To give my 7months old 'tough love'?

[wednesdayjones]

I feel like I'm a breaking point some day with my 7 months old. He is SO clingy, he's attached to me all day. I cannot go for the toilet without him (sometimes have to hold him as I do my business otherwise he'll scream even if I sit him next to me), I can't push a wash on as I have to hold him so I only ever have one arm free (unless he's napping).

Days are long and I just cannot see the end. We have to go for lunch with friends today and I'm dreading it so much - I know I won't be able to eat as I have to hold him. He doesn't even want my husband anymore.
DH has taken on all housework inc. cooking and cleaning. I'm struggling with just having to hold the baby ALL day, and I have to constantly MOVE because he gets bored after a minute and whinges. So I walk walk walk around the rooms, the garden - all day.

Husband said I have to just let him cry and stop him completely controlling me. I disagreed at first but today I put the bub down for a nap and of course he was crying, demanding I come in and rock him etc. I've just turned off the sound on the baby monitor and gone to the spare room and sat here crying. I have nothing left in me.

I get invited to mum catch-ups but they all have lunch in a cafe and mine just wouldn't sit in the pram and I'd have to hold him so I wouldn't even be able to have a coffee.

I feel like I've reached a point whether the baby breaks me or I break up his habits of being attached to me. Do I just let him scream next to me as I do some chores? I'd love to do chores as at least it helps to pass the day, but at the moment I just hold the baby 7am-7pm.

I am aware of separation anxiety so do I just wait for this to pass?

Also, people are completely nuts to suggest that your kid will be traumatised by 10 mins in a safe place without you.

Op, apologies if this has already been mentioned.

Is baby crawling yet? I reckon he'll cheer up as soon as he can do that. The needing to move constantly between rooms sounds like he's bored. Mine was like this because of lockdown. As soon as we could go to a group or anywhere busy it was a game changer as he loves to watch the activity and was content. Then when he could crawl he was much much happier.

Hello,

I know you’ve had a lot of replies on this already but it sounded so much like my daughter when she was a baby and it was mentally so tough so I totally sympathise. She never wanted to be with her dad either and he found this really hard too.
She was also a big baby so there was so way I could have constantly carried her in a sling.

Trust your instincts if you feel something isn’t quite right but I just wanted to offer a little ray of hope in that when my daughter started nursery (around the age your baby is now) we started to see an improvement.
My husband always put her to bed (as she would just want to cuddle and chat if it was me) and he also took her swimming and they developed a nice bond through that.

I found it extremely stressful and upsetting to let her cry whilst she was near me, but I did leave her with other people (my husband, my parents) and leave the house for an hour or two so she couldn’t see me. She’d scream the house down whilst I was gone but I think I would have lost my marbles if I hadn’t had 5 minutes to myself.

She was a tough baby but honestly now she’s so independent and plays really well on her own. She’s no bother at all and wonderful company.

You’re doing a brilliant job and you will get through this ❤️

I'm sure it's been said before, but a lot of people here have very strong opinions on what works best for children - cry it out, sling, etc etc. I'm a sling-feed-em-to-sleep kind of person, but different things work best for different mums and different babies. You need to do what works for you, and just let all the mum guilt that passionate proponents of x,y,z baby method want to lay on you just slip past you. You've got a tough job and you're doing great.

You're not going to traumatise your baby if you give them a spoon or let them cry for a little while, or breast feed until they're 7 or feed them formula or wean them slightly earlier or later. Try different things and do what works for you and your baby. If you love your baby and treat them within the normal boundaries of motherhood, they are not going to be traumatised.

Assume that poster just missed that he wasn't crawling yet. DS was following me up the stairs at 6 months, it's not nuts at all.

Like others have said it's really hard but it won't last forever.

You need some breathing space. Leave him with dad and go out on your own for an hour, go to Costa or something and just enjoy being on your own..

