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.

yojojo - my DS2 went through that as well. he's 10 months now and as with everything else - that stage has passed! Why not just humour him for a while - he is only 8 months old and he won't need it forever. He obviously just wants to feel that you're near for a while...he's only little...

but you know what - DS2 figured it out at less than a week old how to go to sleep on his own, DS3 figured it out at 9 months (with a little bit of crying - but not much - usually by the time I'd got dashed upstairs to console him he'd have gone off to sleep.

THEY ARE ALL DIFFERENT

By yojojo Wed 27-Jan-10 23:07:25
i'm currently trying cc with my 8 month old ds and feel very self-conscious about what next door must think.

Why - don't you care what your own child thinks more?

Baby may be fed, watered, changed etc.. but s/he is saying I need my Mum to feel safe - and you are just leaving them to cry.

And all you are bothered about it your neighbours.... good grief.

bubble - you may not think he'll need it forever, however DS3 is now 2 3/4yrs old - last September he started waking as he was unwell - and I ended up lying next to him to go to sleep.........he also started waking in the night and needing the same thing.

here we are 5 months on I have to lie down on the sofa bed and wait for him to go to sleep, then when he wakes in the night I need to repeat it.

They don't always grow out of it without crying - my BF in september finally got her DD to go to sleep on her own and sleep through (admittedly with some tears) - and she's 5

WWC. Seriously, are you the fucking god almighty??!!

I left my child after being on my own trying to console him for 2 HOURS solid. I walked away because no baby has died from 10 minutes of being on their own in a cot. They have died from overexhausted parents shaking them though, from pure frustration. If you have never been there, you dont know how it is, you really dont.

I keep my child in the pushchair as he has mobility needs. He cannot walk that much. It is impossible. It is for his safety.

I do a lot with my child thankyou. A lot of groups, a lot of activities. He is generally a happy child. But sometimes being on your own with 2 demanding children can get a bit much and after hours of it ignoring the bad behaviour is better than reacting to it.

But I dont need to answer to you. Just trying to explain. But seriously, a little part of me really wishes your next born is a screaming, crying, inconsolable child so you really know what its like.

The crying the OP describes is not CC.

Generally, people who use CC find that it results in LESS crying overall for their babies. We did it when DS was 6.5 mths and he cried for about 20 mins total (I went in after 1 min, then 2 mins, then 5, etc) the first night, 15 mins the 2nd and about 5 mins the 3rd night. Then slept through ever since - apart from a handful of times when he's been ill plus one weird week (when he was about 15 mths) where he was all anxious and wanted me to sleep in his room with him (so I did).

Prior to doing CC, he was waking and crying every 3 hrs.

I think if I had neighbours with a young baby, I'd rather hear 20 mins crying at 7 or 8pm than sudden bursts of crying at 3 hourly intervals overnight.

Your post, though, OP - YANBU for being upset by hearing the baby cry, or for thinking that the mother may be having trouble, but you would BVVVVVVVVVU to say anything to her other than a genuine offer of sympathy and sisterhood. As you know since you're only on MN to vent

"
Baby may be fed, watered, changed etc.. but s/he is saying I need my Mum to feel safe - and you are just leaving them to cry. "

FGS - my DS1 HAD his mother, and I beg to differ that they just need their mum to "feel safe" - especially as they get older (towards a year and beyond) - just like with "stand offs" during the day (where a tantrum/strop will often ensue when mum says "no") they are more than capable of kicking up a fuss because they know they'll get what they want.

"They have died from overexhausted parents shaking them though"

absolutely spot on - NPSCC (in relation to reaching breaking point with crying)) says

"put the baby down safely and comfortably in the cot or pram and leave the room for a few minutes"

anyhow - am hiding the thread because I'm getting p*ssed off now when actually I know there's no reason for me to - I had a screaming, miserable baby it's shit, it sucked, but it was life (thankfully I was lucky and got 2 much "easier" babies 2nd and 3rd times round )

That would upset me too Squiglet. I really dislike the whole CC concept, but I accept that it works for some parents and parents need to do what works for them....But, babies crys can bring out such a deep emotional response. The sound has been designed by millions of years of evolutions to do so. There are all sorts of interesting studies about the wound of babies crying and how much in can effect heart rates, stress levels, brain patterns etc and so on.
I have been on childrens wards with my own children a few times and I hated when babies, and ill babies at that, were left crying. I wanted to pick them up but I couldn't.
I am with you 100% Squiglet. I would feel the same. Apart from lending your neighbour the No Cry Sleep Solution of Three in a Bed, which is probablly totally inappropriate, I dont think you can do much about it

