Any child psychologists out there? What do you think (professionally) about controlled crying?

[Neenztwinz]

I have used CC, I think it is a very quick and effective way of dealing with sleep problems, but I was wondering if there was any research done into its long-term effects. My SIL is a child psychologist and she is dead against CC, so I wonder whether it is because of research she may have seen. I don't want to ask her about it because our babies are only 7 weeks different in age and discussions such as these are just not worth the hassle IYKWIM.

starlight - i must have jumped to the wrong conclusion then - i thought you were implying that i was bottle feeding and it was a bit of a dig...obviously not though...

starlight - actually can I ask you something that I was thinking about last night (see this thread does make me go away and think about things )?

in the literature - what is the role of the other parent? (when there is another parent) If the baby is put to the breast as the first source of comfort then is it harder for the dad to bond or even less than bond as thats a bit contentious isnt it but feel involved?

I dont believe it myself but would be interested in what the AP literature says about it.

Giant (sorry to hijack your question to starlight)- I think that's one of the main problems with attachment theory & attachment parenting (by the way, attachment parenting is not the same as the original attachment theory, it's like a kind of 'branch' parenting theory which took SOME of Bowlby's ideas but certainly not all. End of parentheses). SO as I was saying, very good point, the emphasis on the mother-child dyad is a huge idea in the attachment literature, at the expense of the child's relationships to the father, siblings, wider community etc. The pay lip service to this in some recent literature, e.g. emphasizing the role of the father a bit more etc, but in reality it's very plain to see that there is this huge emphasis on the mother's role. In my book, that's a big problem of the theory.

giantsantasacks - IMO and, more importantly, IME, it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to the quality of the father-child or sibling bond if the mother and new baby are in a mutually almost exclusive breastfeeding/co-sleeping relationship for the first few months of life. What matters to mother and child is that they be supported in the early weeks/months and what matters to older siblings is that their routine not be totally disturbed by the needs of a new sibling.

Fathers need to see their new babies regularly but they don't need to get up to feed them in the night to love them deeply or build a bond with them - in fact, quite the contrary

yes maria - I was interested in the mix between AP and the link that some people make to some asian/african childraising and yet in my friends who parent from their cultural backgrounds the baby tends to be looked after during the day by a range of people - mil, aunty etc even though there is cosleeping at night.

giantsanta LOL I don't know very much about AP.

I think if my memory serves me correctly there are two thoughts on this, the first is the idea is that feeding and bonding are quite seperate and provided the significant other is significant enough, then there is bonding. The other view is that there is no place for anyone else in the mother/baby relationship, but the role of the other is in supporting an creating an environment where the mother/baby relationship can be established and most effective.

TBH, this subject isn't my strong point but I bet it features plenty in the breast and bottle archives. I might have a look in a minute.

And you are right, you did get the wrong end of the stick wrt my comment about type of feeding however, I do feel that the reason that many women turn to CC is also the reason many turn to ff. i.e an attempt to regain control of the extremely demaning situation that the find themselves in without enough support to have an awful lot of choice in the matter.

No need to apologise for the hijack - this thread has gone off on lots of tangents and they have all been very interesting. I have learned a lot.

anna - thats interesting but I tend to think that some of the bonding you do with an infant grows out of the physical work - and if the father doesnt do this early on and quite extensively then they tend never to do it...this is to one side of the love they feel for their children - of course thats a given.

I think the physical work of child rearing (and by this I mean carrying about/comforting/nappy changing/getting up in the night when baby has done sleeping at 4am) is important because it teaches firsttime parents what to do and if dads dont do it (and learn what to do) then a rift can be produced between baby and dad and mum and dad.

giantsanta I agree with you wholeheartedly wrt this point. Changing a 2yr old's nappy might sound like a task to avoid, but all of the conjoling, negotiating, playing, chatting and physical contact that goes hand in hand with the task contributes enourmously to the relationship. It is also an intimite 1:1 moment.

Giants- I agree with you also, very much so. My partner is a case in point. He happens to be working part-time (and even that, from home) since our son is born. And from the beginning (our boy is now 4 months old) he's been equally involved in his everyday care. For example, he does most of the nappy changing- always at night, but very often during the day too- he also always does his bath, & takes him for long walks very often. And in general, he's as attached to him as I am, I feel. It's been great- although at times we argue about nappy changing techniques!-, & I really think it would be very different had he been less involved, due to a full time outside-the-home job etc. Yes, the feeding is mostly my domain (due to breastfeeding) but even with that, he offers a bottle sometimes when I'm out (a few times a week), and that's important too.

