Sleep techniques: controlled crying v’s camping out

Controlled Crying

Sleepless nights up with her daughter were leaving mum Karen worried she’d have an accident while driving. When her bub was six months old, it was off to sleep school to learn the controlled crying technique.

Karen and Liliana are now both getting a good night's sleep

Our daughter, Liliana, was a shocking sleeper from the word go! For her first four weeks she would only sleep on my chest, day or night. This meant I never really had a proper sleep, for fear she’d roll off. Eventually I progressed to letting her fall asleep on my chest before rolling her off to sleep next to me. By the time she was around six weeks we were able to get her to sleep in her pram, which we'd roll next to our bed. As a first-time mum, I didn’t want to let her cry. But this also meant I couldn't sleep!

When Liliana was three months old we were managing to get her to sleep in her cot next to our bed, and for a while this seemed to work. But when she reached four months she started waking every hour or two, and from there it was a real downward spiral. She needed to be fed to sleep and then she needed a dummy to stay that way.

We have no family where we live in Sydney, and my husband, Cameron, is away a lot as he’s a pilot. So it got to the stage where I was so exhausted I felt like I could have an accident out on the roads. I knew something had to give.

I’d heard lots of controlled-crying success stories so, when Liliana was six months, we took her to a day-long sleep school to learn the technique. Up until this point Liliana was having four 30-minute naps a day and waking every hour or so at night.

The first thing the staff told us to do was to get rid of Liliana’s dummy, stop wrapping her and stop rocking her to sleep. They then taught us to set up a routine for sleep, which involved putting her in her sleeping bag, giving her a big cuddle, putting her into her cot and walking out. When she started to cry I was to go in and try to resettle her in her cot. The first time she got pretty upset, so I picked her up and gave her another cuddle. Then she went back in her cot. We did this again and again until she fell asleep.

With out first attempt at controlled crying it took 30 minutes for Liliana to drift off. The second time, less than 10.

That first night home after sleep school she had a feed at 10pm then slept until 6.45am. I’d have had my first full-night’s sleep since she was born if I hadn’t kept waking to check she was breathing!

Liliana now has two 90-minute day naps and sleeps from 7pm to 7am with one or two wakes at night. When she wakes I give her a chance to self-settle, but if she gets upset I go straight to her.

I think a lot of people misunderstand controlled crying. They think that mothers put their babies in their cots and let them cry till they fall asleep. But that’s not how it works. I would never let Liliana get upset in her cot alone. Controlled crying is a very hands-on technique. The emphasis for us was on the ‘controlled’ not the ‘crying’.”

Camping out

Natalie was never keen on the idea of using controlled crying. Instead she tried a host of other settling techniques with her daughter, from feeding to co-sleeping, before being introduced to a gentle method called ‘camping out’.

Natalie knew she wouldn't try controlled crying with Milla right from the start

Coming home from the hospital in awe of my tiny new baby, like most new mothers, I was totally unprepared for the sleeplessness.

Starting out, I found it easier to have no set routine with little Milla and to demand feed her. I remember in my antenatal classes the midwives actually spoke against using controlled crying as a way of getting babies to sleep. They told us that new babies aren’t designed to sleep for long periods, let alone through the night. Up until that point I’d heard of controlled crying, but never really knew what it involved.

In the early days, I’d always let Milla fall asleep on my chest after a feed, then I’d wrap her and put her to bed. When she was three or four weeks old, I started co-sleeping with her. This made it easier to feed her through the night, and I was able to get more sleep this way. A lot of people commented that I was creating a rod for my own back, but those times sleeping together I still look back on as precious memories.

By the time she was six months Milla was more mobile and co-sleeping became harder. We weren’t getting the same benefits, so we started putting her in her bassinette in our bedroom. But by seven months we had moved her to her cot in her own room. She seemed okay with this and never had a problem settling.
However, she’d still wake two or three times a night and I’d need to resettle her with a feed. It was tiring, but I would try to snatch bits of sleep during the day.

By the time she was 13 months old we felt we needed to do something that worked better for everyone, but I knew controlled crying was not for us. It was then our paediatrician explained the ‘camping out’ technique. It involved my partner, Brett, or I sleeping on a mattress on the floor of Milla’s room so that when she awoke during the night we were there to speak to her softly to help her resettle, letting her know that she hadn’t been left alone to cry.

Our first attempt it took an hour to resettle her, but the second night it only took about 10 minutes each time she woke. The third night she woke only twice but just grizzled for about five minutes before drifting off, and by the fourth night she was sleeping right through.

I think a lot of people feel controlled crying is the only answer, but I felt there were gentler methods worth trying.

I could never have used controlled crying because I don't feel it's a gentle or reassuring way to teach a baby to sleep.”

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