Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

controlled crying...don't we all do it in the end?

285 replies

mamacherry · 12/08/2010 19:46

Who does it? Is it ok? Will it cause lasting damage? Don't all parents inevitably do it in the end at some point or other, whether they admit it or not? Considering it with my 4 months old dd2 as she started sleeping though the night 8pm to 6am at 8 weeks but is now waking regularly and I am sure she doesn't need milk - she's massive!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
kalo12 · 13/08/2010 22:29

thanks isitmeor, I may well do. The op wanted reasons why cc might not be good and I am just trying to offer some, and yes it is what i believe myself, but may change if i discover more convincing arguments. I, myself, have a complete non sleeper so I am well aware of the downsides of not doing cc.

secure attachment is of coursed based on many things. I work with extremely damaged teens and I am sure that if cc was the only bad thing they had encountered in their lives then I'm sure they would all be gorgeous little angels.

my co sleeping arrangement certainly contributes to my ds's lack of sibling and I certainly wonder if this might be more distressing than cc.

Its not an easy job being a parent is it?

ThatDamnDog · 13/08/2010 22:38

Eddie - maybe not a new phenomenon this past century but I was talking in terms of evolution which generally takes millenia. If parents slept with their kids as evolution would suggest we should, sleep deprivation would be an uncommon scenario because they'd not need to cry out in the first place. And taking it all a step further still, as a species we're designed to breastfeed, for years, so having longer intervals between children and getting better quality sleep in the first place (thank you oxytocin).

undercovamutha · 13/08/2010 22:38

'It's all well and good to say we should leap to our children's sides every time they cry, but if you have two children who cry out multiple times a night how exactly are you supposed to function?'

Eddie - I once mentioned on a thread like this that I had left my DS crying (perfectly safely in his cot) for a few minutes whilst I cleaned up following my DD wetting herself. I was vilified for apparently putting my carpet before my 4mo son, as there is apparently NO excuse to leave a baby crying - not even if you have a 3yo stood in a puddle of urine, bawling her eyes out. Apparently I should have either left DD in the urine until I had dealt with DS, or if I was really worried about DD I could have put DS in a sling whilst I was on my hands and knees cleaning DD and the floor. Hmm

Heathcliffscathy · 13/08/2010 22:42

kalo, as far as I recall bowlby said NOTHING about controlled crying. his theories were born of studying children left in hospital (parents never used to stay with them) and developed by attachment theory pioneers such as mary ainsworth who created the 'strange situation' test where one year olds are left for a few minutes with a stranger in the room and categorised by their reactions according to their attachment style.

Rene Spitz a psychoanalyst carried out research into hospitalisation in a foundling home.

When people talk about 'research' into controlled crying and bowlby in the same sentence they need to be v careful!

EddieIzzardismyhero · 13/08/2010 22:49

But, ThatDamnDog, kalo has a complete non-sleeper and co sleeps. I tried co sleeping with DS1, didn't work at all and DS2 was positively dangerous to co-sleep with as he wouldn't sleep and climbed over me constantly to fall out of bed. Unless I could get an adult sized cot I couldn't co sleep.

As for bf and large gaps between children, our ancestors must have had dreadful bf rates then as they had lots of children in a short space of time due to lack of contraception (assume bf not a good contraception then?).

undercovamutha, sadly that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I have a 16mth age gap between my DC and have regularly had to leave one or other to cry while I deal with the other - I assume parents who never leave their kids to cry either only have one child or have massive age gaps, or are just much better parents than me.

ThatDamnDog · 13/08/2010 23:05

Mostly we didn't have beds to fall out of a few thousand years ago Grin. I've got a non-sleeping cosleeper too. He's 3. I'm fine with giving him a shove in the direction of his own bed now but not before. He likes to be near us, same as I prefer to sleep with DP. Not unreasonable, to me.

EddieIzzardismyhero · 13/08/2010 23:10

Lol at extrapolating what happened a few thousand years ago to whether CC is harmful to children now!! Grin

Nothing unreasonable about what you choose to do with your DS, ditto for me. I loved co-sleeping with DS1 but it didn't work for us long term and, as I said, co-sleeping with DS2 was dangerous. I'd rather not resort to sleeping on the floor of a cave (or even my bedroom for that matter!) to get him to sleep Grin.

I assume (and correct me if I'm wrong) that your DS is an only? I have two and couldn't actually fit all of us in our bed if I wanted to!

Different strokes for different folks, but I do get sick to the back teeth of how parents who sleep train are made to feel on MN.

Talking of sleep, I'm off to bed Smile.

ThatDamnDog · 13/08/2010 23:19

I don't really see the humour in applying the evolutionary biology and physiology of our species in analysing the potential effects of

ThatDamnDog · 13/08/2010 23:22

oops ... of the fairly drastic measures we use today for our own comfort and convenience. But hey, that's just one person's opinion. [shrug]

EddieIzzardismyhero · 13/08/2010 23:26

Comfort and convenience!!!!!! Shock

It's nothing to do with comfort or convenience, it's for my physical and mental health, not just because I can't be arsed to get up in the night to look after my kids Hmm.

SingItBack · 13/08/2010 23:29

eddie you are wasting your time, just let those who don't 'CC' find out the hard way, meantime the rest of us will get a good nights sleep Grin

EddieIzzardismyhero · 13/08/2010 23:31

Lol, you're right singitback, I am completely wasting my time. Some people like to be martyrs to sleep deprivation. Which reminds me, I really must go to bed!

