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 Over the next two months Heather went from being happy and interactive to sad and withdrawn.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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Interesting Feber Interview

Another Interesting Article

QUOTE FROM FIRST FEBER BOOK
The most famous part of the book is an incremental chart that lays out Ferber's step-by-step method of getting a child to go to sleep by himself. On the first night, you place the baby in his crib, close the door, and don't reënter for five minutes. The second night you wait ten minutes, the third night fifteen, and so on, until by the seventh night you're waiting thirty-five minutes. (There's something sort of Biblical about it all.) The child cries, the agonized parents stand outside the door, desperate to go in and stop the cryingbut not, Ferber says, until "time's up." Under certain circumstances you can go in and comfort your angel, and perhaps pat him a little, but even if the child cries so hard he throws up you are not to pick him up from the crib. "Clean him up and change the sheets and pajamas as needed," Ferber writes, "and then leave again." If you can stand this, you will be rewarded with a child who is "Ferberized"i.e., able to go to sleep alone in his own bed
UNQUOTE

QUOTE RECANTING OBJECTIONS TO COSLEEPING
"But it says here in your book..." I read him two sentences I had read to my wife during one of our 2 A.M. showdowns: "Although taking your child into bed with you for a night or two may be reasonable if he is ill or very upset about something, for the most part this is not a good idea." And, "Sleeping alone is an important part of his learning to be able to separate from you without anxiety and to see himself as an independent individual."

"I wish I hadn't written those sentences," Ferber replied. "That came out of some of the existing literature. It is a blanket statement that is just not right. There's plenty of examples of co-sleeping where it works out just fine. My feeling now is that children can sleep with or without their parents. What's really important is that the parents work out what they want to do
UNQUOTE

Don't you worry, that's what this place is about!
You certainly know your stuff on the AP side
which I am rather grateful for.
(just checked my previous post, I can't even spell attachment )

Incidentally, I am no DrF expert either.
I only browsed through a copy of his book a couple of weeks ago
(long after we had worked out our style with dd), out of interest.

I am pretty knowledgable about my daughter, though

-I am pretty knowledgable about my daughter, though

Same here

ive only read the original post. IT made me feel really really sad. i couldnt agree more.

There have been times when i have let DD cry to sleep for about two minutes when i know she is over tired and will definately fall asleep, but i cannot see how leaving a child to cry for extended periods of time is kind or useful.

crying is the only way that babies can communicate negative affect yes you are right. sometimes babies are so exhausted, and maybe overstimulated. what they need is to sleep. in which case leaving them to cry for 5 minutes after which they sleep is a MORE responsive attitude then picking them up and cuddling them.

another baby may be crying out of fear and needs to be soothed immediately.

I don't think there is any room for blanket statements in parenting to be honest, other than at the extremes for eg never responding to a baby crying or at the polar opposite as soon as my baby utters a sound i pick it up and cuddle it....

of course close attachment leads to independence. who on earth would argue with that. but please don't suggest that parents that have made occasional use of CC or CIO are not closely attached to their children as that is nonsense. as is the notion that someone that follows the continuum concept necessarily will be parenting in an emotionally healthy way. there are many examples of intrusive parenting based on the parents' rather than the childs needs that come under that name.

responsive parenting and attachment parenting are not the same thing. parenting using a routine and neglect are not the same thing.

sophable - if they are not following the continuum concept in an emotionally healthy way they arent following it. Because that is the focal point on it, isnt it?

Very large thread to read all so sorry if this has been asked...

1. I though cc was when you left your child for a set amount of time -say 5, 10, 15 mins? Then returned to the child, said in a monotoned voice 'it's time to go to sleep' (or some other banality) and then repeated.
   The woman on bringing up baby wanted to leave the babies for hours. Something I do not agree with at all.

2. Is this article backed up with any scientific evidence or is it just someone elses opinion that we can all fight over about?

I agree with Soph.

-Is this article backed up with any scientific evidence or is it just someone elses opinion that we can all fight over about?

If you mean the OP. That is a real case study by Dr Sears. So this is a qualified doctors opinion of what he interpreted that babies behaviour to be, which might be accurate or not.

So far this thread has not got to blows...yet

mg:

1. Yup, spot on.

2. It's sort of fight, fight, fight but
   I fear the core points of the Sears anecdote
   are not controversial enough.
   And Mumsnetters like BabiesEverywhere are just too nice to have a row with

Been busy reading your blog, BE, and this
Elimination Communication philosophy sounds rather spiffing!
(I can already hear dw groaning 'not another clever MN find!')

