Friend leaving baby to cry - do I say something?

[elenen]

I know I'm interfering but would you say something? Friend leaving 8 week premature 10 week old son to cry for "over an hour" every night the past week. Surely he just needs a cuddle do I mention that it's too early to leave him cry or just keep out?

No I’ve never heard of a decent alternative- all the parenting books have an agenda anyway

Hmm, this is difficult. Are you sure she ws not exaggerating or something? An hour is a very long time to leave a very young baby to cry, I would say there was obviously something wrng for them to cry for that long, possibly hungry.

If she is getting stressed about the baby no settling itself, and she is adamant on this kind of approach, maybe suggest controlled crying instead. It should 'train' (I hate that word when it comes to children) the baby into setling properly eventually. This is what my mum and dad did with me and my siblings apparently. My mum suggested it for mine but luckily mine all settled themselves and DD slept through the night from 6 weeks!

So yeah, I would wait for her to mention it again then say that an hour is a long time for a baby to cry, and suggest controlled crying instead. Along with letting her know that if a baby cries for long periods of time, there might actully be something wrong, usually hunger, or maybe pain. She should know this anyway surely, but maybe not.

What if you have a colicky baby who cries for a lot of their first 6 months?

I had forgotten about that, possily purposely. How horrendous the colicky times were. Every night, DD screamed from 7pm on the dot, to 10.20. I was so strange, exactly the same time to start every day and the same time to stop. After a few weeks we did start cunting down the time til 10.20...but nothing we did would stop it. A dummy did give a few seconds of quiet and the hoover chilled her a little bit but it was horrendous.

The thing is on these threads people always seem to get so hung up on whether leaving a baby for x time will have x affect. Always comments along the lines of "leaving them for an hour isn't going to damage them for life" etc

The thing is, a mother who leaves a newborn baby to cry for an hour is probably an emotionally ignorant person in general, otherwise they wouldn't be able to tolerate their baby's distress. (Unless they are acting on severely misguided advice and think they're doing the right thing somehow?? Or generally just not coping at all)....It's unlikely they would do this as a one off, more of a pattern of general emotional neglect.

If a mother leaves a newborn to cry it out regularly, she is likely to be ignorant of her infants emotional needs in many other contexts too and so over time the continual pattern of maternal non responsiveness is going to have an affect on the neurological development of that infant.

My MIL is one such mother. She firmly told me that all her babies were put in their room and the door shut until morning. Forcefully told us that we should do the same with our refluxy, milk allergic, colicky nonsleeping newborn until we told her to fuck off.

She boasted to me the her babies never cried for her (like them not seeking comfort from her was something to be proud of?!).

She is severely emotionally immature and ignorant. Not only emotionally neglected her children but physically too. This has obviously affected all of her now adult children in terms of mental health and relationships.

Controlled crying is not recommended for babies under 6 months for the same reason cry it out isn't. Young babies are not capable of forgoing their needs not should they

Having spent 14 hours a day in NICU/SCBU for over 70 days I have never seen a baby left to cry for more than 10 minutes at the very most. And much less in NICU. Certainly nowhere close to an hour.

Controlled crying is not recommended for babies under 6 months for the same reason cry it out isn't. Young babies are not capable of forgoing their needs not should they

Its surely better than leaving for an hour though.

Fractionally better for a newborn I spose but not enough to advocate for it. Far bettter to advocate for meeting the babies needs.... depends on how receptive the OPs friend is I guess?

@Patodp have you read the extensive research study The Independent article cites?

I will have a look myself I think and see whether it meets scientific standards.

I too find the research about the 'brain damage' unconvincing. It seems melodramatic. Many posters have posted various links, but none of it deals with this specifically.

You can't compare the different studies. One is re very neglected children who had minimal human intervention or care. Another is rats. Another supposedly is babies who weren't cared for and some went on to die.

None of these relate to children of loving parents, who are very attentive to their children, but then leave them to cry for an hour.

Not that I'm recommending that anyone does!

Ds2 was colicky, and cried from 6pm through to 4am, off-and-on, sometimes sleeping for an hour or so, sometimes crying in my arms for hours. He was inconsolable. This went on every night for months. Bought me to my knees. I told the HV many times, went to GP, paid to see a private paediatrician. All very dismissive.

But in this discussion, as soon as someone mentioned colic, people said oh no, that doesn't apply, its only if they are left on their own, that it causes brain damage.

Well the original article didn't make that clear. So it seems a bit scaremongering, with a huge headline, meant to scare.