SingItBack · 13/08/2010 23:34

and me, night! And yes, it can be a badge of parenting honour, not getting a wink's sleep for years. Sadly for my children they learnt to sleep alone from about 5 weeks, so no martyrdom for me Sad

Horton · 13/08/2010 23:44

just let those who don't 'CC' find out the hard way, meantime the rest of us will get a good nights sleep

As some of us have said, our non-CC children sleep perfectly well. I don't think slinging mud or threatening years of broken sleep is really the way to approach this. The same approach doesn't fit every child in the same way.

minxofmancunia · 13/08/2010 23:45

God the martyrdom on this thread is nauseating, "I sacrificed myself to the holy deity of sleeplessness because that's the uber worthy paragon of motherhood that I am"

well more fool you.

ThatDamnDog · 14/08/2010 07:14

FFS. People giving evidence for their opinions and decisions is now martyrdom. How very adult of you to suggest that Hmm

Igglybuff · 14/08/2010 07:21

martyrdom?! Grin that is just silly.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/08/2010 07:41

haven't seen any martyrdom,but several people getting very touchy and defensive! If you are totally secure in your decision to use cc, why get so hostile if others don't?

Flighttattendant · 14/08/2010 08:30

Minx that's just nonsense!

How many times do I and others have to state that our children sleep really well without us having used CC, before you listen and take it on board? It seems your only argument is that your kids sleep well and ours, apparently, don't. It's not true...not for many of us, at least.

But do keep plugging it if you want to sound rather silly! I don't want people to see these posts and think 'Oh people who don't use CC have non sleeping children' because that might encourage more people to think the way you do and give CC a try.

So I need to point out (again) that you're mistaken, whether or not that is completely evident from the thread if anyone can be arsed to read it all.

Cote - it wasn't my comprehension, it was your statements - some of which seemed less than foolproof. I don't know if there's much point going into it. You're clearly prepared to argue till you drop that you're right, despite our best efforts to explain why we think CC is a poor idea.

It's your prerogative to believe what you wish.

IsItMeOr · 14/08/2010 08:50

Fanjo - it's healthy to question your parenting choices, no?

And some of the language used to describe CC has been pretty hostile, so a questioning parent might understandably be upset by it.

Flighttattendant · 14/08/2010 08:51

Okay here goes [head in hands]

'It should be easyenoughto identify CC children and test whether or not they trust their parents. The experiment is not complicated.' How would this not be complicated? Speaking of 'trusting' as though it were a simple thing, is ridiculous - you can't just ask someone 'would you lend your Mum a fiver'. The trust [we] are talking about is something that is very hard to quantify.

'If it has never been attempted, maybe the hypothesis is not that credible.

If you can't even be bothered to show that there is evidence that supports your claims, excuse me for not believing a word of it.'

Well, Kalo has referred you several times to the source of her beliefs but you refuse to go and read up, which is fair enough - but you can't expect her to print you out a whole swathe of stuff on here. It's something you'd have to go into in great depth, which you just don't want to, but that's hardly her problem.

' My DC and others I know in RL are counterexamples to this "theory" of yours. If you call yourself a scientist on any level, you should know that even one counterexample disproves a theory.'

Kalo hasn't called herself a scientist on any level! And how exactly have you proved that your children have not been (sorry but) damaged? I'm not saying and I don't think Kalo is saying that they have - what we are saying is that CC creates a potential for damage in some situations and particularly in combination with other factors, but nevertheless that this risk is far from ideal without EVIDENCE that it does NOT harm - and just because some children appear unharmed by it, indeed if most do, it doesn't necessarily mean that damage will NOT be done to some others.
I believe I was damaged by a lack of attachment at birth. That's just one person, one child - but it is relevant imo.

'Some minutes of crying over only a few days does not break trust between mother and baby, any more than holding them down to be vaccinated or leaving them at nursery in maternity ward does.'

I like this 'some minutes'. That's rather vague isn't it. You could be talking 3 minutes or 3 hours. These are the variables that could be seen as incredibly relevant (obviously). And I am not certain that holding a child down to be vaccinated is comparable, firstly because it is (arguably) necessary, secondly it is quick, thirdly it's inescapable that a vaccine will hurt where sleep doesn't have to...and leaving a child at nursery in a maternity ward - sorry, I don't understand what this means exactly, are there nurseries in maternity wards? You'll need to clarify that before I can answer it.

' It is ridiculous to claim that a loving, caring relationship where he is nursed, loved, kept warm, sang to, kept clean, kissed, and cared for will be reduced to nothing because he cried for some minutes'

Nobody is suggesting it is reduced to nothing. People are saying it can be damaged, albeit slightly, and that a child's sense of security can be subtly altered by the use of CC. (or far worse, CIO)

'As for "Is CC good for children?" - it teaches thhem to sleep well, which is a very good thing.' Mine and many, many others sleep perfectly well without it - without being 'taught' to sleep at all.

'Sleeping baby means well rested parents, which means better, more patient, more resourceful parents.' I would concur - but again, sleeping baby does not have to correlate with controlled crying baby.

'In the absence of any evidence that it harms them, yes, it is rather obvious that CC is a good thing.' Nonsense.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/08/2010 09:04

IsItMeOr - Yes of course it is healthy, but I wouldn't say calling others "martyrs" is questioning in a healthy way.

Flighttattendant · 14/08/2010 09:08

(Fanjo - thankyou for what you said on that other thread btw! Thatw as really lovely of you) Smile

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/08/2010 09:09

Any time, I meant it. Smile

LC200 · 14/08/2010 09:20

I never used cc, my kids are great sleepers now. You have to do what works for you, but I don't think it's right to say that everyone uses cc eventually.