Aibu to think that attachment/ gentle/ natural parents minimise how dangerous sleep deprivation is

[ScrumpyBetty]

I have thought about writing this post for a while, and I want to write it in a respectful way, this is in no way about 'bashing' anyone for the parenting choices that they identify with or choose to make,

If you are an AP and you co- sleep, breastfeed on demand, choose gentle sleep training- I think brilliant! You are very lucky and well done for making it work for you.

When I was an anxious new mother, I identified very much with some of the things I read on AP websites and wanted to AP.
However after 18 months of waking up every night 6 or more times, I was at breaking point. Seriously sleep deprived, crying every day, anxious, depressed- I could go on. I reached out to the AP community for help and advice and was told to continue to use gentle sleep training methods such as the No Cry Sleep Solution, continue to Wait It Out, and definitely not to do controlled crying or CIO. But by this point we had been using the NO Cry Sleep Solution for months, gentle methods were not working!
I read loads of stuff on AP blogs and was given advice such as: let the housework slide and sleep when your baby sleeps! Try yoga or meditation to relax a bit more! Etc. loads of articles warned me about the perils of sleep training.

Eventually we did do controlled crying, and it wasn't that brutal, it was 3 nights of leaving DS to cry for no more than 5 mins at a time. He was 18 months and it was the best thing we ever did. I cannot stress how much of a better mum I am now that I am getting regular sleep!

I know I will be told I was silly to listen to AP advice when it quite clearly wasn't working for me, but I know loads of new mums who do AP and who do treat it like gospel, and who think that controlled crying is abhorrent.
I think that sleep deprivation is abhorrent, and if I hadn't done CC I may well have had a nervous breakdown, so what good would all that gentle parenting do then?
AIBu to think that AP/ natural parenting etc websites minimise the dangers of sleep deprivation- which are depression, mood swings, memory loss, a whole host of health problems? I agree that sleep training methods such as CC should be a last resort but if they need to be used then they need to be used surely?

My post should have said that cuddling was 20+ mins of crying. Leaving him alone was 5mins. Yet still all the emotive rhetoric about "leaving babies alone to cry" damaging them made me choose the long drawn out option

I look back and realise I probably did AP( it didn't have a name) with my DC but it was because I didn't want multiple night wakings that I did it.

My EBF babies snuggled up in bed and BF = no night wakings, they just got on the boob and got on with it.
I didn't have 6 night wakings at all.
From about 2 they slept in their own beds .

lastlines

Yes think you have been there too.

When you are pregnant with dc2 and dc1 still isn't sleeping at 10 months. When you fantasise about crashing your car and knocking yourself out or getting appendicitis so you can sleep in hospital then it's time to do cc.

Best thing and best tool in my parenting arsenal I ever had.

Mine are now 25,24,16,14 and did cc on them all.

They are absolutely fine.

I suspect attachment parenting leads to bigger gaps between children too. I feel so sorry for children that have had to share their parents from so young.

Well us multiples and twins are fucked then. BAD mums ovaries! BAD dads sperm! You've made me pitiable in the eyes of others, I cannot possibly have been responded to!

I suspect attachment parenting leads to bigger gaps between children too. I feel so sorry for children that have had to share their parents from so young.

we cant do CIO on DD, it wouldnt work (SN). We are still surviving 8.5 years on of no sleep.

So i am a bit cynical about HAVING to do CIO at 6 months, for example. But try not to judge anyone. we all are just doing our best

These labels are bollocks. A good mum is responsive to her baby, but balances this with being responsive to her own needs and those of the family. To most this means a balanced approach, not rigidly sticking to a set of rules.

I have co-slept when my babies were ill, or when they were tiny and it meant a lie down in the day etc. But generally and once they were bigger, I slept better with my own space. Also sleep deprivation triggers my anxiety and sometimes makes me feel very low.

I don't like the label controlled crying. Instinctively, I've let a baby cry for a short amount of time if I felt they might get themselves back to sleep. But then gone to them if I felt they needed me. I breast fed but gently night weaned at some point.

I've tried different things at different stages and ages. I thought most people did this.

Fanjo no one's talking about CIO (ie just leaving baby to cry) though.

Altered unfortunately some people "live by lists" or become zealots to the extent they ADD to the lists! Either in words on the Web or real life.

I maintain it gives those of us who parent responsively a bad name.
I'm positive 99% of us respond to the child's needs without dogma.

Cc isn't about leaving baby to cry!

fango yes indeed we all are/did and it's tough.

yes sorry, CC

Mn is great for lots of things but I've often thought that Im so glad that I didn't know about it when ds was a baby, because he would fuss before falling to sleep, I took it as normal and watched over him in hes mosses, made sure he wasn't rooting and the fuss would quickly evolve into a very distinctive noise before he dropped off.
He sttn from 10 wks and has not had less than 12 hours since 12 wks. If I had been spooked by AP mners I would have been paranoid about long term 'damage' I am VERY concerned about what is best for him, I'm not neglectful but IMO a good nights sleep is best for every child, I have a very strong bond with ds, I can properly enjoy him because I feel good too.
I once worked for a family with school children who still wake their dm in the night (including a 9 year old), no one in that family was content.

Oh and OP YANBU.