I remember being here 12 years ago! I couldn’t even hover mine over the cot without her waking up and shouting at me 😂 it seems illogical, but your baby will actually develop better and healthier attachments if you make him feel safe and loved in his infancy.

Tough love doesn’t teach them to entertain themselves, it teaches them that their cries for help are being ignored. Worst case scenario, it can lead to behavioural problems in the future. I’ve recently done a research paper on this, and it’s more likely that seeing you visibly not responding to cries would cause ADHD than this being a sign of ADHD.

Invest in a sling (not the leg dangling type) so you can get on and do things in the home without worrying he will wake and cry for you, or that you won’t be able to put him down and get on. Do pee without him there, though! Being left for a couple of minutes is going to do irreversible harm. Go out for a walk or to get your nails done or something and leave baby with your husband, who sounds like a brilliant man. If you’re going to take breaks from baby, it’s better done with his other parent there so there’s someone to at least try to comfort. The 10 minute breaks in the garden are a perfect way to do this.

I promise you it will pass.

Oh come on that exceptionally early to be following you up the stairs. Of course it’s possible- some babies do crawl at 6 / 7 months - but to assume a 7 month old baby can just follow their caregiver around is wildly off the mark, as is applying concepts of “tough love” and “manipulation” to an infant that young.

Oops! I was meant to put “is NOT going to do irreversible damage!” Definitely not suggesting that being left crying for 5-10 minutes will traumatise a baby!

Not read the full thread so apologies if already been said:

A sling makes a big difference when worn correctly and won't damage your posture whilst giving baby the comfort they need. A local sling library will help you fit one and let you try before you buy as there's such a variety on the market.
My daughter wanted to be held constantly so I wore her in a sling until she was 8 months old and 9.5 kilos, it meant I could actually get stuff done, eat and go out and maintain my sanity. My son hated the sling but was happy to be put down so have seen both sides.

You can never cuddle a baby too much and crying is their only way to communicate with you, so what is it they are trying to tell you?

If baby is not interested in weaning then they need to be on stage 1 formula until they are eating a reasonable quantity of food as stage 2 assumes consumption of foods and isn't nutritionally complete.

There's not a huge amount to read re weaning at this stage, food before 1 is just for fun.

All the best, it will pass.

The median is 8 months, so there would be plenty of 7 month old babies crawling. Not that I would lean towards assuming they were crawling until about 10 months myself, but a 7 month old crawling is not an absurd notion either.

I agree with you about the tough love and manipulation rubbish. There's also the silly idea that babies don't develop strength without being put down frequently. My 'exceptionally early' baby was hardly put down until he was crawling!

OMG, I’m traumatized just reading this! Make him comfy & put him down, you cannot go on like this. Kids know exactly what they’re doing from a very early age, do not fall for it. He’ll be walking soon anyway so he’ll have more interesting things to do other than be moany.

I mean I think we are parsing, but my point was not that it was “absurd” to think a baby might crawl at 7 months, but to assume that a 7 month old baby would be crawling and blithely send advice: let them “follow you around” without even considering that they might not be mobile. To me it communicated a wild lack of sensitivity to the baby’s age.
(incidentally My first baby started crawling at around 8 months, my second at 6, but neither were at the stage where they could just “follow me around” while I went about my business).

In any case fully agreed on the other points! I carried my babies everywhere until they were mobile.

OP, sorry to say but your baby sounds quite normal to me. I think the biggest issue you might be having is that you are not going anywhere. Your Baby is probably bored and therefore extra clingy, and you are slowly losing your mind- which will also be causing your baby to be absorbing your stress and getting extra clingy. My advice is get out as much as possible, even if just for a walk. Baby groups, mum meets, everything you can possibly do, to give you both some stimulation and a break. Also let your DP take the baby out for a walks as much as possible.

