To wish that if someone chooses to do CC with their baby, would be nice if they considered the fact that they are mid terrace with thin walls?

[Squiglet]

Firstly I really dont get CC, not something that has ever felt right for us as a family. Also the baby next door has been left from a very young age (a few weeks old) to cry. He's now 5 months and she just leaves him to cry. In the daytime she leaves him crying often as well as night. She'd never ask for help or accept it and likes to be seen as coping and superwoman. He dp is a medical prof and works long hours and she has an older child too.

I can sypmathise that she might be struggling but it is so hard to hear this little babies crying ds1 9 often comments and says how upset he feels hearing it and that his little brother never cried like that.

And I do know for a fact she does cc because she told me so I'm not presuming.

kinnies - oh I am so mean that's why i am knocking on my neighbours door moaning about it. nope came on here to have a good old moan instead. And having PND doesnt mean that you can ignore the needs of everyone around you.

In all honesty I dont expect for one second she has thought that we can hear it all and I'm not about to enlighten her either.

Love the comment earlier by vall about cows moo, dogs bark, babies cry.. can I add women moan?

Washwithcare... I could be you BF the hippy, bfing desription fits!

well I'll be damned if I know what the reason was for DS1.

After 6 months of not sleeping (unless I was holding him - he hated the sling - made him cry even more) and waking for long feeds (Breast), and the first 4 months of that screaming constantly if he wasn't on the breast he slept through on the first night of CC...........and the night after that, and ever since, infact after the first weekend of doing it I wondered if someone had swapped my baby for another as he was a totally different child.

Only conclusio I can come to is that he was constantly overtired because he wouldn't sleep for long/properly/on his own at all. Once he was sleeping at night it was an incredible change/

no but having PND can make you totally oblivious to the needs of others around you, and the effects on other people

So if its your own baby you are exhausted, frustrated and upset and deserve sympathy, but if its a neighbours baby keeping your children awake and upsetting you, your'e a nasty judgy piece of work?

Nice.

NOtapolly - wont trash your post, though tbh i prob wouldnt talk to neighbour about it, I will make an effort in popping over though on completely friendly level and see how's she doing. Think I am noticing it more as they'd been away for 3 weeks and before it had come part of the noise iykwim and now it is really obivous that he is still crying lots

It is our fault for buying a new build with crap cardboard type walls though. View's nice though

I'm not aiming it at anyone - but babies do cry for a reason. They're obviously not happy about something and I'm just wondering how CC actually solves that?

how did CC solve it - I don't know - but I suspect overtiredness on his part played a big part.

"no but having PND can make you totally oblivious to the needs of others around you, and the effects on other people " - fair point and quite right too.

Absolutey pooexplosions - thats why i LOVE (we so need a heart button for valentines) MN at times

actually I think some babies do just cry, just like toddlers often cry for no reason........DS3 frequently bursts into tears for no reason at all, thankfully quite short, has a quick sob and stops...........leaving us all bewildered.

FWIW I think you have the right approach. Moan here - do nowt.

My take is that a mother who is prepared to listen to her own baby cry for hours on end is so far removed from mothering, that's it hard to think of anything you could say to her to make her do anythign different...

HOW CAN SHE IGNORE THE DESPERATE SCREAMING OF HER OWN CHILD?

So, as you were... organise your living space to account for her selfish and weird behvaiour... so that you can minimise hte impact on your family's life. You will need to block out your compassion for her baby, and accept there is sod all you can do.

Big hug - it's a shite situation...

"My take is that a mother who is prepared to listen to her own baby cry for hours on end is so far removed from mothering, that's it hard to think of anything you could say to her to make her do anythign different..."

WTF???? yes I "detached" myself somewhat from DS1's constant screaming.............purely to ensure that I was a semi-decent mother - that I would be in a state to meet the needs I could do something about (feeding,changing, cuddling........although the latter was a constant anyhow)

It is shite i agree and I think I am probably a daft cow because when i hear him i just want to give him a cuddle.

Right off to bed and at the ready with cuddles for my little monkey toddler. Night all and thanks for the POV. Always good to hear how others might see it too. x

""My take is that a mother who is prepared to listen to her own baby cry for hours on end is so far removed from mothering""

You have obviously never had an inconsobable crying baby. I have been known to leave my baby in a cot crying after I have tried everything for over 2 hours to get him to settle, and before I snapped just walked away into the garden for ten minutes of a cup of tea and a fag.

