Leaving babies to cry can result in "Shutdown Syndrome"

[morningpaper]

I read this on Dr. Sears and thought it was very interesting.
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THE SHUTDOWN SYNDROME
Throughout our 30 years of working with parents and babies, we have grown to appreciate the correlation between how well children thrive (emotionally and physically) and the style of parenting they receive.

"You're spoiling that baby!" First-time parents Linda and Norm brought their four-month-old high-need baby, Heather, into my office for consultation because Heather had stopped growing. Heather had previously been a happy baby, thriving on a full dose of attachment parenting. She was carried many hours a day in a baby sling, her cries were given a prompt and nurturant response, she was breastfed on cue, and she was literally in physical touch with one of her parents most of the day. The whole family was thriving and this style of parenting was working for them. Well-meaning friends convinced these parents that they were spoiling their baby, that she was manipulating them, and that Heather would grow up to be a clingy, dependent child.

Parents lost trust. Like many first-time parents, Norm and Linda lost confidence in what they were doing and yielded to the peer pressure of adopting a more restrained and distant style of parenting. They let Heather cry herself to sleep, scheduled her feedings, and for fear of spoiling, they didn't carry her as much. Over the next two months Heather went from being happy and interactive to sad and withdrawn. Her weight leveled off, and she went from the top of the growth chart to the bottom. Heather was no longer thriving, and neither were her parents.

Baby lost trust. After two months of no growth, Heather was labeled by her doctor "failure to thrive" and was about to undergo an extensive medical exam. When the parents consulted me, I diagnosed the shutdown syndrome. I explained that Heather had been thriving because of their responsive style of parenting. Because of their parenting, Heather had trusted that her needs would be met and her overall physiology had been organized. In thinking they were doing the best for their infant, these parents let themselves be persuaded into another style of parenting. They unknowingly pulled the attachment plug on Heather, and the connection that had caused her to thrive was gone. A sort of baby depression resulted, and her physiologic systems slowed down. I advised the parents to return to their previous high-touch, attachment style of parenting?to carry her a lot, breastfeed on cue, and respond sensitively to her cries by day and night. Within a month Heather was again thriving.

Babies thrive when nurtured. We believe every baby has a critical level of need for touch and nurturing in order to thrive. (Thriving means not just getting bigger, but growing to one's potential, physically and emotionally.) We believe that babies have the ability to teach their parents what level of parenting they need. It's up to the parents to listen, and it's up to professionals to support the parents' confidence and not undermine it by advising a more distant style of parenting, such as "let your baby cry-it-out" or "you've got to put him down more." Only the baby knows his or her level of need; and the parents are the ones that are best able to read their baby's language.

Babies who are "trained" not to express their needs may appear to be docile, compliant, or "good" babies. Yet, these babies could be depressed babies who are shutting down the expression of their needs. They may become children who don't speak up to get their needs met and eventually become the highest-need adults.
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Totally agree Dove

Sophable, I really agree with your post.

I think what we should remember is that a lot of parenting advice is aimed at preventing the extremes. So yes, babies ignored for days or weeks on end will shut down and there will be resultant emotional problems and that's terrible and tragic. But I would say almost by definition, if you are on Mumsnet, you are not likely to be behaving like this. You already care about parenting enough to read about it and therefore are more likely to be actively caring for your baby.

I came to this conclusion on a much smaller example which was taking bottles away from a baby by one year. My daughter drinks from a cup in the day and never drinks anything but milk or water. She has a bottle at night, after which her teeth are cleaned. I would like to take it away but she likes the comfort and the closeness of that last bottle. I figure the advice about no bottles is important if you let your baby drink sweet drinks from a bottle all day and your baby doesn't learn to drink from a cup and her teeth are constantly bathed in sugar. But a ten minute bottle at the end of the day? It's really not going to make the difference between a healthy baby and an unhealthy one.

These things are extrapolated to extremes by the media. I saw that Claire Verity on the TV this morning - she is such a nutcase and clearly only getting any airtime because she is a caricature of the routine-based model. It's all a TV set-up and I think we should all be a bit more confident in our own choices.

Also agree with drosphila. Let's not let media nonsense undermine our perfectly sensible parenting approaches.

Am totally with Dove and Sakura on this one.

I live in France and people (MIL etc) were extremely sceptical about my daughter's ability to leave me to go to pre-school, which started 4 weeks ago. Everyone out there seemed to think that because my daughter and I have a very close, cuddly relationship and because she has really only been looked after by me, her father and other very close family members (only a very occasional babysitter at home), she would find school terribly traumatic and I got lots of negative comments about the fact that I hadn't trained her into separation/independence from a very young age.

In fact, after a few days with a few tears, she has settled in like a dream. She wants a cuddle before school and right afterwards, but she's very keen and happy to to to school.

I'm pro attachment parenting. i'm pro controlled crying. there is ABSOLUTELY NO CONTRADICTION IN THAT

I find this an interesting comment as DR Sears (Father of AP Parenting)outlines the main AP tools and one is anti CC and CIO.

START QUOTE
5. Belief in the language value of your baby's cry
A baby's cry is a signal designed for the survival of the baby and the development of the parents. Responding sensitively to your baby's cries builds trust. Babies trust that their caregivers will be responsive to their needs. Parents gradually learn to trust in their ability to appropriately meet their baby's needs. This raises the parent-child communication level up a notch. Tiny babies cry to communicate, not to manipulate. (See Crying and Cry it Out)
END QUOTE

Link Here

I am interested in how 'ignoring your babies cries' can be seen to be the same thing as 'being responsive to your babies cries'. They appear to be opposite points of view to me.

three cheers for sophable

I should add that whilst I will not leave my own child to cry, I believe every parent has the right to parent in which ever way suits them and their children.

