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.

Sorry Maria, that was a good few posts back where someone said their nursery held/rocked their dc to sleep- its rare iyswim. Inadvertantly most babies will cc at nursery if staff are attending to other dcs iyswim.

Anna 'The external routine of a child has absolutely no impact on the speed of development of its biorhythms . Claiming that it does is a bit like claiming that if you hold your child in a standing position it will learn to walk earlier.'
Actually standing babies early helps early leg muscle development and thus babies who stand lots are more likely to walk earlier than they would without doing this. Obviously balance has to be developed as well, but without muscle tone first a baby won't stand. This is demonstrated by the marked delay in walking of many babies who have been in a hip brace early in their life.

Giant, I assume they weren't hungry cos they didn't wake in the night for a feed. I didn't do anything with them to make them sleep thru, they just did it on their own . Certainly didn;t use CC to achieve it (didn;t use that till 6mths old and only to establish 7pm bedtime). And they were exclusively BFed. When I say sleep thru I mean from after the 10pm feed until 7/8am.

I completely agree about it being a choice to own your own home - we should not be so obsessed by home ownership. I also believe that lots of people could afford to be SAHMs if they made cut-backs (but I hesitate on that score cos I am not in that position - I can afford to stay at home without making massive cutbacks). But - and this is a problem with havign kids later in life - many people go ahead with a mortgage cos they can easily afford it (cos both partners work), and women often think they will still want to work after having kids so it's OK... but then they have the baby and they don;t want to go back to work but have to cos they have taken on this huge mortgage. I'd like to think I would do anything eg rent, go without holidays/cars/meals out etc so I could be a SAHM but many wouldn't and don't even think they will want to be a SAHM till its too late.

I disagree GF is not a good routine when BFing - although I never got mine to go as long between feeds as she said. But I always figured the more feeds they could have during the day the more chance they would sleep at night. So I just fed them all the time . The nap times always worked well altho we never got them really settled from 7-10pm (until we did CC at 6mths). So maybe GF not a good routine for BFed babies then! The book helped me a lot tho with its nap times and tips on getting babies to self-settle.

neenz - how do you separate feeding from the settling for naps? i started doing a little pre-nap top-up during a hungry/growth period and now its almost like a feed to sleep situation.

mytethering: "Inadvertantly most babies will cc at nursery if staff are attending to other dcs iyswim." By cc, do you mean 'cry'? Cc sounds like a strategy. I don't think (good) nurseries set out to do something as deliberate as cc. For one thing, it upsets the other children. I think you mean 'cry' in which case, crying happens a lot at home as well when the parent has more than one child to attend to, as is very common.

I think the feeding routines will work depending on the baby - ds1 should probably have been fed more often looking back as he was often grumpy and cried a lot - though it could have been anything. Because of this I was going to 'cue feed' with dd but she is so undemanding and doesnt ask for food very much at all that have had to stick to a schedule to make sure that she eats every 3 hours - otherwise she would have easily gone for 5-6 hours with probably devastating consequences on my supply.

TJuice - My babies were always really sleepy in the day when newborns... they would never stay awake for as long as GF said they should. So going down for naps in the day was never a problem. I just used to put them in their cots and they used to either fall asleep straight away or, if not, I would leave them 10 mins to settle themselves. If not settled in that time I would feed them and then put them back down. If they woke during their sleeps I used to feed them and put them back down - in that respect I am very lucky that they don't now need to feed to get back to sleep.

Tjuice - you can get a little routine of things going on - so you bf, then put in sleeping bag, then say the same set of words 'sleep time now' or whatever, then musical mobile and put down for a few naps/days and then cut down the bf by a minute each time and eventually remove it while still doing the other stuff maybe?

I did a bit of controlled crying with my son when he was younger. He has always been a happy smiley baby and very interactive. No sign of loss of trust from him. His sleep definitely improved and middle of the night waking virtually ceased. However, I always gauged how well he was coping, went into the room lots to comfort him and tried lots of different techniques to help build his confidence in falling asleep in the cot by himself. When he's ill I often still rock him to sleep - I don't follow any rules on sleep training rigidly, I just gauge how he's feeling to see if maybe he needs some extra comforting on occasions. I think helping him learn how to fall asleep on his own did him huge favours and he gets more sleep and wakes up happy and babbling. Now I can usually put him in the cot wide awake (after doing a wind down routine of bath, milk, books and songs and cuddles) give him so reassuring cuddles and walk out the room without any complaint from him. He lies down clutching his comfort toy and knows its time to go to sleep.

mytetherisending - hip braces delay motor development. Do not confuse purposeful delay of a child's development with just letting a child develop at its own pace and rhythm given the right opportunity .

Anna you are talking tosh about rhythems. That is why when you travel to a different time zone it knocks you out of whack. Generally people have similar sleep habits daily and as an adult we can cope with changes of an hour or 2. Babies need a constant nap time/sleep time to set their body clock. That is why people who always get up at the same time quite often wake before the alarm clock. If you do the sleep at similar times (within half an hour) each day babies will become tired at these times and will not get to the point of being exhausted/screaming and crying to sleep.
A small amount of CC for perhaps a week or 2 is far less damaging than having a constantly knackered, lethargic child.