I was just wondering how many babies he studied in his case study or was this just a drs opinion?

I dont know how many babies, I just would not risk it. I dont use any "technique" on mine, just listening to my instincts. When my baby cries (due to hormonal changes in my brain I think) I feel extremely anxious and eager to sooth him in any way possible. If people disagree with me for doing that I dont really care!!!

~@~ virtual kiss to DaddyJ ~@~

Yep, ECing is one of those things which is so easy and simple when you do it...as you say a 'real find'. Yet many people find it weird.

Your DD is a perfect age to start if your DW agreed. (summer 06 makes her between 11 and 15 months)
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As for the Dr Sears OP...the case study is about one baby. Though the doctor had several children and as far as I know is still practicing, so in theory his thoughts are based on many children.

egg....I don't think anyone is objecting at all that you follow your instincts...however, people may object to suggestions that because they have done cc etc. that they are wrong to do so, or cruel or whatever...btw. not implying you said or meant that....!
I think that is why I told my anecdotes...i.e. I did CC , but, imo, of course I did it for the right reasons, because I care for and love my child, because I felt it was important to do what is best for him, not myself...because, due to my earlier anecdote of my own childhood experience, I had and still have very strong feelings about CC in general...not sure that makes sesne!

BE, really well done for going down the EC line...I was going to try this with ys, but sadly nothing worked out the way I wanted to with him, as he was a very demanding little Baby, very stressed and very sensitive and I sadly wasn't in the right place (within myself, emotionally , phsychologically) to be the mum I truely wanted to be....
But I think EC is absolute amazing and does make so much sense....

not everyday one gets a virtual kiss!

I will print out some of the information and see
what dw makes of it, I certainly buy into the concept
and dd is indeed 16 months now - time to start
lurking on the potty training threads

Daddy....at 16 month it's to late to start EC, iykwim....because your child will ahve already learned to soil their personal space, if you know what I mean...EC has to be started from Birth really.

-EC has to be started from Birth really.

With respect from one who does it...no it doesn't

We started at 10 weeks old, many people have sucessfully ECed starting between 6 months and 2 years old.

There are 'known' early windows of easy to introduce a potty which are birth to 6 months and 18 months to 24 months.

The earlier you start, the quicker the child is dry and clean. But to my mind ECing is a lovely gentle child led approach to introduces a potty whatever the age of the child.

DaddyJ daughter is in the second early window and will properly find a potty interesting to have the chance to play, interact and hopefully use

HTH

Very sceptical. DS was on a routine, with feeding times and sleeping times enforced fairly strictly.

He's on the 91% for growth (DH and I are only 25%th each). He's very expressive of his needs, outgoing, confident, and gregarious. Granted, he is only one, but most people I know had their kids on schedules, and they have experienced similar things.

The most frightened and shy child I know was completely demand fed and never on a schedule.

BE...obviously you do know more then me about it, so sorry if I was spouting rubbish...it was just the impression I got from when I looked into this and from what people were saying on EC fora, etc...but I must have misunderstood.

Glory this isn't really about routine, etc...it's about responding to your childs needs and showing them love and attention...I really don't think that anyone is trying to imply that just because someone uses some sort of routine they are being neglective and unloving/uncaring....in general now...

Well, have changed name for this post, as feel sooo bad about leaving ds to cry it out at four months old.

He'd stopped doing the convenient newborn nodding-off-anywhere thing, and would no longer fall asleep in the pushchair on walks. He was getting progressively more tired, as were we. He'd scream for hours into the night and nothing would console him - feeds, cuddles, rocking, walking, sitting on the sofa with us. White noise worked for a while, but then had no more effect. Ds was also up in the night a lot, I was tired, becoming depressed, and family, friends, my health visitor and the sleep clinic we were referred to told us to leave him to cry. We felt we'd tried everything, and so in a desperate, tired haze, left him to cry - probably for half-an-hour per night, over a few nights in the end - not the hours-a-night, for weeks, one sometimes reads about. So I feel vaguely relieved about that.

Since learning about and tuning into attachment parenting around the time of ds's first birthday, I have felt guilty every day since. Ds is now three, and every day, I do still think about and regret letting him cry it out.

It felt extremely uncomfortable to do, and I just kept telling myself that x, y and z had said to do it so it must be OK. Looking back, I had no real intuition - or wasn't listening to/trusting it.