I just can not see how AP parenting and CIO can EVER go together.

They can, BabiesEverywhere, I'll explain in a second!

Thanks DaddyJ

No I can't either. But I can see how close and responsive parenting can co exist with CIO. I didn't do CIO but if I had to now (at 1 year) I would consider it.

-close and responsive parenting can co exist with CIO.

In my mind, one replaces the other, CIO is detatched unresponsive parenting (which may work well, I don't know as I don't do it)and hence replaces close and responsive parenting.

well how does this work then. I am a close and responsive parent. If my daughter, who is one, btw, was fed, dry, comfortable, safe but crying in her cot because she was too tired to go to sleep (which does sometimes happen) I would try to soothe her with cuddles, songs etc but if she was just getting too exercised I would let her cry it out. She'd be asleep within 5 mins.

Perhaps we are not talking about the same thing.

-Perhaps we are not talking about the same thing.

I agree, you sound like you are an AP parent, who lets her tired baby whinge a bit before she goes to sleep, not the same as sleep training, CC or CIO.

CIO

I'm not AP, I don't think. Not really sure what that entails but I didn't do slings and co sleeping. BF (but not exclusively because I was in and out of hospital at times) to 8 months.

I think what causes these problems is the labelling. We all feel we have to label our parenting according to a certain tribe and if you are in this tribe you don't do that and if you are in that tribe you don't do this.

I think it's a shame because I can see some sense in most of it (though not in anything CV has to say though as I've said, she is a purely made-for-tv construct and not to be taken seriously).

I took bits and bobs from wherever and I would not particularly advocate anything to anyone other than "do what works for you".

margoandjerry - the example you give is not CIO

I don't like labels myself but it is the easiest way of passing on a lot of information about yourself and your likely views with a short phrase.

To me AP parenting is "a style of caring for your infant that brings out the best in the baby and the best in the parents."

In practical terms this means that AP parents are more likely to share certain less mainstream parenting tools including some or all of the following .i.e. babywearing, breastfeeding, cosleeping, baby led weaning, positive discipline, elimination communication and home schooling.

But it is not necessary to follow ALL of the above mentioned attachment methods, every parent chooses which attachment parenting tools are right for them to promote attachment within their family.

For instance I breastfeed, babywear, EC but we no longer co-sleep every night just on occasion, as it wasn't working for our family.

gosh, these distinctions are all getting a bit fine for me.

I read that book actually. Didn't realise that's where the concept was popularised. I found it useful but what took away from it was ways to get your baby confident in its sleep routine so that it reads the cues and is secure enough to go to sleep on its own and that way, when they wake up in the night, they know how to go back to sleep.

I found the emphasis on getting the baby to be able to self-settle very helpful and this is what got my daughter sleeping through. That was all about no dummies to sleep with and stuff. Not about letting her cry for hours till she was exhausted and eventually fell asleep in despair!

Honestly, I don't think all this polarisation is helpful.

I`ve never understood the "too tired to go to sleep" line.I would have thought that this time is when a baby needs its mother the most. Its great to play with the baby, read books to it etc, but what the baby really wants is to be comforted off to sleep when it needs it, I think.

What's elimination communication?

I'm often too tired to go to sleep myself!

Perhaps that's why I understand when my daughter is like that because I'm often like that.

Elimination Communication is a gentle child led approach to giving your baby the opportunity of becoming clean and dry at a young age, by helping them to eliminate outside a nappy into a suitable container. (usually potty or toilet)

Elimination Communication links

Never heard that expression before but the concept makes sense.

Hm...maybe if we all stopped using categories into which parenting category we fit...maybe that would be easier....because each parenting style means something different (within a certain range, anyway) to different individuals....

AP forinstance is very much about being child led...and some children just don't want as much contact as the parent might be willing to give...!
I rememebr a vitual conversation with a friend of mine who is very ap, and she found it extrememly difficult to deal with teh fact that indeed her youngest dd (at teh tiem) was happier with floor time, etc...then being carried around in a sling...it felt instinctively wrong to her, but when she sat back and thought about it she of course realized that forcing a child to be in such close contact if they don't want it at the time would be just as wrong as ignoring a child that needs contact...

Sophable, glad you also pointed out that this is not really about general CIO, etc..
I tried to make that point possibly badly, in an earlier post (however, that post might be invisible to everyone anyway, lol...seeing that no one actually had any response to it, lol...me having a tantrum here...never...[stamping food, throwing myself ont eh floor emoticon]) only about the Nazi comment...just being sensitive about it I suppose...

3andnogore I agree with you entirely.

My nephew has never liked much in the way of contact - even from a tiny baby. He used to wriggle away from cuddles and was happier on the floor! He's the same now at five although I was lucky enough to get a birthday kiss from him last week -a VERY rare event.

It amazed us all that he was just born like this. As he was the first baby I'd really known, I thought perhaps all babies were like this....

I do notice that sometimes if my daughter is crying at night, if I go in and pick her up she'll do one of two things: either nestle down for a cuddle in which case she obviously needs some comfort or she'll arch away from me and push on my neck which I've learned means she just wants to go back to bed.

I really think there are as many different parenting styles as there are parents and there's probably a little bit of sense in all of them at some point for some children.