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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

... to have an argument with SIL over her post about controlled crying?

361 replies

katykuns · 12/07/2013 11:45

Post: 'Dear mommy,

I am confused.
I am used to falling asleep in your soft, warm arms. Each night I lay snuggled close to you; close enough to hear your heartbeat, close enough to smell your sweet fragrance. I gaze at your beautiful face as I gently drift off to sleep, safe and secure in your loving embrace. When I awaken with a growling stomach, cold feet or because I need a cuddle, you attend to me quickly and before long I am sound asleep once again.
But this last week has been different.

Gentle, Tear-Free Sleep Solution
Each night this week has gone like this. You tucked me up into my cot and kissed me goodnight, turned out the light and left. At first I was confused, wondering where you?d gone. Soon I became scared, and called for you. I called and called for you mummy, but you wouldn?t come! I was so sad, mummy. I wanted you so badly. I?ve never felt feelings that strong before. Where did you go?
Eventually you came back! Oh, how happy and relieved I was that you came back! I thought you had left me forever! I reached up to you but you wouldn?t pick me up. You wouldn?t even look me in the eye. You lay me back down with those soft warm arms, said ?shh, it?s night time now? and left again.
This happened again, over and over. I screamed for you and after a while, longer each time, you would return but you wouldn?t hold me.
After I had screamed a while, I had to stop. My throat hurt so badly. My head was pounding and my tiny tummy was growling. My heart hurt the most, though. I just couldn?t understand why you wouldn?t come.
After what felt like a lifetime of nights like this, I gave up. You don?t come when I scream, and when you do finally come you won?t even look me in the eye, let alone hold my shaking, sobbing little body. The screaming hurt too much to carry on for very long.
I just don?t understand, mummy. In the daytime when I fall and bump my head, you pick me up and kiss it better. If I am hungry, you feed me. If I crawl over to you for a cuddle, you read my mind and scoop me up, covering my tiny face with kisses and telling me how special I am and how much you love me. If I need you, you respond to me straight away.
But at night time, when it?s dark and quiet and my night-light casts strange shadows on my wall, you disappear. I can see that you?re tired, mummy, but I love you so much. I just want to be near to you, that?s all.
Now, at night time, I am quiet. But I still miss you.'

She doesn't understand why it's angered me. In my opinion, it's emotional blackmail and utterly manipulative. I did controlled crying with DD1, but she was naturally a good sleeper so it wasn't really a challenging experience. DD2 isn't a great sleeper, and we do try for a few minutes to see if she will settle, but get her back up when she doesn't.
As I see it, this is written by an adult projecting her own feelings about CC onto others through the form of a poor vulnerable baby, it really doesn't sit right with me at all.
I don't really agree with co-sleeping, but I never would post stuff like this to upset people doing co-sleeping.

OP posts:
TarkaTheOtter · 13/07/2013 23:14

scariest that has already been debunked discussed up thread.

Ps, there are instructions on how to link below the comment box. They apply to iPads too.

morethanpotatoprints · 13/07/2013 23:14

I think that anyone who tries to project their own views onto others is wrong whether I agree with their comments or not, especially in terms of childcare. We all raise our children how we feel fit and nobody has the right to say a particular way is better or the best way, as all babies are different too.
if you are asked thats a different matter, so I tend to agree with the OP but don't get the blackmail bit tbh.

CatsAndTheirPizza · 13/07/2013 23:32

I also did a bit of CC and regret it very much and wish I had been better informed (not blaming anyone). I get where she is coming from, but also recognise that many people are driven to CC and don't really do it out of choice. When you have had a couple of hours sleep for months on end, sometimes I am sure it is the best option - for both mum and baby.

If she knows you did CC and are on FBook too, then it was insensitive. For anyone who has recently done it, it is not what you want to read.

ScariestFairyByFar · 13/07/2013 23:35

Sorry what's been debunked?

DuelingFanjo · 13/07/2013 23:36

"I still wouldn't say anything, that would make me a total cunt..."

yes it would and it would be very different for you to post something onto her wall given that all she did was post on her own.

people get tired. Don't you ever get tired? Or is CC now a cure for all tiredness?

HaroldLloyd · 14/07/2013 00:06

Honestly scariest you could put x number of surveys up, someone else could find as many to support what they are doing.

Personally I know my baby and I know what he needs as I'm sure you do and everyone else on this thread.

I don't really understand why anyone would care enough about what happens in someone else's house at night to post drivel like this. (The Facebook that is)

If she's tired maybe she should just concern herself with what's happening in her own house, or worry about the children worldwide who ARE suffering.

Ridiculous.

MrButtercat · 14/07/2013 06:25

Scariest the cortisol thing has been debunked.

Babies will produce cortisol daily and probably far more than 2 or 3 nights containing the odd 5 mins of crying.Babies are hardy and to be honest imvho will get far more stressed being left in a nursery daily which thousands do.

