Kiss Me (how to raise your children with love) by Carlos Gonzalez

[Ponders]

\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/may/28/carlos-gonzalez-doctor-parents-break-rules\article in the Graun}

I love the last paragraph

'Just as I leave, we talk about a famous childcare author who is publishing another book. "I saw her book," he says. "At 2pm, you have to do this for 15 minutes," he mimics. "Imagine if someone wrote a book like that about sex! 'At 9pm, touch the nipple for 10 minutes.'" Imagine.'

As far as I can make out, none of the papers which show a raised cortisol response from certain types of parenting have actually been able to tell us what levels of cortisol are bad for a child.

As far as I understand it, cortisol levels rise at any type of stress or stimulation; so a child who is having a great time at a party will have higher levels of cortisol than a child of the same age who spends the entire day wrapped up in a blanket listening to lullabies. A toddler who falls out with a friend and bashes him on the head will probably have higher levels of cortisol than a toddler who is protected from that kind of situation by only being around gentle adults who arrange everything around him.

Now we can all agree, I think, that the latter way - avoiding all stress- is not the ideal way to raise a child. But where do we draw the lines? What is a good, safe level of cortisol and what is the sign of harm being done? Do we know? Does anyone know?

Can we do anything better or more reasonable than using common sense to decide what kind of stress situation might be worth a rise in cortisol levels because of other benefits.

I am sure ds, when he was a baby, sometimes had higher cortisol levels because he had to wait while I was attending to his older sister. But that is offset against the enormous benefit of having an older sister, a benefit that becomes more apparent the older he gets.

When I had to stop breastfeeding after a few months to change medications, that really felt like I was letting ds down. But that had to be offset against the fact that I was a far safer person to be in charge of a baby when I was no longer suffering from the side effects of a medicine that was turning me into a zombie; I could easily have dropped him on his head, I was that out of it. I imagine that's the sort of situation that might make somebody go down the road of sleep training: realising they are so sleep deprived that they are no longer safe to look after the baby.

I am glad that I never had to try any kind of sleep training because other things worked for us. But then I'm sure the women who were able to breast-feed for a year because they don't have to worry about medication are glad about that too. We all do the best with the situation we are given.

Afaik the rise In cortisol levels has to be prolonged.
Whilst I feel very strongly about the profound affects of early trauma I dislike it being misappropriated by people trying to flog parenting books

Also, nobody's talking about toddlers, cory - we're talking about under-1s. There was some interesting research out last week but I haven't managed to trace the original paper yet (as opposed to the news reports which are invariably crap).

I was talking about under-1s, Octavia, when I mentioned ds as a baby having to wait while I saw to his older sister. And when I mentioned having to give up breastfeeding so I could be a safer parent. Out of my four
examples only two were about toddlers- I wonder why you picked up on those and ignored the other two.

fwiw I could have made the other two about babies too: I am sure a baby who gets taken round to coffee mornings or days out has higher cortisol levels than that same baby snuggling up in bed with his mum. And a baby living in a household with lots of noisy older children and their friends may well end up in more cortisol-raising situations than a baby brought up by a quiet middle aged couples.

Not an advocate of controlled crying btw- I was far too much of a softie to try that out on my own children- just a total advocate of the stringent application of research results.

Sorry, cory - I confess to skim-reading your post and replying in a hurry because I was distracted. Parties for toddlers and so on are a different kettle of fish, I think, because they understand so much more and are more amenable to several methods of calming down if necessary. It's just that the assertion that 'there's no credible evidence' to support approaches like picking tiny babies up when they cry always makes me see red.

If it makes you see red, isn't that because you jump from "there is no credible evidence against it" to "this is a good thing", Octavia?

Personally, I don't think not picking up your crying baby is a good thing; it doesn't make sense to me, because as far as I'm concerned it is just counter-intuitive.

But that does not mean I am not going to to accept unquestioningly something that seems to me like sloppy deductions from academic research (drawing conclusions from raised cortisol levels without a reasoned evidence-based discussion as to when raised cortisol levels are actually harmful or what levels cause harm).

Sloppy reasoning, as far as I am concerned, is a crime against Nature. The Nature that gave us brains. I don't let my students get away with it just because their results happen to agree with my own views on human relations or gender or politics or whatever. And I certainly hope people won't let me get away with sloppy reasoning just because it leads to results they approve of.

No, it's not because I'm making that jump, it's because people who adopt a position and shut their eyes to evidence infuriate me. Ignorance is one thing, wilful blindness is another. Also, being called a liar doesn't help!

