I have had the same experience about doing cc too early - that is, it made mine more anxious about sleep and harder to settle. Already finding that about Edward this week but that’s for another post…
I find that sleep regression - when poor nighttime sleep coincide with a developmental milestone e.g. rolling, sitting up, crawling etc. - seems to explain my children’s bouts of insomnia.
The knowledge doesn’t make things better! - i still remember two torturous weeks when my second son would wake up every 15 min all night - but it helps me maintain some perspectives in semi-deranged nights and feel more kindly in the morning. Once he’s mastered the skill(s), he’s a relatively good sleeper again.