He’s a baby in a set pattern not an arch-manipulator conniving to mistreat his mother. Do not Haver on such nonsense about a baby
OP has got herself in a pattern that’s adversely impacting upon her, she wasn’t tricked or manipulated by a baby. @wednesdayjones is misguided and the wrap round parenting came from a desire to do the right thing but it’s resulted in her being immersed in an unsuitable routine and plagued by self doubt is too scared to initiate change

Sorry, I misunderstood, I took it to mean 'He's 7 months, of course he's not mobile'. Though, I didn't know it wasn't usual for a baby to follow a parent once they were mobile, I mean DS would explore but always keep track of where I was.

I'm a long time lurker and non-commenter but I couldn't pass by after reading all the comments about traumatising your child by not holding them for every moment of the day.

I'm a clinical psychologist. I've studied attachment, child development and the link to future mental health problems. I am a staunch critic of crying it out sleep methods. You will not damage your child if you put them down and they cry. Secure attachments are formed when you are in tune with the child's needs but this does not mean you must never let your child be upset. Feeling negative emotions is normal, as long as you are understanding and compassionate when they feel this way and then are able to repair the moment, this will form a secure and healthy attachment. Put him down to go to the toilet (with him in the room with you) and talk to him about the things he must be feeling (eg. I know it's hard for you to sit there while I'm busy, you are feeling worried/sad etc and I will give you a bug hug when I am done) Then lots of hugs and contact when you are finished followed by redirecting to a new activity). You are being responsive to his needs by giving reassurance, just in a different way.

I would be far more worried about a parent who is less able to be emotionally available because they are burnt out and rather than being able to compassionately respond to the child's distress, is numb or frustrated by it (consistently, it's normal to be frustrated at times as I'm sure we all are).

Start with small moments in the place that he feels most safe (home). Gradually you may find he will be ok with longer moments. This phase will pass, and one day you might even wish for him to stay a bit closer to you as he runs off to play in the park!

Absolutely - See my quotes above from Emily Oster - Expecting Better.

Ah OK. Emily Oster's work has been routinely criticised, including this essay from Darcia Narvaez PHD who is a professor of psychology (notably, Emily is a professor of economics).

kindredmedia.org/2019/10/a-new-book-cribsheet/

Here's an excerpt, including a critique of Emily's research methodology.

A recent book (Cribsheet by E. Oster) attempts to guide new mothers with supposed scientifically-based guidance on what works. The author, however, has no baseline norms for what human childbearing and child raising looks like. She picks and chooses research but does not critique study designs or analyses. She does not reveal her biases underlying her recommendations (we all have them).

The author has no baseline for what is optimal child raising, has no sense of what a human social mammal needs to grow well, and ignores all the research studies on impairments from early life stress. Early on, she ricochets from one thing to another about mothers, but not babies, except for a few (poorly designed and interpreted) experiments. She takes the superficial, poorly designed studies as truth bearing, using a level of expertise that I would attribute to an undergraduate student.
^Oster has a brief section on research methods and describes the different designs of studies, which makes the reader think she must know what she is talking about: randomized control, observation, case studies. The “gold standard” for experimental science is the first, randomized control. Several failures here.^
- First, randomized control is useful for something new, like a new drug, for which there is exist no prior knowledge. But we have prior knowledge about child raising—2 million to 20+ million years of it. We are social mammals whose line has been around for 20-40 million years and have evolved a developmental system or nest for raising the young that helped our germ lines survive and thrive in the last 2 million years (Konner, 2005).
- Second, she fails to note that we cannot ethically randomly assign babies to the nest components (e.g., this baby will be carried all day, and this one left alone). So there are few studies of child raising components that can meet the “gold standard.” One must rely on animal studies for carefully drawn parallels. She cites none of these.
- Third, she cites studies that use an “intent to treat” design, meaning that the researchers tell the experimental what to do, don’t necessarily tell the control group what to do; the researchers don’t measure what participants truly did, but they conduct pre- and post- tests and draw conclusions based on assumptions participants did what they were told. These kinds of studies would never be published in any reputable psychology journal.