I hold the position I do because I think that when there's research to demonstrate that particular approaches such as persistently leaving a baby to cry can cause harm, then you are entitled to conclude that those approaches are a Bad Thing. (I agree that the opposite is not thereby demonstrated to be a Good Thing.) But when there is plenty of research about the positive benefits of oxytocin I think it's ok to put the two sides together and come to a conclusion that actually, picking up your baby is a good thing.

I agree - I haven't been able to find research about what levels of cortisol might be damaging, but it's not just about the specific harm caused by raised cortisol levels, is it? Some of the research is also about the correlation between persistently raised cortisol levels and later propensities to depression, anxiety and the inability to manage stress. It seems to be the repetitive nature of the stress that leads to the problems - hardwiring in the brain. Which presumably is why one-offs like parties (or being unable to attend to the baby because you're looking after your toddler) are less important. The research a couple of weeks ago was about the disconnect that comes in between the experienced level of stress and the communication of it - when babies are on their third or fourth night of being left to cry they are experiencing the same high levels of cortisol but they've stopped crying. So the parents think they're fine but actually they've just stopped communicating that they're not fine. But as I say, I haven't so far tracked down the original paper.

I think we all understand about correlation by persistently raised cortisol levels- what we would like is some evidence that helps us to work out how persistent and how raised they have to be.

If I have understood this correctly, many parents who have tried this controlled crying lark report that after the first few nights, the baby actually drops straight to sleep when put in the cot. Would they still have raised cortisol levels even in this case? And how would the dangers of that stress weigh against the stress of being with a parent who is snappy or weepy because of sleep deprivation?

As another poster said earlier, it is about weighing different risks and benefits. When I gave up breastfeeding, it was not because I did not know about the benefits of breastfeeding; but I had to weight that against the quite genuine risk that I would cause a fatal accident to ds because of the way the medication affected me.

When I left ds to cry to help dd, I had to weigh the possible effect on him against the possible effect on her if I did not help her.

I imagine many parents who try controlled crying do so because there are obvious dangers about their current state of sleep deprivation which they have to weigh against the stress of not responding to the baby. But obviously if we had more conclusive research, it would be easier to make a reliable assessment.

Cory, your posts on this thread are just about the most sensible stance I've ever come across on the whole CC debate. I've often wondered whether the short-term higher stress as a means to a presumably calmer end (ie. baby sleeps a lot better) might actually be preferable to say, years, of a baby waking, crying, getting stressed (and then soothed back to sleep) at night... But, as you say, there is no way of knowing - it's for each parent to make the decision for themselves and their child given their particular situation. Appeals to "evidence" really don't help.

I don't recall ever seeing any news item about a parent of a newborn having an appalling accident because of sleep deprivation - a great deal of it is subjective (as is a great deal of insomnia).

People do have accidents with small children: it wouldn't usually go in the news, unless it was deliberate or involved very unusual features or was fatal (and not necessarily in the latter case). And if you read in the paper about a fatal accident it wouldn't necessarily mention sleep deprivation unless the parents were charged with negligence and used that as a defence.

Dd fell headfirst out of pram onto pavement at a few weeks old, due to my having failed to check that the carrycot was fitted properly onto the undercarriage: not sure that would have happened if I had been all there tbh (I don't usually do that sort of thing). Fortunately, she was wearing a large pompom which softened the blow. But if she had ended up with concussion, that would hardly have made even the local news.

And when ds was tiny I did fall asleep with him in my arms a couple of times and could easily have dropped him- that was one of the reasons I agreed to change medication.

Cory, jumping back to your first post, we fell out with my in-laws because we wouldn't let our 3 week old DS cry it out. Some people still think it is the best advise they can give you. My sister in law proudly told me her HV told her 15 years ago that at 2weeks of age it was absolutely fine to teach your baby to self-settle and picking them up when they cry would spoil a baby (I better beware!). That is exactly the point Dr Gonzalez is making, a lot of advise out there is out-dated. I actually agree with the man and have bought the book as the article is a bit thin on the ground I find.

Olive, I am aware that some people still hold to outdated views. But that is different from trying to peddle what is actually pretty mainstream views as something new and revolutionary.

I read ?Why Love Matters? by Susan Gerhart. It is full of research about why we should not leave our babies to cry. However, it also meant I felt guilty if I was not able to get to my baby, eg in a traffic Jam. It shows how a baby who has been left to cry might appear to be asleep but still has high cortisol levels. I have let my baby fall asleep on us whenever she wants. She is breastfed and had reflux and I was told to hold her upright for half an hour after a feed before lying her down. She also started cluster feeding at 5 weeks old but stopped crying so much because I offered her a feed whenever she cried. She is an incredibly happy baby and slept through from 7 weeks old, although this has been affected sometimes due to colds etc. She found her own routine and I feel it has been the parenting style that has worked for me, my husband and my baby. However, people who have followed GF`s advice do so because it is what they believe and it is their choice. I do feel she should be given a lot less shelf space in shops though.