My two DSs weren't angelic sleepers you know - there was plenty of going up and down the stairs to put them back to sleep and I think DS1 was about 2years 9 months before he started sleeping through completely by himself without waking. Even now he will sometimes toddle into us in the middle of the night but I would much rather cuddle him in beside us than insist he goes back to his own room, have a bit of a cry and go to sleep by himself - he's still a child! Why are people in such a rush for their child to grow up and become independent and comply with these ideas of how they should 'learn to sleep' - my goodness - how have we survived at all as humans without this concept of CC to teach us all how to sleep on our own!

oh get over yourself, my neighbours probably HATE me, dd is 14mnths and cries and cries, we are mid terrace to and know how much they must hear as we hear them, but theres sweet fa i can do about it, she just crys, my son took 2 nights of cc to settle shes been dragging it out for 8mnths, i sit by her cot every night until gone 12 after shes put there at 7, she is cuddled frequently cuz i feel guilty shes crying but she doesnt stop. some babies just cry, feel for your neighbour, dont think your better.

bubbleymummy I once read and I do't know where but it has stayed with me ever since: "When you are on your deathbed the last thing you will think is I wish I had cuddled them less".

But I do understand that a family collapsing from sleep deprivation sometimes need quick and drastic measures. Sleep deprivation can destroy a family. I just don't like the thought of CC under a certain age and I will never like CIO.

It was inevitable that this would descend into a thread about CC. But as Lentildiva said the emotional affect of crying is horrific so I feel for the OP and the neighbour (I think).

It may be just me but I get the impression that the OP is speaking as she does partially because her own DC didn't scream all night and partially because she is not altogether in favour of cc. That in itself is perhaps colouring her own view of the situation - if these were my neighbours I wouldn't be troubled enough to post on it.

But would you not rather know why they are screaming like that so you can sort it out? Cc doesn't get to the root of the problem...

My mum and dad had to take me for allergy tests to find out what was wrong with me but once my diet was changed I was a completely different child. All I'm saying is that there is a reason for the crying and it shouldn't be ignored... I also hate the assumption that people who don't use cc musn't know what it is like to have a child that doesn't sleep Cc isn't the only solution. Some of us just accept that our child is a bit difficult and do whatever it is that is needed to sort it out-without leaving them to cry. If you chose another option then that's your call but don't presume that we all have easy children just because we didn't resort to your methods.

We tried everything for 13 months with our DS before we tried CC,my partner and i were exhausted,it was affecting all our lives,my daughter was suffering too because she never got any sleep either.
I couldnt believe how well it worked and now i know if my DS wakes its for a genuine reason.
Feel sick at the thought of that little one crying because he had been sick and being ignored,thats awful .

I agree that being dogmatic is blinkered.

But I think we have to face facts that that some mothering isn't optimal. Yes, we can all bleat about 'knowing your own child' 'you wait until you have a colicky child' 'parenting styles just differ', but can we accept that in some instances some mothers, at some times in their child's life, are less than good? I just think perhaps the OP is groping towards this. That yes, babies cry, mothers go mad with it, we all do what we have to do --- but in this case perhaps she's shutting off to her child and maybe that's a bad thing? Not that you can say anything to her, of course.

I wouldn't dream of passing comment on CC to another friend and I wouldn't like to judge a parent with a colicky baby. My baby's had a few moments herself.

But I would also think 'ummm' to myself if my neighbour routinely kept a crying baby inside the house while she went outside. Routinely being the operative word.

And no, I'm not a curtain twitcher, but my spider senses would tingle and I would be watching what she did.

I co-sleep and spend much of the night with a nipple in my 15-month old daughter's mouth and she wakes and cries (not for long but our apartment has paper thin walls) and wakes my neighbour up and I've felt the need to apologise.

But yes, you can't win. My CC friends have told me that my light sleeper won't develop properly because she's overtired and won't learn.

I wanted to add (as my morning noggin started up and thought about this) that our parenting styles often have much more to do with us, than being purely mediated by the temperament of the child (although we like to think that's what we're doing)

I've gone down an attachment route because deep down I'm paranoid and want a wonderful relationship with my daughter (unlike the one I have with my mother), and that also my having her is atonement for past wrongs (bonkers, I know) and a chance for redemption. Those issues drive my response as much as my child, who in popular parlance, would be called 'needy'.