The thing is Rabbit, that your baby would fall asleep on their own and then sleep through the night, after "fussing" for a few minutes. That's great for you, but my baby would not have done so. You didn't have to do CC or CIO - you stayed with your baby whilst they settled which is not the same thing at all. Are you suggesting that in my case, where my baby would not have settled, that I should have done CC when he was 10 weeks in order to "fix" his sleep? I'm confused as to what your point is.

My point is that I would have been spooked into not letting him fuss because alot of the threads I have read on here since absolutely deplore allowing any form of crying.

I'm currently studying attachment theory as part of my degree, and it's completely fascinating. I'm intrigued by how some adults think babies will just magically fit into these routines and do what the parents want if they ignore them. My mum built a 40 year career fixing the issues caused by neglectful parents, and teachers and carers have to practically regress children back to babies to correct attachment issues. I could not have ignored DD if I'd wanted to (I didn't). And frankly, a content child is far more important to me than clean skirting boards or washing curtains.

Ainsworth and Bowlby's original research on attachment was done in the 60s, when it was normal to put children in a rigid routine and leave them in the garden all afternoon. Even then the majority of infants showed a secure attachment style. I'm willing to bet the proportion of securely attached children has not been affected in the slightest by the more recent fashion for being 'baby led' and picking babies up the instant they squeak.

Because attachment has fuck all to do with most of the formulaic stuff so-called attachments parents bang on about. You can do Gina Ford and still - gasp - end up with a secure child. You can do AP and end up with an insecure one, having gone through all that sleep deprivation for nothing. Because what predicts secure attachment in your babies is your own secure or insecure attachment style. Not whether you co-slept or whatever.

AP has absolutely no evidence behind it. None. (If anyone can point me to a peer reviewed study that follows AP and non AP infants over the first 2-3 years and demonstrates a statistically significant increase in secure attachment atyles among the AP babies, please do, I would like to be proved wrong on this.) it pisses me off that so many anxious young mothers are fretting that Science Has Shown they will permanently damage their babies if they don't sacrifice everything on the altar of motherhood because, in a nutshell, it's bollocks.

Attachment studies are hugely interesting but very very badly traduced in pop science. All attachment theory says is that children respond positively to responsive parenting and are likely to turn out with roughly the same level of trust in other humans as their parents. The rest is retrograde misogynist hysteria.

I don't even like the term 'gentle parenting' as it indicates that what, other parenting is 'harsh' parenting? It's all just parenting with many decisions you make that you feel is best. If you are so judgy that you think someone who dares do housework and lets baby play with some toys for a while is a bad mother then you don't sound like a particularly gentle person. Or that someone after 18 months might think that maybe their child could perhaps be coaxed into learning that they don't have to wake up 3 times a night is on a par with someone leaving a newborn alone in a house to scream all night and starve. I agree with a PP, Mumsnet can be helpful but before all this people were probably more in tune with their own maternal instinct and wouldn't sit in anguish because they thought they couldn't take their eyes off their baby for long enough to have a wee or wash or eat because some omnipotent perfect mother figure out there was telling them their baby would suffer. It's just mad.

Whilst I know this is emotive I feel that it needs to be said, wether its cc or CIO you are technically still leaving the child to cry, the time scale may be different but the effect is the same.

If you're fine with that you're fine with that.

But good parenting is about figuring out what works for your child. It's a bit strange to be so brainwashed by one particular philosophy that you can't comprehend a different approach might be more beneficial.

I tried controlled crying with my eldest at around a year, for about 5 days, because he was restless sleeper and I thought I should. It was, hands down, the worst week of my life. He cried for 2 hours, slept for 20 mins and then started the whole damn cycle again. He was so distressed he was physically sick. Didn't take much to figure out it wasn't right for him. But it clearly can and does work for other children.

I don't understand why it has to be one or the other. You just need to be responsive to the needs of your own child and not tell other people what to do. And I don't need much sleep anyway so quickly realised I was far more distressed and upset at having to deal with a crying and sick baby than carrying on co- sleeping and being woken up 3/4 times a night for quick feeds/cuddles back to sleep.

While I'm at it, the sleep deprivation used in torture is literally ZERO sleep for days on end, with physical punishment (electrocution, water boarding, breaking fingers etc) to prevent the person from sleeping.

Broken sleep of (typical) parenthood whilst could still be called sleep deprivation is not comparable to torture (might feel like you're being tortured but you're not).

Also Scrummy it sounds a bit like you may have been suffering from depression at that time, potentially not related to lack of sleep, most likely worsened by it. Might that be a possibility?

OTheHugeManatee is spot on.

skeeter what is your point, I think we all know how controlled crying works? Is your point that it is harmful to the child? Because there is no hard evidence to prove that.

Many parents, like myself, resort to CC as a last resort failing many other methods, and after much consideration of what to do. It is not something that we, nor other parents, did lightly.

No point other than semantics, I'm a bit of a pedant I'm afraid.

People equate leaving your child to cry solely with CIO, whilst cc does this also.

the time scale may be different but the effect is the same.

And what is the effect produced by leaving a child to cry, that is the same whether the crying lasts five minutes or several hours?

And does this effect obtain regardless of the developmental stage?

I am curious