The study you're thinking of was based on neglected babies in orphanages and there have been many studies debunking it.

Should add there are several reliable studies which show how damaging lack of sleep is.Only last week there was one which hosed brain drain in vey young children.The fact many parents don't seem to care about this is shocking.

feelingdizzy · 14/07/2013 06:54

How bizarre. Firstly to give a baby the mental articulation abilities of an adult whilst still maintaining their baby impulses and needs. Odd and very un-necessary.

I did CC have no guilt at all , I needed to save my little family.My kids 10 and 11 now.At the time I had 2 under 2's my eldest at 20months still wasn't sleeping . I was(still am) a single parent had PND and was working full time in a very demanding job.

To be honest we needed to survive ,it's sometimes is as simple as that .Any way if I have mentally scarred her she is getting her own back as she approaches the teen years : )

Copthallresident · 14/07/2013 07:01

Fanjo "people get tired" I will never forget that tiredness. Six months when I didn't get more than two hours sleep at a time, and often just 20minutes, when I would tot up all the broken minutes of sleep and if I reached 5 hours I thought I had done very well indeed. When I was so tired that when I tried to get up out of bed to walk to the bathroom the floor came up to meet me and I hallucinated. It was a dangerous level of tiredness for me and DD. And I was far from alone, at GOSH we met many other parents struggling with that level of sleep deprivation.

This isn't about Gina Ford control freakery. It's about a solution to a serious problem for mothers and babies.

TheFallenNinja · 14/07/2013 07:11

I read the OP, I thought I was going to get it the end and be asked for £5 a month.

Complete bollocks, CC is a parental choice, what anyone else thinks is irrelevant.

MrsLion · 14/07/2013 08:24

That post is vomit-inducing bollocks.

I have never done cc and certainly never let any of my dc get a sore throat from crying, but it wasn't because I am swayed by drivel like that.

pigletmania · 14/07/2013 08:25

You would not do CC on any any under Ithink 1 anyway, so you would not do it on a young baby, but an older baby or toddler, who does have better understanding, and does have to realise night time is for sleeping. So tat FB is crap really, written by an adult and designed to shit shit stirr

pigletmania · 14/07/2013 08:29

Really by the sounds of it, that baby in the op pat would be an older baby/toddler who does have to learn tat night time is for sleeping, and that you cannot get up 5 times a nigh wanting attention and that it's ok.

ScariestFairyByFar · 14/07/2013 20:52

Yes it was my understanding that babies produce cortisol as do adults but not in the high levels seen in cc

ScariestFairyByFar · 14/07/2013 22:18

There was also an Australian study that looked specifically at CC not orphanages

DuelingFanjo · 14/07/2013 22:19

Some of us cope better with broken sleep, obviously.

maja00 · 14/07/2013 22:21

This study about orphanages seems to come up all the time - it discussions of both CC and nurseries - but I have never come across the actual study? There have been lots of specific studies about babies and stress, separation, attachment etc though.

DuelingFanjo · 14/07/2013 22:23

Cope differently, not better

cosydressinggown · 14/07/2013 22:37

Well honestly I think the status is exactly how babies feel when their parents leave them to cry. I don't agree with this thing that people refer to as 'controlled crying' in any way shape or form.

Posting it on Facebook is rude and stupid and judgemental though.

ubik · 14/07/2013 22:52

The orphanages example related back to bowlby's theory of attachment - conducted on children in Russian orphanage. It's often erroneously cited as a reason not to put children in nursery or CC. In spite of the fact that most children are not neglected, having loving parents not the same as orphanage development.

maja00 · 14/07/2013 23:06

I don't remember Bowlby doing any work in Russian orphanages, though he did do some research with institutionalised children here.

His work on attachment and separation wasn't anything to do with orphans though.

pigletmania · 14/07/2013 23:15

Controlled cryingnot leaving babies to cry, it is usally done on babes 7 months plus, not younger babies!

maja00 · 14/07/2013 23:17

Controlled crying involves leaving babies to cry for increasing periods of time pigletmania. 7 months seems pretty young to me?

cosydressinggown · 14/07/2013 23:19

Actually even the guy who 'invented' controlled crying doesn't recommend it for babies under one year old.

And pigletmania your post is a bit odd - 'controlled crying is not leaving babies to cry, it is only babies from 7 months plus'? Is a baby not a baby any more from 7 months?!

pigletmania · 14/07/2013 23:23

No it's not, you hear a cry, you wait a few min reassure and go, hear a cry again, wait a few mins, go in reassure, and so on until baby settles. It's not CIO. I did this with both mine, dd was about 1 and ds was younger, if he cried I would give him a little milk, put on his lullaby and he would go back to sleep. If he woke again, I old again give a small bit of milk, put lullaby music back on and he would go back to sleep. Does nt sound bad to me

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