to be fed up that every thread that mentions controlled crying turns aggro?

[tinierclanger]

I know we're not meant to do threads about threads but it's a recurring theme. Every time it crops up, people get nasty with each other.

Now, I have considered CC and decided not to do it for my own reasons. I think it's great that people post information and their opinion on whether its good/bad/helpful/unhelpful. And that can help people make their decisions about it, and also to adjust their expectations (which has helped me a lot).

But a lot of the time, people posting on the sleep threads are desperate. If they have tried other things and just can't cope, it's harsh to attack them and make them feel guilty. Sleep deprivation sends you crazy. I would rather a parent did CC than ended up harming themselves or their baby because they are just SO TIRED.

Just joining this thread now: i'm really glad someone started it - I have bbeen meaning to start a simlar one myslef for a long time. We need a non-emotive discussion of this.

I did cc with dd who is now 3 when she was about 5 months old. I wouldn't say I was desperate when i did it, I just thought it was the thing to do, to get them to learn to settle themselves. it was hard to do it, for about a week, and since then she has been an excellent sleeper. I am aware that it probably works for some people more than others, but I can also say that my friends who didn't feel it was for them have had a much harder time and are still having disturbed nights with their toddlers.

So, I am pro-cc, but genuinely would like to have a non-emotive debate on the perceived ill-effects it has on a child. Presumably these are the sort of eefects that are hard to see at first and would come out as insecurities/ stress problems in later life? I say this because so many people who have done cc, such as me, can honestly say that their children seem happy, sunny, confident and well attached to their parents.

Also, whole generations of children, my generation and especially my mother's generation, were left to cry...often in the garden during the day!....are they all damaged?...I ask this as a genunine question, they may well be, and maybe the generation of children who have not been left to cry will be genuinely a happier, more secure generation, with fewer eotional problems as adults....?

I am open to being persuaded not to use cc with my new dd. She is only 3 weeks old, and of course at the moment I am just up all night with her, as any parent would expect to be. Certainly from reading threads on mn, I would probably leave it til a bit later to do cc, but not until she's 1.

My instinct is that doing cc with a 1 year old or later is more "cruel", because they are more aware, their habits are more fixed and harder to break, they will be more used to being comforted at night, so it will seem more of a shock, and they are more able to communicate. But again, I may be wrong, and would be interested to hear the opposing argument, and be pointed towards the peer-reviewed research that someone mentioned.

Controlled crying is a catch all term that covers a lot of varying approaches. I say I do it, but in reality I am blessed with a very easy sleeper who usually goes down awake without a peep, but sometimes cries for a few minutes before drifting off. When he cries I'm not going to go in to him because I know he's on the way to sleep and going in would interrupt that. He has slept through since 4-5 months and before that we co-slept so he really had the best start, attachment wise.

However I have a friend who let her babies cry from 6 weeks for up to 45 minutes based on the advice of her mother and (she says) a HV (but I think she may have misheard or misunderstood). That, I cannot agree with. However her children are all fine, no signs of attachment problems or disordered stress management which is what I'd expect in theory.

I don't think it's totally right or totally wrong, and although posters (like seeker) have the right to say if they believe it to be totally wrong, the good thing about MN is that there is always someone to offer another perspective.

FWIW I posted asking how you are supposed to do CC and nobody judged or attacked me.

I am seriously thinking of cc at the moment and I was previously dead against it but it does seem to work wonders.

"YANBU. All babies are different, and all parents are different, and yet many threads believe that their's, and their's alone, is the only answer.

Agree that all opinions and experience are absolutely valid, but scaremongering and vitriol are unfair and unhelpful in a topic like this."

A bit of common sense IMO.

Why do some people have to be narrow minded and see everything as being completely black and white?

Of course leaving a genuinely distressed baby to cry is going to lead to them getting worse. Therefore cc is the wrong thing to do.

I used cc with my dd at 6 weeks to put her to bed in the evening. After 4 days she went to bed without even a whimper and sleeps reliably until she wakes up at 4am for a feed. Overall she is a much happier baby than when she grizzled all evening because she was tired, with me soothing her to sleep, then she woking up every time I put her in the cot. Tbh I didn't even know what it was called or that people get quite so het up about it.

mrsbabookaloo - I agree entirely with you - I did CC (not CIO) at 3mo, it worked after 2 or 3 nights of progressively less crying and I never left DD1 crying for more than 4mins. She's nearly 6yo now and has been a great sleeper since.
I didnt do it with DD2 because i thought it would disturb DD1, but wish I had now...I still have to hold DD2s hand or lie next to her or at the very least sit on her or DD1s bed most nights before she'll go to sleep.

I also thought that it would be far crueler with an older child so once i'd missed the 'window' with DD2 I realised i'd just have to wait till she got older and better at going to sleep by herself.

Having tried both methods I can say I prefer CC - the resentment i feel when DD2 won't go to sleep is not good for any of us...

I don't quite know how people can say it's ineffective when it has clearly worked for loads of people. Both my dds have always been put to bed awake and settled themselves without crying it was the during the night waking that we did cc for.

