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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Leaving a baby to scream for over an hour

101 replies

Pleasejustgo · 08/04/2014 08:17

AIBU for thinking it's not ok to leave a baby to scream itself for an hour and a half, every hour and a half 24/7?

This has been happening since it was born and it's now about 7 months.

I thought CC was for about 5 minutes or so? Said baby sounds totally and utterly distressed throughout the day and night and is constantly crying. I know some babies like to scream but surely not on a 24 hourly basis. It has no medical conditions apparently, it just doesn't like to sleep I've been told.

AIBU to think surely one of the parents should get up to comfort it as night as the hysteria goes on for a VERY long time and as I said this baby sound utterly utterly distressed.

OP posts:
thebody · 08/04/2014 09:33

We'll still not much info.

Cc is not the same as letting them cry it out by the way.

Op if the baby is generally well cared for, fed, happy then butt out.

Some babies cry a lot and as long as they are out in a safe warm place they won't come to harm.

Sometimes it is much better to put a crying baby down and leave it rather than loosing your temper with it.

Original poster
Pleasejustgo · 08/04/2014 09:35

I'm not interfering but it's impacting quite heavily on my DC

OP posts:
thebody · 08/04/2014 09:36

Cc is allowing your baby to try and self settle but you start by sitting by the cot then in the room and gradually withdrawing but going to Sooth the baby for stayed periods short at first but longer as the toddler realise you mean business!

Wouldn't do this on any child under 12 months.

Did it with all my 4 and it worked like a miracle.

They are now 24/23/14/15 and all fine.

Original poster
Pleasejustgo · 08/04/2014 09:38

So rather than say, 'I disagree with what you're doing here just because,' and being an interfering nightmare I thought I'd get some other insight and try and being a bit more understanding as there is a baby involved as well as my DC.

OP posts:
Martorana · 08/04/2014 09:41

"It's not controlled crying, but it's what people used to do routinely before controlled crying became popular"

No it wasn't. People didn't suddenly start not wanting to hear their babies distressed in 1945, you know! Babies have always been cuddled and fed to sleep- and probably were left alone far less in the days of bigger families and smaller houses. And controlled crying is, in my experience, still a minority persuit.

randomAXEofkindness · 08/04/2014 09:44

Interestingly, I didn't have a problem understanding your opening post.

YANBU. It's shit. They're shit. I'd have no problem ringing ss over this.

Most posters seem to be assuming that you must have made a mistake because they can't even comprehend that parents would be heartless enough to simply choose to neglect their baby like this. So, I suppose you could take the answers here to mean it is not normal.

cheekyfunkymonkey · 08/04/2014 09:46

7 months is probably the youngest any type of cc/ cio should be started. It is worrying if it has been going on since birth.

Forgettable · 08/04/2014 09:47

Ah right, I am getting a clearer picture

I think the crying baby has unmet needs, which might well affect their development and behaviour. An unmet need might be wanting physical such as needing food or drink. Or emotional, needing closeness and familiarity. Etc.

What to say to the parents, though? I don't know.

Original poster
Pleasejustgo · 08/04/2014 09:47

TheBody

This baby is under one. We did the same with our middle one for a bit but she is a sleeper now and it lasted only a few weeks. This baby has sounded distraught for a while, day and night. No medical conditions. Said mother may be not coping as is usually quite aggressive generally.

Our baby has a few things going on so doesn't sleep and for this reason can't be left.

Is it really impossible to get some insight without a complete bollocking and automatic assumption I think they're being bad parents? Honestly.

OP posts:
thebody · 08/04/2014 09:48

martorana not sure you are totally correct there.

Child rearing was different back then. People loved their kids just the same but remember house work took far longer back in the day. No washing machine, dryer, etc. babies were out in prams and put down the garden. I certainly was and mom has said I cried a lot. Grin

My mil told me that her mother used to put all 3 of her babies in the pram all day and just have them bottles every 4 hours.

Things are far more child centred today.

To add cc saved my sanity. It would be a bloody shame if it was poo pooed.

Op you have to live with this I think in the light of all your other posts. People parent differently.

Martorana · 08/04/2014 09:48

"7 months is probably the youngest any type of cc/ cio should be started. It is worrying if it has been going on since birth."

Not according to the guy who invented controlled crying-he says 12 months.

OP- I'm going to risk a flaming- if this is happening daily and has happened daily for a long time, then I would contact social services.

thebody · 08/04/2014 09:49

Oh sorry just seen your latest.

