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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to not let my baby cry?

90 replies

Maternelle · 20/08/2011 17:18

This is DC3 so you would think I would know by now, but I am starting to have doubts.
She is 9w and I don't let her cry.
My mum, DH, aunties etc... tell me I should if I am satisfied that she is not hungry or dirty.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon with an acquaintance who has a 6-week-old that she let cry for what seemed like hours (probably 15/20 minutes). I felt like picking up her baby and cuddle/BF him. The thing is her older DCs are better behaved than mine, so her techniques might be better...
I won't change as I physically can't let my babies cry, but I would like to know what others do as I seem to be the odd one out.

OP posts:

FreudianSlipper · 20/08/2011 18:50

i tell a lie there where a few occasions when i could not settle him and i needed a bit of space for a few minutes so did leave him to cry, but this was for my sanity him crying and me crying was helping neither of us

RebelFromTheWaistDown · 20/08/2011 18:51

YANBU. I have never allowed my 3 DCs to cry and they are all well-behaved.

SheCutOffTheirTails · 20/08/2011 18:57

Maybe she just wants to be held, but equally, maybe she wants to be put down.

Not all babies are cuddle monsters, neither of mine were particularly. DD1 hated to be carried around unless she was facing out so she could see what was going on. I remember one day she fell asleep on my chest face down and I didn't dare move for ages, such a precious, rare treat was it for her (even as a newborn) to be happy snuggled up on me.

And yes, boasting about how hearing babies cry causes you "physical pain" is a particularly irritating affectation.

Really, it's probably best you end your friendship with this woman, since you consider her little better than a torturer of a small baby.

ScarlettIsWalking · 20/08/2011 19:00

never even left DD to cry no big deal for a little pick up and cuddle - really don't get why anyone would

ThePosieParker · 20/08/2011 19:00

My last two had to cry sometimes because they both had reflux and I had other children, but I would do all I could to prevent it. My firstborn barely cried in his first year of life and not much after either....I could count on one hand the times he cried before his first birthday, he never 'teethed' either.

GetAwayFromHerYouBitch · 20/08/2011 19:03

SheCutOff - DS1 was like that - he'd get het up by being held sometimes

RitaMorgan · 20/08/2011 19:05

If a baby is crying when they have been put down, then presumably their cry is not communicating "please put me down" If the baby just wants to be put down and be left alone then they wouldn't cry and there would be no issue - but the OP is talking about babies who have been put down/left and are crying.

Original poster

Maternelle · 20/08/2011 19:07

Shecutoff
A. I said she was an acquaintance, not a friend.
B. I never said she was a torturer of small babies, I said she was a good mother and that her Dcs were better behaved than mine.

Are you always so agressive? Maybe your mum left you to cry a lot

OP posts:

ThePosieParker · 20/08/2011 19:08

Shecutoff.....Erm do crying babies not make you physically on edge? It's what they call maternal instinct, a chemical reaction evolution gives us to take care of our babies.

GetAwayFromHerYouBitch · 20/08/2011 19:09

yes, that would seem logical Rita, but babies aren't necessarily logical. DS1 would cry a bit when put down, settle when held, cry again when put down, continue to cry when picked up, carrying on cryiing and get more and more fractious until he was put down again.

I learned that a couple of minutes of whimpering when he was put down would stop this frustrating cycle.

RitaMorgan · 20/08/2011 19:12

Somehow I doubt the OP is talking about a couple of minutes of whimpering when she says leaving babies to cry.

GetAwayFromHerYouBitch · 20/08/2011 19:12

I am talking about bedtime only her, BTW, I would not be routinely letting a small baby cry during the day unless I was dealing with my other child.

theidsalright · 20/08/2011 19:15

YANBU

I don't know if you are interested but this woman says it much better than I can www.phdinparenting.com/2011/07/05/no-cry-it-out-3-years-later/

Original poster

Maternelle · 20/08/2011 19:16

This was at least 15 minutes in a row during the day. She said he wasn't hungry as he had been fed. She didn't mention him being sleepy.
Eventually he stopped.
Then he started again and after a few long minutes she picked him up. She said he was having loads of "tantrums" these days.

OP posts:

SheCutOffTheirTails · 20/08/2011 19:16

Rita - by that logic all crying babies who are being held should immediately be put down

A baby who wants to be left alone to go to sleep can take a few minutes to get there - you know being new to the world they don't react immediately, clearly and logically to every change in circumstances.

If I had insisted on cuddling DD2 while she screamed for hours that would have been bad parenting, because it would have been about my need to be the kind of parent who never let her cry.

Responding to the baby I had meant leaving her to settle, because that was what she needed.

Having set, definite (ideological?) ideas about how parenting must be done means you are less responsive to your baby's needs.

