Controlled Crying - our experience

As my Dad has always said to me, getting a child to sleep through the night is the first major milestone in a parent's life. What I have found is that bad habits are very easy to learn and harder, but not difficult, to break.

With our daughter, we

My Mum also had sensible advice. We rarely get in to bed and go straight to sleep. We often need twenty minutes or so to wind down in bed, so why not let a baby do the same before rushing to stroke or rock them?

Well, things were wonderful for a while. She would go off like a dream. I can't remember when things changed, but it was probably during a cold or somesuch. Anyway, a few months back, when she was about 18 months old, we had ended up in a situation where she would only lie down in her cot if one of us stayed in her room with her until she drifted off. I remember even lying on the floor next to her cot just hoping she would take less then an hour. If we left before that, she would scream, there would be tears and I would feel terrible that she wasn't asleep and would go in to calm her down. What were we thinking!

Well, with my second child under construction, we realised that we really needed to do something. We often were not getting Leala asleep until gone 9pm, and then eating dinner, so our evenings were hardly relaxing. I had read about controlled crying but had shied away from it as I know how stubborn Leala can be.

We made a decision. Things had to change. I picked a time when she was relatively well in herself and decided to go for it. I felt awful as she had been so lovely and well behaved all day, whilst I knew that I was going to "be mean" to her that night. We did the usual bedtime routine, I turned on her music and lights and then left the room. She screamed. She screamed some more. She cried. She banged her head against the cot in anger and frustration. Her milk was thrown on the floor and she sounded almost hysterical. But it was in anger. I went in after 10 minutes, laid her down, then listened to it all start up again,. Each time I gave her longer before checking on her, and each time she started screaming with renewed vigour after I left her. I made a mistake early on in that she had almost calmed down yet I was due to check on her. It just upset her again when I went in and I wished I had left her alone.

On the first night, she cried for 50 minutes. The following night 45mins, and it got slowly better and better. After a week, she cried for around 15 minutes before calming down, and eventually going to sleep after about half an hour.

After around a month or so of this, we had a holiday scheduled. I thought this might throw a spanner in the works because we were staying in a small apartment and she would be sleeping in the same room as the TV, but behind a curtain. I carried on the routine as before. In the past, I have considered changing routines and "being nice" to her when we go somewhere that she is unfamiliar with. Then I realised that the one thing I can keep the same is her routine, and routines are comforting, so why had I considered changing that one thing I could control for her?

I thought that she might have settled so well because she could still hear me in the room, but when we got back from holiday, I couldn't believe how well she went down. Two weeks later, my partner and I are so relieved that she goes down without a murmur and sleeps without a peep for 12 hours. I go through the routine then leave the room. She has never slept so well, and this has even had a knock-on effect with her day time sleep - she also goes down then without much fuss.

All I would say is that I felt horrible listening to her scream and cry. It broke my heart and my boyfriend decided that he couldn't even bear to hear her on the monitor, so he stayed downstairs whilst I waited outside her room. I felt like I was hurting my daughter and she was upset, but I really do think that she was mainly angry with me. She had got everything just how she wanted it, yet I was regaining control. We needed time to ourselves and she needed to learn to go to sleep without us. After all, we weren't always going to be there (perhaps we wanted to go out!) and she needed to be more independent. Thinking about it, we would all love to be lulled off to sleep by being stroked, but that's hardly real life, is it? The main thing I found is that once I made the decision, I had to stick to it, be firm and be consistent. If I had started this and then given in after a couple of nights, it would have all been in vain.

As I said, she now goes off brilliantly. I can't believe that I now have two children that are in bed, and asleep by 8pm most nights, and the rest of the evening is ours! I no longer have bedtime battles with Leala. If she does moan, I go in and give her a quick cuddle, then leave. This always works. If it didn't, I think I would go straight back to lengthening the gaps between checks so as not to get in to another bad habit.

I have read some books and articles and have to agree with the advice that you need to work out what you really want, and then work out how to get it. It is tough initially, but I just wish we had done this earlier. I'm sure that this will be one of many battles, but I think that she is now more aware that I mean business, and hopefully (ha ha!) the rest will be easier.

I will finish with something my sister-in-law told me. "You're not being mean. You're doing her a favour by teaching her how to get herself off to sleep on her own". Although it didn't feel like that at the time, it's well worth the effort.