I can be known to be going round town with a child crying in the pushchair. He's 2 and not crying for any reason other than he's not getting the toy/sweets/freedom he wants. On a bad day of listening to one or the other of them all morning I have been known to ignore him as I just have run out of spirit to try and talk over the crying.

OK, this isnt every day like the OP neighbour, but jesus feck off with the crying baby = bad parenting = bad mother. Just because its different to your style doesnt make it wrong.

Toccata we seem to be following each other with similar posts tonight

doesn't make it right either!

I had to do this for 2 or 3 nights - when DD1 stopped falling asleep with her last bottle of milk, she was 1 and a bit, and had never learnt how to fall asleep on her own. I couldn't leave her in her cot on her own without her screaming. I tried lying down on the floor next to her until she fell asleep then sneaking out - but then she would wake at 2 in the morning and scream because she didn't know how to go to sleep on her own. Somehow she had to learn to go to sleep without me being there. So I left her to cry it out. It took 2 or 3 nights and then that was it, she's been a brilliant sleeper ever since. I don't think this has done her any harm in the long run (she's now 7). I don't know what alternative approach would have worked. She was (and is) very strong willed - and she was basically having a little tantrum about being left on her own.

OP I have lived in exactly the type of house you describe for a very long time and that is why I really sympathise with your predicament. Anyone who has lived with walls as thick as tissue paper would allow you page after page to moan.

i'm currently trying cc with my 8 month old ds and feel very self-conscious about what next door must think.
Bubbleymummy - the reason he is crying is because he wants me to stand next to him with my hand stroking his head while he sleeps.I check he is clean, i make sure he's fed before starting with the cc, and i can tell from his cries whether he's in pain (he's not) or just overtired and grumpy.
However, it sounds like the op's neighbour isn't doing very well and could maybe do with a friend who could perhaps suggest another method of sleep training (can't think of a better way to describe it).
Do you know her well enough to have a talk like that with her?

I really don't get the 'learn to go to sleep' argument...DS1 was never left to cry and he's managed to figure it out...I was never left to cry and I don't need my husband patting me on the bum in the middle of the night...When DS1 woke up I gave him a cuddle and he went back to sleep - soon he stopped waking up and that was that...he didn't have to cry to figure it out...

bubble what would you have suggested I did with DS1 then as a tiny baby to make it "right" ? I was already holding him - offering him the breast often as little as 10-15 minutes after he'd come off it, he was held constantly (apart form the instances that Smokinaces describes where I DID put him down to cry - as recommended by people such as the NPSCC etc - to walk off and "destress" for a short while to gather myself together again............only to go back for another long session of the screaming), I changed him regularly, we went out for walks with him in the pram (still screaming)

DS1 did that EVERY day.

bubble - well consider yourself lucky then that you've had a child like tha t- because when ou have a child that DOESN'T figure it out by themself, and doesn't settle and go to sleep after a quick cuddle - then you suddenly realise what life is like for a mother of a child that's like that.

By smokinaces Wed 27-Jan-10 23:04:12
You have obviously never had an inconsobable crying baby. I have been known to leave my baby in a cot crying after I have tried everything for over 2 hours to get him to settle, and before I snapped just walked away into the garden for ten minutes of a cup of tea and a fag.

If you give up on consoling your OWN baby, and sod off for a fag, why you expect him to be consoled? If his own mother gives up on him, why shouldn't he just cry uncontrollably. You're his mum - you don't go for a fag.. you keep trying!

I can be known to be going round town with a child crying in the pushchair. He's 2 and not crying for any reason other than he's not getting the toy/sweets/freedom he wants.

Well - take him out of the pushchair then, you daft mare.. really... Why do you think your desire to keep him there for your own bloody convenience, is so much more important than his desperate need to get out?

On a bad day of listening to one or the other of them all morning I have been known to ignore him as I just have run out of spirit to try and talk over the crying.

I think it's rather sad that you ignore your child - you're his link with the world. Baby is desperately trying to communicate with you - there are lots of other solutions to ignoring a little one... (classes, playgroups, swimming etc) hope it gets better...

No bubbley, the crying might not be the "right option". But who's to say that your way is the "right way"??

Who's to say GF way is right? Or Attachement Parenting style is the right way? Who's to say smacking is wrong, saying naughty is wrong, rocking to sleep is wrong, feeding to sleep is wrong??

There is no right or wrong way with parenting (apart from the extreme wrong of course) just a lot of jumped up parents who believe their way is THE way.