There is no moral difference between the OP and the people who upset her by telling her she's doing it wrong - they are all insistent that their way is the only right way and judging the fuck out of mothers who do things differently.

theidsalright · 20/08/2011 19:16

sorry I fucked that up
this is the one I meant

rhondajean · 20/08/2011 19:19

I think this really depends on why they are crying. Obviously you pick them up if they are hungry/dirty.upset. If they are bored, you pick them up too. But they need to learn to go to sleep themselves and I never felt bad about letting mines cry themselves to sleep (it runs in our family, as you get overtired you cry - adults too haha).

I know many will disagree with this but I have seen friends who do the rock to sleep and end up with children who wont sleep. Mines both slept brilliantly, still go to bed at a good time, and seem to have no major emotional scars from it.

rhondajean · 20/08/2011 19:21

Babies that small do not have tantrums though, missed that bit before I posted, its their only way of communicating, we just have to try to figure out what they are saying and whats best thing to respond with!

Tantrums indeed. Wait till they reach 2 if she thinks thats a tantrum.....

Fontsnob · 20/08/2011 19:24

My DB and his GF have their 2 wk old DD in her own room and she isn't allowed to fall asleep in anyones arms in case she gets used to it. It makes me :( but at the end of the day it's got nothing to do with me. Different strokes and all that! Im with you OP DD was BF and co-slept and even though she is still in our bed from about 2am onwards at the age of 1, I don't mind! I'd also do it the same over again.

SheCutOffTheirTails · 20/08/2011 19:27

Crying babies annoy everyone, it's not some sign of amazing sensitivity.

That's why nobody (especially fat, drunk men with buzz cuts) wants to sit near them on a plane. Because it's a noise designed to drive you to distraction.

Since being a mother myself I find I can deal with it better - I understand that babies cry and that it's not something to freak out about (lesson learnt day 4 or 5 with DD1).

I would have said a mothering instinct was more about patience with crying, than paroxysms of agony (irritation?) at the sound of crying. Or else fat men on planes are the most motherly of all.

Oh, and babies have lots of ways of communicating, not just crying. Why do people always say it's all they have?

Bumpsadaisie · 20/08/2011 19:28

I never left DD except for a couple of times when I tried leaving her for 5 mins or so - this just had the effect of ramping up the crying to panic crisis levels and making her throw up and me feel dreadful. Decided after the second time of trying that that it wasn't for us. She was always a baby that want to be held - we couldn't put her down for the first 6 weeks and she would never go in her carrycot so the shopping went in there and DD was in the sling!

I worried all along that I would always have a child that would never "self settle" - as she got older I always had to stay in her room singing etc till she dropped off.

However at 2 (couple of months back) we moved her to a new bedroom, a big bed and suddenly it was like we had a school age child rather than a baby. Now I do story, song, tuck in, blow a kiss, she blows me one back, says goodnight mummy and I close the door and she just takes herself off to sleep and we don't hear from her for 12 hours.

If you had told me 6 months ago it could be this easy, I really wouldnt have believed you.

So I think she was just ready for it at 2. She actually likes going to bed now. The contrast with 6 months ago is so huge.

DC2 due in Oct and will take same approach! No doubt if I had left DD crying we might have trained her into it sooner, but given she got there in the end anyway I am pretty glad we didn't.

RitaMorgan · 20/08/2011 19:29

SheCutOffTheirTails - as I said, there is a difference between a baby that needs to cry down for a minute or two before falling asleep, and deliberately leaving small babies to cry without comforting them in order to teach them something. The OP is talking about a 6 week old baby crying for 15 minutes at a time - I would find that painful to be around too!

Bumpsadaisie · 20/08/2011 19:31

PS I do hear what others are saying, that some babies get overstimulated and being constantly held is the last thing they want. Maybe our DC2 will be like that - polar opposite of DD.

GetAwayFromHerYouBitch · 20/08/2011 19:32

Maternalle - I am surprised you feel the odd one out. It seems to me there have been much greater moves to co-sleeping and slings etc. Maybe we only notice the people who are doing it different from us ....

The trouble is, for lots of us, that we don't necessarily have any instincts or we aren't relaxed enough to recognise them, especially with a first child. I know this was the case with me.

elinorbellowed · 20/08/2011 19:37

"And yes, boasting about how hearing babies cry causes you "physical pain" is a particularly irritating affectation."

I swear by all I hold dear, that the cry of a small baby in distress makes my breast ache. This has only happened since breastfeeding two children and being as I only stopped six months ago, I'm hoping it's muscle memory/psychological and it will go one day. But I do feel it! And I would tell anyone IRL for fear of being thought insane, so I don't think it's an affectation.

I never left mine to cry when they were that little, I think it's wrong, but I did controlled crying when they were a year and I thought I would crack up from lack of sleep. However, at that age they understand what you are doing and if you do it properly and don't leave them for ages, it's fine.
I do agree that different babies have different personalities and some of them don't need the physical closeness that others do.

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