They asked whether the infants were less attached to their parents during the day as a result of being left to cry during the night.

This particular study found that, in fact, infant security and attachment seemed to increase after the “cry it out” intervention.

So they asked parents to self-report on whether their baby's attachment and security to them changed after the intervention. Yeah, that's not a thing.

To be clear; I don't use a sling. If I need the toilet and my baby cries, he cries. I don't think there's enough research on the long-term affects of sleep training to truly know if it's a Really Bad Thing (I just know I wouldn't do it myself, even in the depths of sleep deprivation).

But I do object to anyone pushing the idea that sleep training improves baby's attachment.

Safe in cot, crying for 10 minutes; safe in playpen, crying for 10 minutes; fussing in a back carrier while you make yourself some food and eat it with two hands - all of these are fine.

Crying with his dad comforting him for a couple of hours is
also fine. The important thing is not that he should never cry, but that after a little while a trusted adult should comfort him.

At 9kg a well-fitted carrier would hopefully not damage your back. You can go out for a walk that way, and even consider earplugs in the house when you can see him (not anywhere with traffic) to reduce your stress.

He’s not manipulating you - he’s telling you that he needs to be close, by the only method at his disposal. But you also need to look after yourself.

This is around the time for peak separation anxiety and soon it will be much more manageable.

@Calphurnia88 That person hasn't cited any studies that show that sleep training is bad, so it's difficult to see what relevance she has to this discussion.

Have you read the book? Oster does talk about the limitations of different studies and says it's always good to have more studies, but you can only analyse what is available.

She says that it's theoretically possible that sleep training has bad effects. However, it's also theoretically possible that a chronic lack sleep has a bad effect on a growing baby. We have to weigh up all these theoretical risks alongside the known evidence.

We do know for sure that sleep deprivation is linked with depression in parents, and we also know that maternal depression is a risk to attachment. So that's a plausible reason why sleep training would improve attachment.

@erehj of course sleep training could plausibly improve the parent's attachment to their baby if 'successful' (by this I mean baby self-settles and doesn't wake the parent in the night).

But that isn't what infant security and attachment seemed to increase after the “cry it out” intervention infers. A baby is a seperate entity to it's parent. Just because parental attachment improves, it doesn't mean the baby's does, which is what this statement suggests.

I don't even know how they would measure that, but the fact its self-reported means it's heavily biased. A parent who is feeling guilty about using a 'cry out it' method may, for example, score their baby higher for attachment post-intervention to alleviate those feelings.

That person hasn't cited any studies that show that sleep training is bad, so it's difficult to see what relevance she has to this discussion

The relevance is you've cited several studies that Emily Oster has used to support sleep training. The essay is a critique of her research methods (which are used to provide parenting advice from not only sleep training to breastfeeding), from a professor of psychology. She's also faced a lot of criticism from lactation experts.

Food before 1 is just for fun.
Sit him at the table when you sit and eat. He'll let you know when he's interested.

I'm struggling a bit to understand how you were ok with sleep training a 4 month old, but can't just let him cry for 5 mins when you go get the washing or run the hoover round? Surely it's the same thing? And if sleep training worked for you, by that logic, letting him whine whilst you put some washing on or go for a wee etc, he'll see that you return and learn?

Attachment refers to the mother-baby bond and can be assessed by watching interactions between them - how often they look at one another, how the baby behaves when the mother leaves etc. Being upset when the mother leaves the room, as OP describes, is actually a sign of secure attachment!

I have linked the paper we are discussing below, so you can have a read.

I've screenshotted the relevant part, about outcomes for babies after sleep training.

Five of the studies they looked at were based on parental report only, but 8 of them were based on formal data such as observations.

None of them found any adverse outcomes from sleep training. The positive outcomes were various, and as described previously.

https://aasm.org/resources/practiceparameters/review_nightwakingschildren.pdf