I could be wrong and I know I am banging on about this a bit but,

I find it disturbing that research largly done on deeply traumatized children trickles down to the mainstream and is used to bash parents over the head with.

Attachment theory is a good example of this. The subjects for the original research and even the more contemporary stuff are children who have experienced extreme neglect.
Holocuast survivors, children from Romanian orphanages, children who have been removed into care etc.

This then gets seized upon by parenting gurus and people like telvg feel guilty because their baby is crying in the car and they cant stop!

A child who is loved and cared for will surely not suffer short or long term damage from the occasional period of crying?

I tend to carry my newborns around with me and rarely leave them but I will if I need a shower or to go to the toilet or cook the dinner.

I find it incredibly irritating when attachment issues are trivialized (not accusing anyone on this thread of doing so).
I have seen threads started by worried mothers on forums, fretting massively because they are convinced their child has attachment problems.

A child with attachment disorder is a child with a serious condition.

I would be very cautious about listening to Gina Ford and anyone advocating CIO etc. From what transpires from her website, she is basing her advice on what her mother-in-law said and not on any scientific research. By that I mean hours of studying babies and even measuring their brain activity in countless studies, for which a good summary is found on this page.

drbenkim.com/articles-attachment-parenting.html

Her own 12 year experience was working on a maternity ward (she was probably the woman bringing you your food and helping you shower - she is not a midwife) so would have only cared for newborns for a couple of days at a time. Appalling that anyone can have a book published without having their credentials checked or their advice referenced on facts.

Octaviapink I agree completely. I study psychology with an emphasis on neurobiology and have come across countless papers that highlight the dangers of unresponsive parenting. Most of it conducted on normal babies volunteered by your average parents.

I also teach maths for a living and have a habit of nitpicking the statistics on research to see if they were interpreted well. The newest the research usually, the better it was conducted.

But there will always be people that resist science. I have a friend that does not believe in 'evolution' . According to him it's all lies but he has very limited knowledge or understanding of physics, chemistry, biology or maths, so for him 'evolution' is a belief that scientists have, not a fact. Go figure!!!

A last note: why don't people consider more often that a crying infant is crying for a reason?

For example, when my baby cries on putting to bed is usually trapped wind and a bit of back rubbing while holding up resolves the problem quickly. I wouldn't dare just leave him there to cry it out, poor soul!

I have been horrified a few times to see friends/acquaintances not having a clue while their child cries and trying very little to resolve it- often just shoving another bottle down their throat to shout them up even though when they are already obese. And I'm not talking about leaving him cry occasionally to attend a sibling or go to the toilet etc.,cory. It's for these people that i'm worried about following bad advice , not the sensible average parents like us.

Salonikia, I have actually known babies to cry because they are overtired, in which case getting them out and rubbing them only makes things worse. Ds used to do this; if you put him down he would go to sleep, if you carried him he would get distraught. (dd otoh wanted to be carried when she was tired- and indeed at all other times)

Fortunately most of us get rather good at listening to the cues of whichever baby we happen to be dealing with at the time, and can hear if their crying is tired-crying or some other kind.

I know, there are many reasons a baby would cry which is why I said 'for example' trapped wind. Ultimately, every baby is an individual and it's down to the parent to find out what their baby needs.

Imo however it would just be better to consult a research paper ( however inconclusive) or a book written by a scientist if in doubt, rather than follow any odd advice. I even question medical professionals until I get some evidence as I have heard a lot of crap from them too unfortunately.

I think it depends on what you want advice with, Salonikia.

Not that many research papers out there on "how to get a boisterous toddler to sit nicely through a 4 hour coach journey" but my mother's tips- born from decades of experience- are worth her weight in gold.

I also question medical professionals a lot (with two children with chronic conditions there has been plenty of scope). I find that they often know the clinical stuff very well but struggle to understand how this translates into the practicalities of living in a family.

I haven't cross that bridge yet :)

And I guess I'm just pent up about advice as for every good one, you hear 9 worrying ones. But the one that gets me the most is the let him cry it out one. Like when my fil suggested firmly I should leave my crying baby (which he didn't seem to bother to try and find out why) in his arms until he gets used to him. It's that and similar advice he (and others) gave me that makes you think experience does not equate knowledge.

Also, am I the only one that has met medical staff that they DON'Teven know their clinical stuff well (as what they have said to me has been trashed by a lot of their colleagues later)? I might start a new thread on that!