Well, think again . My DP and I didn't live together, or even in the same country, until our DD was 11 months, and he only saw her for a (short) day every 2/3 weeks on average during that time. It didn't prevent any bonding.

Oh - and he's already had two children and been the ever present 50:50 down the middle childcare sharing type of father to a non-breastfeeding partner the first time round - he is quite, quite clear that he was a more bonded father to his DD than to his DSs.

The reasons lie elsewhere.

anna - I have no doubt thats the case but playing devils advocate - how could you tell about the bond if the attachment failings we have all been talking about dont show up until later in life?

We took professional advice about this, btw, just to be sure we weren't doing something awful . Basically we got told that in the first 6 months of life a baby only needs his/her happy, supported, unstressed mother and that other adults were totally superfluous for his/her longer term emotional and physical development - they were pretty useful for the mother, to give her care and respite, but it didn't matter who it was as long as the mother was secure and happy with them.

After six months, babies began to wake up to their wider family - but again, it didn't have to be the father/siblings that were around on a daily basis - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc as long as they were close family could all do the emotional job the baby needed by playing and caring for him/her.

My DH isn't involved in our twins' day to day care. If I'm lucky he is home from work in time to help after bathtime but then it is bedtime. But when he is here he plays with them constantly, something I don't really tend to do - when I am not feeding/changing nappies/bathing etc I usually leave them to play alone if they are happy to so I can have a sit-down or do other things). When DH is here he throws them around and talks to them and they giggle away and I don't think the bonding has been affected at all from him not getting up in the night, feeding, doing nappy changes etc. They adore him and are always so happy to see him. They love me most tho

neenztwinz - it sounds as if your DH is being a fab father.

My DP says that he thought it was easier to be a good partner and father if he got a good night's sleep - he was more use in the morning when well rested . And he does have the two situations to compare .

Yeah he is a fab father. He works hard, does long hours (he is a lawyer) and earns enough for me to be able to stay at home so I am very grateful and treat motherhood as my job. I love to be able to just let him do the fun bits (tho he is happy to help out at weekends when he is around).

That's great - and very similar to my situation.

As time goes by, your children will need their father to get involved with other stuff (homework, sports etc) in order to maintain an age-appropriate bond right through their childhood and to help them grow. I had to do a bit of fighting PR to get my DP to realise that the DSSs had grown up and that hugs and playing were lovely but that they needed more than that by age 11.

sorry to revert back to an earlier discussion but Giantsacks you said there are gentle ways to get rid of a dummy. Can you tell me what they are.

I am at my wits end and don't know what to do as also not into cc but getting woken up every hour. My ds is 7 months and I gave him a dummy to help with reflux (which it does) but I think it is making the sleep at night worse. I want him to have the dummy after feeding to help with reflux but not at night. I think I know though it is all or nothing as he can't distinguish between when he can have a dummy and when can't. I am like Maria and torn between the two arguments she had with herself.

Should I start a new thread on this instead of hijacking this one. So sleep deprived I don't know what I am doing. Also have mild pnd which doesn't help.

No you can stay here scifinerd (love the name), I hope you get the help you need. I have a friend whose DS wakes every 45mins for his dummy so I can understand how tiring it is. If it was me I would just take it from him and sit with him while he cried for it - at least he knows then he has not been abandoned (you see, I have learned something from this thread). It will take 3 days but after that he should be over it. Not exactly 'gentle' but a half-way house maybe?

You might want to start a new thread too tho, you may get more replies/different suggestions, or maybe search for earlier threads?

No stay! We've been all over the place scifinerd, I believe to the benefit of the thread.

well, i have been switching between reading this thread and some freelance work all evening and its meant i am up way too late!

some really interesting arguments. i am really a "live and let live" person so i am constantly amazed at how polarised the debates about parenting can be. and this time last year, i had no clue (or interest in) all the theories and practices of parenting, including GF,AP, CC, PuPd etc etc (acronym overload).