As a sleep deprived single parent who was getting up and driving and hour a day to a full time job, CC was a life saver for me and allowed me to get my ds2 into a sleep routine in just a couple of days

He was not damaged by it in any way but his mummy might have been if she'd fallen asleep at the wheel due to lack of sleep!

It may not work for everyone, but each to their own, what ever works best for you

(maybe those who are against it are just crazy and sleep deprived )

Right, can I ask a question about this? As it's clearly not worth starting another thread about!

How I understand it is that the basic argument against CC is that when babies are left to cry, a hormone is released due to the stress of it all which affects brain development and leaves them more likely to suffer from things like high bp, depression etc in later life (may be wrong, please correct me). How does this evidence tally with babies that cry for other reasons eg) colic, tiredness, pain, whatever, for significant periods of time if the parents are there and trying (unsuccesfully) to comfort them? Is the end result the same, as presumably the same stress levels are reached (possibly higher if in pain due to colic etc)?

Because my DD 18 weeks (and only waking 2 rarely 3 times in night so no sleep training needed as yet thank goodness) has never been left to cry alone or send herself to sleep, but has had mammoth crying fits in her little life for various reasons with us there cuddling and trying to comfort her.

Just wondered therefore where this stands within the 'CC is cruel' theory?

good question!

you, In my opinion it isn't as stressful because although they are crying, if they are crying and being cuddled at the same time that has to be less stressful than crying all alone.

Erm, trying to find some evidence which suggests this as well, I did have some, annoyingly I didn't save it! I found this article.

But cc if it's done properly doesn't mean you shut them in a room to cry and naff off down the pub! You do still go in and comfort them at regular intervals..

A year and a half ago I used CC on my 5 month old by default. One night, I was up every 1.5 hours from 10 pm and and at 3.30, I just could not get up any more. He cried while I lay and listened, wondering how long it would last. It took him half an hour to cry himself to sleep.
The following day he fell asleep on his playmat, by himself, for the first time in his life. It wasn't all roses from then on, but a corner had been turned, and nights started getting better rather than worse. Though I had read up on CC I wasn't very systematic about it, just followed my instincts - and own sense of desperation. When I knew I needed four hours sleep, I fed him, put him down, then simply went to bed with my door shut and no baby monitor.
As mothers we push ourselves to our physical limits, but we are not superheroes, and our children, of whatever age, and in whatever way, learn to adapt to our limitations whether we are aware of it or not. I saw not getting up for my son at 3.30 that morning as my way of telling him, sorry. I know you think I'm superwoman, but actually, I'm not. There will be many things you want which I can't give you, and this is the first.
It's not pleasant, but there are worse things for a child than being left to cry alone.
On the whole, my son has been a good sleeper over the year, and I did conclude that "learning to sleep on his own" had been as good for him as it was for me.
Recently, though, partly because we've been travelling, and partly I expect because of his age now - 23 months - he's insisted on falling asleep with me beside him, and, true to the theory which says that what he needs to go to sleep with, he'll demand every time he wakes, he has started calling for me when he wakes in his cot in the night, not just now and again as before, but every night for the past two months without fail. I've played musical beds, got him into bed with me, usually fallen asleep myself and stayed with him until morning. He spends more time in my bed than in his own - he gets in earlier and earlier - and is often restless even once he's there.
So I find myself looking up sleep advice again and hence stumbled on this thread. The difference between now and 17 months ago, is that my son is now much more specific about what he wants - me in bed beside him, preferably underneath him - all night long, but at least until he is comatose. The other difference is I am not SO desperate - I'm up once a night, not 5 times - and I could maintain this routine, I suppose, until he grows out of it (at 3? 4? 5?).
But the price to all of us of that would be too high. I will a better parent to my son during the day, a better partner to his father, (who of course he adores, and hates to see us bickering) if I get a decent night's sleep at least most nights. I also suspect my son sleeps better on his own. A few stressful nights of CC to get back into a good routine is perhaps a small price for us to pay.
We're now on our second night. I started writing this to distract myself as I listened to him wail next door. He's now been asleep for half an hour - it took max 5 mins. Last night it was about 15. I think it's working - but no, it isn't easy. I don't like "making him cry." I do feel ambivalent about it. And I'm not writing this to defend myself, just to bear witness.

I know the thread has moved on a bit now, but in answer to the OP, YANBU.

I think when posting on cc threads, some posters sometimes forget that the OP in question is probably exhausted, sad, feels like a failure (well, talking of myself there, but I'm sure it applies to some people) and desperate for a solution by the time they post.

So whilst I think the pro/con conversation is necessary and good on such a thread, there are sometimes some very cruel comments that is helpful to neither side.

As I said, I once posted a question, and some good pro/con comments, but then someone said something like "how can you be so cruel" or "do you not care for your child".

Hmm, well, perhaps not in those words, but to the oversensitive, shattered me at that stage, that's how it sounded. I was really upset, and if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of MN-ers who've known me through thousands of posts came up for me (not the choice necessarily, as some feel differently about it, but for my love for my son), it would have been horrible.

So to sum up my blabbering post - yes, I think sometimes a little more sensitivity, even whilst disagreeing, wouldn't go amiss.

YANBU, thank you for this thread!

why do people get so angry!!!