It's a problem op. I feel for you. A crying baby still makes me tingle. What about other relatives?

HemlockStarglimmer · 08/04/2014 09:51

Our neighbours, when I was 14, would leave their baby crying at night. The bedroom was next to mine and it drove me potty night after night.

Mum told me off for banging on the wall Blush. Thirty years later, when I had my baby I would always do my damnedest to stop her crying. Which she would do every night for up to two hours as she had colic. Karma maybe.

Martorana · 08/04/2014 09:51

I find the Mumsnet attitude to involving the authorities seriously bizarre. I can remember people being advised to contact the police because they saw somebody walking past a school a couple of times, or for "looking a bit dodgy". There is a thread going on now about how suspicious it is that another mother at play group is taking photos of children not her own. But a baby can be screaming for hours behind closed doors and the Op is told it's none of her business.

thebody · 08/04/2014 09:52

Random wow very quick to judge. You needed more facts than the opening post to comment sensibly.

Aventurine · 08/04/2014 09:52

Agree with Mantorana and Random. I've never agreed with the idea that as long as a baby is warm, fed and dry, then it's fine to leave it on its own to cry for long periods from birth as in the case of this baby. Humans aren't robots. They have emotional needs which need to be met as much as physical needs. Many an adult is damaged by having had its emotional needs ignored.

thebody · 08/04/2014 09:54

martorama a bloke ( Dr Green)did not invent cc. Trust me a woman must have but a bloke just wrote about it.

Fusedog · 08/04/2014 09:54

Op i was a foster carer for 7 years and we often had babies that cried and cried due to the distress and yes it was pretty much for the whole day and night babies coming off drugs sound like a screaming fox and due to us being foster carers we always had the police ECt at our house god no what they must of thought.

I have to say unless it's your friend or your family member I doubt you have the full facts

Some baby's have very bad colic
Some baby's re really bad and don't settle

Some babies have relfulx

Some babies are in foster carer and you wouldn't know unless the person told you i know I certainly never told anyone on my street and people assumes she was our baby

Gen35 · 08/04/2014 09:57

But really, whatever you think, unless you call SS and get them checked out, it's not worth you worrying about. I don't see what you can do or what judging them helps. So you wouldn't do that, well so don't do it. It doesn't sound as though you're offering any constructive help - maybe the woman is knackered and not coping. If it were me, I might call hv and mention concerns, or I might offer to take the baby for a few hours here and there. Judging by itself is just utterly pointless.

thebody · 08/04/2014 09:58

Yes of course babies/toddlers have emotional needs I don't really think anyone here needs telling that really.

However if a baby is crying endlessly it is a sensible action to put it in a warm safe place and walk away if you feel you cannot cope. Babies have been shaken to death as people get to the end of their tethers.

There are shades of grey.

BertieBotts · 08/04/2014 09:59

Marto I was simplifying. Of course people did CC before CC was "invented" and people cuddled their babies before AP was "invented" and every other thing in between but MORE people left their babies to cry it out (as in, not comforting, not going in, nothing) before attitudes like CC and AP were popularised. If you look on US baby forums, crying it out with no comforting, or much less frequent comforting than the normal UK definition of controlled crying, is common and accepted in many places.

I agree with you and think it's terrible but I don't think that the law agrees. If the baby is well fed, clean, cared for, loved and interacted with in the day then this is seen as a sleep training method, not neglect.

Martorana · 08/04/2014 09:59

The original book about controlled crying was written by Richard Ferber in the 1980s. That's when all this self settling rubbish started.

Famzilla · 08/04/2014 10:02

I don't agree with leaving a baby to cry at all. Some of my friends do it and I feel so sorry for those tiny little people.

HOWEVER, it is a parenting choice. Not abuse providing the child's needs are being met. I sincerely doubt SS would get involved, CIO and CC are still favoured by HCP's at certain inpatient centres.

thebody · 08/04/2014 10:03

Can I add that when I worked on a paediatric ward the neglected/abused children were the quietest on the ward as they knew crying did not bring care.

Those with colic, reflux, ear infections etc could scream for hours.

I think it would be helpful to offer to accompany the baby tans mum to the GPs.

Aventurine · 08/04/2014 10:05

I didn't get from the Op's posts that the mum said she was at the end of her tether so had to walk away. In that case I would agree it was the right thing to do. Op said they have routinely left the baby crying for long periods day and night from birth