Maybe I'm being over sensitive because of the Ds2 colic thing.

That’s far to young for any kind of sleep training. Even an older baby shouldn’t be left that long. But sounds like she’s following Gina ford and that’s up to her, as a nanny my experience is unless they ask don’t say lol

I would say something but be prepared for the fall out. I fell out with a friend when I spoke to her about drinking half a bottle of wine every day when she was pregnant and then again when she out her newborn into a freshly painted room.

I'm glad I said something though.

None of these relate to children of loving parents, who are very attentive to their children, but then leave them to cry for an hour.

I personally don't think loving, attentive parents would leave their baby to cry for an entire hour by itself.

When you say 10 weeks old, do you mean that adjusted age is 2 weeks? If so I'd be extremely concerned, I wonder if she's seen babies crying for an amount of time in nicu so thinks it's ok? Maybe try and put her in contact with bliss they provide lots of support and advice to prem mum's.

A baby crying for an hour is clearly desperate for a feed. I'm not a super cuddly parent, but I feel this baby needs some love and assurance. Are you sure she wasn't bragging more about getting them to sleep though?

Oblomov the Research is based not specifically on certain situations (I agree that makes it confusing) but on chronic exposure of the developing brain to circulating cortisol (a stress hormone). Studies have been done across a range of animal species and all show that chronic cortisol exposure impairs development. It’s impossible to do such studies in humans as it would be unethical.

HOWEVER it’s also a balance. I think the pp who mentioned that a mother who chooses to leave her child to cry is likely to be less emotionally available in other ways made a good point. I’m sounds like your DS was poorly, but that this was balanced by care and affection from you and that positive experiences and knowing his caregiver was present would offset any negative experiences from his colic. It really is more about a chronic lack of caregiving/responsiveness as that is what human babies have evolved to need rather than specific periods of illness. It also is more about an ongoing pattern of non-response from caregivers.

It’s complicated and probably not something that is fully understood yet - certainly not as black and white as some posts suggest

But a child crying and being comforted is clearly not feeling the same level of distress as a child being left to cry. Surely that’s common sense? When my son was having a blood transfusion and crying in my arms there was nothing we could but comfort him (couldn’t even feed as he was nil by mouth). But had I just left him in his cot and walked out of the NICU surely his distress would have been greater.

A 32 weeker would have been subject to at least a few invasive procedures. Plenty of blood tests and heel prick tests. Possibly a couple of rounds of antibiotics etc. To then subject that baby to an hour of crying sans comfort every day seems unnecessary.

And by antibiotics I mean via a cannula.

Vet
Yes, "impairs development" is not the same as a melodramatic headline: "causes brain damage".
And as you said, studies of cortisol. Is not the same as "causes brain damage", because actually clinical, extensive research hasn't actually been done. As you said.
My point exactly.

Look as someone who sat and watched very painful things happen to their very small baby I am sure it caused SOME impairment, but that was balanced by the need to save his life.
My prem baby has a sibling and he sometimes had to wait and cry because hey that’s life.
Similarly say a child with SN won’t eat anything but cookies and pizza then it’s not a great diet but it’s better than nothing.
We do the best we can as parents. What one tries not to do, is cause unnecessary harm. Leaving a two week old baby to cry seems unnecessary.

I get sad when people say a crying baby will be brain damaged. My 2nd cried for hours and hours in my arms for the first 6 months of his life. He’s now a happy and healthy 2 year old so I’m not convinced really.

My two were the same (for first 6 weeks rather than 6 months though) - happy, healthy and very much not brain damaged at 13 & 16 now.

According to the 'scientific' reasoning of some posters, there must be thousands of brain damaged children wandering about considering the prevalence of reflux for eg.

No amount of cuddling or soothing stopped my boys screaming.

I think as I have JUST said a crying baby in someone’s arms is clearly expressing something different emotionally from a crying premature baby left alone to cry it out, yes?! There is a LOT of science on cuddling and human touch in the months after birth and how beneficial they are. So if you were holding your baby even if he/she was crying they were benefitting from that.
Let’s not be dramatic.

ALSO let’s not divert from the original post where a TWO WEEK old baby (developmentally) was being left to cry it out.

*A genuine case study I studied. This link give a summery of it.

Babys NEED affection to thrive. *

ConfusedButInLove - could you provide a reference for the actual study paper please, as I cannot seem to find it on the article you linked to, nor anywhere else for that matter.

10wks old, 8wks prem-how long has the poor thing even been home??

www.isisonline.org.uk/how_babies_sleep/sleep_training/considerations/