Now, I believe wholeheartedly in the attachment approach. If we had another child, it would be slings and co-sleeping from day one. I have co-slept with ds for the past couple of years, and it feels right; I've tuned into that now - what feels right, rather than what everyone tells me is right. Thankfully, ds doesn't exhibit any of the failure-to-thrive symptoms, but because of my regret and anxiety around what I did, I think on some level I'm on the look-out for signs of any damage, and end up linking a perfectly understandable temper outburst/hug refusal to crying it out. Crying it out can lead to parent anxiety syndrome!

I only hope that co-sleeping with ds for more of his life than not, has gone some way to reverse any sense of abandonment he may have developed as a baby.

CryingItOut, I try not to tell people what to do quite this directly - but what the heck: you have got to stop beating yourself up right now. In a culture where "parenting" is the latest growth industry, we are all vulnerable to self-criticism and over-analysis. Sit and think about all the positive aspects of your parenting and your relationship with ds and be kind to yourself in order to teach him how to be kind to himself, a valuable skill in a competitive world.

I feel that you must put into perspective the experiences you and ds have had - even if you wouldn't use this 'technique' again, you haven't described anything remotely terrible and you are not a bad mother as a result, in fact you are obviously very reflective.

Goodness, if we all posted the litany of 'mistakes' we feel we have made, this would be a very long thread indeed! I suspect that even Dr Sears is not the Perfect Parent...

Trust yourself x

well said Walnutshell.

I really think all this advice is aimed at children who are consistently left for hours on end and who will of course shut down and become emotionally damaged. These are children of disordered and damaged parents not the children of interested, engaged parents who care so much they post on Mumsnet about it!

Babies growing up in a loving household, shown lots of love and attention as you did Cryingitout (your list of feeding, cuddles, rocking, white noise just demonstrates how much you tried) will not have shutdown syndrome just because you let them cry for half an hour! Really honestly, you should give yourself a break because your beating yourself up is definitely not good for you.

This is my issue with this whole debate - people who are doing a perfectly lovely job of parenting start to worry that they have given their child major emotional problems. That is so sad

I was reading in the Guardian at the weekend about five generations of a Spanish family all living in the same household. The great, great grandmother was a young mother during Franco's time and she was explaining that they were all starving and literally begging for food. If she managed to get a day's work, she had to take it and then had no choice but to leave the baby alone in its cot all day because it was a choice between staying at home with the baby or letting the family starve to death. How absolutely horrific. I was in tears reading it. And yet this lovely family were still all living together and said baby was now an 80 year old great grandmother herself and they were all fighting over who got to hold the newest family member who was only a few weeks old!

Please don't punish yourself for something so tiny. It sounds like you've got yourself stuck on this issue and yet your son is thriving because of all your love and attention.

Agree totally m&j and what a sad but interesting story.

CryingItOut, you actually describe a lot of good parenting even in your short post about your concerns so I'm guessing you are getting most of it right most of the time which is the absolute best any of us can hope for - on a different thread I'm sure I would be asking for your advice. Please don't spend all your time looking for "signs of damage"; this is such a negative and destructive waste of energy far better spent on happier pursuits.

Let's face it, people parent the way they feel comfortable with, and in the end it probably has little effect on how our babies sleep.

I have 2 dds, both have been well AP'd and never left to cry bf, carried, co-slept etc.

DD1 was a nightmare sleeper and whole family suffered. DD2 (now 10 months) has slept well since birth and whole fanily is happy

The point is that I parented them both the same way, regardless of 'how much sleep', because it's the way I feel comfortable with. Even if cc worked, I'm not able to parent that way, and that may be true for some people looking at AP and Continuum methods.

BTW I was Truby-Kinged btw and still have difficulties hugging my mum, tho' she was a good mother in terms of looking after me and supporting me when older. I chose a different way of parenting so I could get all the cuddles day and night .

Just came back to thank BabiesE and 3andnogore for the EC advice.
Thanks!

CryingItOut, what a terrible ordeal?!
What kind of sleep clinic suggests CIO?
Did they tell you to just leave him to cry for half an hour

• and then what? How bizarre. I hope you gave them a piece of your mind! So what did you do when CIO did not work?

Your post is the perfect example, though, that too literal a
reading of Attachment Parenting can create just as much anxiety
and neurosis as trying to do everything by, say, GF's book.

CryingItOut, I can assure you that you have done no damage to your lad!
The lesson from your experience is not to trust attachment parenting,
the lesson is to trust yourself.
Do you see any damage in your boy? If not, then that's your answer.