My best friend (she's told me this) is driven by a need to have things under control, to be seen to be super-capable and has an overwhelming need to escape sometimes and have her own space. That drives her to do CC with her kids the minute they turn 6 months. But she conflates this with development (perhaps to make herself feel good about it) and has told me I'm silly for doing it my way (although I refrain from telling her I think it's the other way around)

Either way, we could both be doing harm in some small way. That's life as a parent and the Law of Unintended Consequences.

To the OP, she sound depressed and really I think you have to cut her some slack. It's unfortunately not your place to say anything.

Haven't read it all but I thought you could only do CC properly once the baby was 6 months so your neighbour can't have been doing it effectively for the baby's whole life can she?

We did CC with dd1 when she was 6.5 months after travelling long haul and a cold had stopped her from being able to self settle. It took ten days with only 2-3 of 'proper' crying and we did warn the neighbours before we started.

Dd2 a different kettle of fish though, her excema was so bad until we were properly able to manage her allergies that she didn't sleep through until she was either wet wrapped/anti histamined which involved A LOT of crying or we put her between us holding one arm each until she cried herself to sleep. So we were there, we were comforting her but she still cried and cried.

It's not always as simple a situation as you think.

meh. dd2 cries when left with dh holding her.

we never really did controlled crying but my second baby had reflux and would SCREAM not just at night but alot of the time during the day as well, for a long time after every feed in fact. It went on for about the first 6 or 7 months of his life. We would comfort him, rock him, try and distract him, we had medication for him it didnt make any difference he still screamed. I got PND largely I think as a result of this. Sometimes after hours of this I put him in his cot and closed the door and went to sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea or glass of orange juice because it was just too much to listen to and deal with for months on end.

I would avoid judging too harshly, even if she doesnt say that something like this is happening it doesnt mean it isnt - if someone had asked me at the time I would not have said it was driving me mad and I was leaving him to cry because I would have been scared of people like you thinking I wasnt coping well (when I look back I realise I was considering).

she isnt harming the baby so leave it.

By smokinaces Wed 27-Jan-10 23:17:36
WWC. Seriously, are you the fucking god almighty??!!

I left my child after being on my own trying to console him for 2 HOURS solid. I walked away because no baby has died from 10 minutes of being on their own in a cot. They have died from overexhausted parents shaking them though, from pure frustration. If you have never been there, you dont know how it is, you really dont.

DD1 wanted to be held constantly. I would marvel at other mums who could just put baby into the moses baskets, and I questioned them closely as to what I might be doing wrong. In the end, I had to conclude, I just had a needy baby...

In the end, I bf her to sleep every time till she was nearly a year... I barely left her and never went out for an evening, cos she wouldnt' settle for anyone else. It was just the way it was. I still haven't left her over-night and she is nearly 4 - and can still count on one hand the times I haven't put her to bed. She didn't regularly sleep through till she was 2years old - but I still got up to her every time she cried.

You talk about the NSPCC advice to walk away like it's good practice. What they are saying is - it is better to walk away from your baby than hurt them. No one could argue with that.

If you're saying that was the case, then obviously you did the right thing. If what you mean though is, you were fed up, and fancied 10 minutes to yourself to feed your nicotine habit, I find it harder to understand. Did you enjoy your cigarette, whilst your baby howled blue murder, before going back, safe in the knowledge that your smoking had increased baby's chance of dying from SIDS?

I hate this liberal crap where every mother's choice is meant to be equally right - and no one is allowed to criticise anyone. What about looking at the evidence instead

Wow, WWC I just wish I could be as perfect in my parenting as you! Please, write a book to teach all us crappy mothers the wisdom of your ways!

I can't believe you are preaching to us about how amazing you are after a particular thread when you openly talked about purposly disregarding the dosage instructions on calpol/not calpol/supermarket equivalents/not supermarket equivalents.

Honestly, you're amazing.

By LowLevelWhingeing Thu 28-Jan-10 09:02:33
Wow, WWC I just wish I could be as perfect in my parenting as you! Please, write a book to teach all us crappy mothers the wisdom of your ways!

I can't believe you are preaching to us about how amazing you are after a particular thread when you openly talked about purposly disregarding the dosage instructions on calpol/not calpol/supermarket equivalents/not supermarket equivalents.

Honestly, you're amazing.

Uhh? I think you are mixing me up another poster, I have never posted anything like that!