Babies don't have a set body clock at birth - it is all over the place and completely unpredictable for the first few weeks (hence so many sleepless parents) and gradually settles down into a 15-hour cycle, extending to a 24 hour cycle by about the 16 week stage. The best, healthiest and kindest thing you can do for your baby is let it find out what its own sleep-wake cycle is and then let it settle into its own routine.

You cannot compare a baby with an adult flying across time zones. There is no comparison.

Do you have several older children, mytether?

If you do, you will know that they all need different amounts of sleep and are not all alert at the same point in the day, even if they have very similar timetables (eg school). That is because a body clock is determined by the individual, not by external events.

What a thread!
More than 700 posts full of insightful, moving, intelligent conversation about such a divise subject.
Not to be sniffed at!

Maria, given that you are sleep-deprived, I am very impressed
with how much sense you make! Congratulations on your lo and
I hope you did find some useful ideas on this thread.

Why thank you DaddyJ [proud]

Message withdrawn

I have to agree with Anna on this one, and with Pitchounette. There is no way ALL babies will be able to follow the exact same routine, to the minute (as GF advises). And the same for adults & children. There are children that need much more sleep than others, the same with adults. I'm not saying there's nothing to be done in order to help a child learn to sleep... And I do agree that some kind of structure of feeding / sleeping times is good, especially gradually, as the child grows past the newborn stage (although with breastfeeding I don't see how a routine can work, I've tried but I think it's simply impossible with all the growth spurts etc).

After thinking about routines & torturing myself about why I'm not managing to get my boy into a specific routine- although he does have a general rythm-, I've given up and I've conluded that in order to 'push' a newborn into a routine, the only way to do it is by- a) letting them go hungry b) waking them up when they're asleep and c) letting them cry so that they can learn to go to sleep at set times. All three practices are not ones I agree with, & I especially disagree on imposing them on newborns. I'm not saying routines don't generally help, they have their place, just that surely there has to be consideration for the particular baby's needs, taking note of their sleep / feed tendencies & trying to tweak them bit by bit so that a sort of structure / routine / whatever we want to call it develops naturally. I really truly don't see the need for a routine SO early on, and I also definitely don't agree with doing CC just to put a baby into a routine (sorry for those who have done so, it's just that I would argue CC is best done for more 'serious' reasons, e.g. months of sleeplessness etc).

Well, it's a case of 'Yes but..'.

If you look at the Amazon reviews for Gina Ford you'll find
that some of the most fervent supporters of hers are parents
who started out doing exactly what Maria, Pitchounette and Anna
have advocated in the last few posts.
Muddling through, letting baby find his own rhythm.

Well, apparently those parents found themselves up the shit creek sans paddle..
and Gina came to the rescue.

People are different, newborns are different.
Some really do benefit from an externally imposed routine
and if that means some crying then that's still miles better
than wishy-washy attachment alternatives.

Again, I note that AP-leaning voices pay lipservice
to 'all children being different' but then actually
try and push an agenda on themselves, their children
and (sadly) the rest of us that suspiciously looks like one-size-fits-all or, as this blogger puts it, OneTrueWayism.

So could the real Attachment Parent please stand up?

If AP is about "what's right for you and your child"
then surely strict routines from day one are just as valid
as family bed until they are teenagers.

What do you mean by Attachment Parent?

Continuum Conceptis mainly about keeping the child with you always. It's not very child-centred at all.

I do believe (frommy professional experience with very detached and emotionally impoverished children) that attachment is one of the most important factor increating healthy, secure,happy children. For me, that means responding to needs and not following 'techniques or strategies,blindly. I am not sure I would call myself an 'Attachment Parent' though,just a mother.

well I certainly don't consider myself an attachment parent Daddy J , so am not standing up! Just a common sense parent (hopefully). And I respectfully disagree that all people who don't have a specific routine end up up the shit creek sans paddle (Although my own baby is sleeping appallingly, but that's another story... or is it ... maybe Gina needs to come to my rescue ]. In any case, I do agree about finding what's right for each family, I do realize & agree that some babies thrive on routine. The problem is that some don't, and I'm not convinced that routine-oriented parents are open to that possibility.

Re Onetruewayism: Well,sure we all make decisions for our family and tbh all our kids will be fine but we are all allowed to make our own judgements on what we consider important and best for our kids. My child eats loads of sugary crap,another child doesn't. They will both be fine but the other child may be healthier... My decision whether it is important enough to be concerned about it.And it is polite not to shout people down and slag people off for their choices in rl,hence the 'oh well,everybody's different' and not 'you're feeding yourchild what?' (although fun to debate on an internet forum )

No routine here (v flexible and happy with both lovely children thanks )

Maria, you say you have given up..
Does your lad still have rings under his eyes?
Is he still cranky during the day?
Does he still wake up every 45 minutes for his dummy?

You see, if that's still the case my paternal instinct would be
to do something.
Are your instincts really telling you to do nothing and wait
for this to pass?

'..and I'm not convinced that routine-oriented parents are open to that possibility'
Mais non! Just because some routine-oriented parents are closed-minded
does that mean you or I have to respond in kind?
It's their loss surely.