When I did realise though, i immersed myself in a variety of books, some of which have provided useful bits and bobs which i have woven into my "parenting" style which I would say is "flying by the seat of my pants" . . .

following any one author or theory too closely or getting upset about others parenting style is just too stressful and takes all the joy out of being a parent for me. its like the classic weaning debate. after reading the pros and cons or both approaches to weaning, i just starting last week (26 weeks) with a kind of inprovised approach that is a lot of fun for both me (or whoever is there) and my LO.

I like a lot of the AP principles - tuning in and being more intuitive with your kiddy for example but my instinct with my own (6 month old) girl is that doing certain things at certain times creates . . . well, certainty and maybe security of her. So I do a very "flexible routine" type thing. Which works well for both of us.

Re. the dummy issue - I had the same issue myself at about 4 months and must admit that I went down Maria's option 1 path. Again, it was my intuition that the dummy as crutch was actually impeding my LO's sleep as she got so cranky about it. I did a CC type thing (5 mins at a time before going back in to pat and reassure). But it wasn't only a dummy issue, I also had to drop the rocking to sleep as my back was buggered.

I introduced a little rabbit blankie thing that smelt of me, and she kind of sucked on it for a while. It couldn't really "fall out" in the same way as a dummy.

I was surprised at how little crying actually happened, how quickly she found her fingers and how well she slept afterwards. I think a "sucky" baby will find their fingers or suck on a blankie, if there is no dummy around.

Not saying it was all perfect because I still do a little BF top-up before naps and bedtime, so think she sucks to relax to a certain point but it was definitely the way to go for us.

I was also surprised at how vocal she become without the plug in all day. All these chirrups and chirps and coos and gurgles suddenly appeared.

She started sleeping through the night quite soon after that.

I guess you can wait until they have the dexterity to put the dummy back in but I think its a way off. Now at 6 months, if I hand her a dummy, she wedges the wrong side in her mouth!

Its true though, that sickness or something like that can throw off the effects of CC or whatever "training" you decide to do. My LO just had an operation and we used the dummy for a while, in addition to boob, cuddles and constant reassurance and attention of course. Now she is back on the dummy to suck to relax but doesn't get it all night (I pull it out while she is drowsy).

Tinseljuice: thanks for sharing your experience about the dummy! I'll have a good think about what you say... Also, I agree with your approach to parenting, i.e. flying by the seat of pants! Sounds like my approach as well.

Well it's very interesting how many directions this thread has taken! Scifinerd, I have a separate thread under 'sleep'about dummies, if you want join us there. I think the one 'gentle'option is using Elizabeth Pantley's gentle removal plan for dummies (described in the No Cry Sleep Solution). Don't want to disappoint you, but I did try it (halfheartedly, I admit) for a few days & it didn't work at all. It takes AGES, and for babies that are very dependent on their dummies, I'm not sure it would make a difference.

Anna: (and this is not a personal disagreement at all with what you have experienced & is obviously valid in your case, just my opinion) I think it's completely wrong to say that anyone but the mother is superfluous in the first 6 months of the baby's life, I think that's a very conservative point of view, and it surprises me that a specialist said something like that. I really don't know of any theory that would support that, it also doesn't make sense to me... I do agree that the mother, especially at the beginning, & particularly if breastfeeding, probably has a slightly more significant, more 'physical' role, but for the life of me- and thinking back to everything I've read about psychology & parenting- I can't imagine how a second adult who happens to be in the home as well & shares in the care of the child cannot be significant? I'm sure that couples where the man (or woman) works full time do fine with one person only caring about the baby, but why would it be necessarily the mother doing so? And in the cases where 2 parents share the baby care (like in me & DPs case) it's clear to me that both become very significant to the baby. Anyway, this is obviously nothing to do with CC, sorry for hijacking the thread!

Of course attachment theory does partly support these ideas (about the mother being the most significant person in early babies' lives)- and for that reason I think (personal opinion again here) it's a rather conservative view of parenthood, but even they think other 'attachment figures' are very important too, and definitely not superfluous.

"I can't imagine how a second adult who happens to be in the home as well & shares in the care of the child cannot be significant?"

Maria2007 - I didn't write that and it wasn't my understanding of what I was told. The point is: the fact that the second adult (or other adults) in the home of the young baby do or do not share in its care is superfluous to its later emotional development, providing the mother is supported and happy. If one or two other adults are sharing in the baby's care, that's fine, just not necessary for later healthy development.

There are lots of examples of successful traditional societies where children were brought up in a totally female environment for a long time (far beyond the 6-month stage), so that would figure.