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.

Is it even CC when the child is 4 years old? Surely he is old enough to be explained why he is now to sleep in his own bed.

Yes but he refuses to stay in it. Ends up in Mum's bed every night. He sleeps in the same room as a sibling. Probably the sibling will have to move out for a few nights while they put DC back to bed over and over and over and over...

Sounds like parents are inconsistent and that there is a bit of an authority problem.

They need to explain to him he is now a big boy, and big boys sleep in their big boy beds. And here is teddy to hug him through the night. When he wakes up, he will have a super special breakfast (nutella on toast for a week or so, for example) because he is so big now, etc etc.

If he wakes up in the night and comes to parents' bed, they put him back in his bed. No more sleeping in mummy & daddy's bed, because he is now so big that there is no place there for the three of them etc.

Well sure, that is what they are going to do. However, because the sibling is also in the same room they have previously been a bit cautious about disturbing their sleep by returning 'the wanderer' to his room. Therefore a pattern of nighttime 'visits' has built up.

This DC is the best behaved kid I have ever met - just hates sleeping in his own bed and this has become a pattern of behaviour.

Where has naturallaw gone?

Maria, I am that your DS was just hungry! And yes your HV should have been able to advise you on that. It would have been awful to put him through CC. That is the danger with MN... nobody can really advise/diagnose etc because they are not there 100% of the time.

Are you feeding at least every 3 hours now then?

I know GF is not popular on these boards but her theory makes a lot of sense - feed a baby lots in the day and it will sleep at night!

It has always worked for me

Maria's baby was hungry at night because he wasn't feeding enough in the day, right? So, if she stopped night feeds, her DS would automatically feed more in the day, which would also build up her supply (what she is doing now with pumping).

Or did I miss something? Just don't see why it would be such a disaster if Maria cut out night feeds and sleep trained her DS.

I completely agree cotedazur!

The solution to babies being hungry at night is not to first cut out night feeds, but to feed them more during the day.

This can mean, for a fully breast fed baby, staying at home and resting for three-four days and letting the baby feed on demand again, especially cluster feeding in the evening.

Cotedazure, not all mothers are able to give Big Feeds at one go, only during the day, particularly during growth spurts.

The volume of breastmilk stored in the breasts depend on the individual storage capacity which is unique to each mother. I know I HAVE to feed little and often, not only because that is what my dcs prefer as their natural feeding pattern but also I am no milchcow. Other women report oversupply - well, after the initial month or so, that was never me.

Hence the need to feed during the night. The feeds are quick and almost no effort at all if you co-sleep and bf lying on your side.

If I tried to sleep train my dcs to not feed for long stretches at night, I seriously do not think they will make it up during the day. Plus not feeding at night would artificially reduce the demand over the period and bring down my supply on top of that, effectively sabotaging my bf-ing.

Plus the idea of refusing feeds to my babies whilst they cry at night from hunger . I don't think you can train that out of a baby, because this is survival instinct.

Blueshoes, is that just your experience or is that a fact (about how much milk is stored by the breasts)? I have never heard that before and from what i know about BFing (no expert) it doesn't seem right. I believe that YOU believe that - just wondered whether it was accepted generally.

neenz, that is a good question. I am not deluding myself or making things up.

It is not a widely known fact or something I read about much on mn. It is from kellymom, the foremost bf-ing website: Kellymom website - I reproduce it below:

"Storage capacity: Another factor that affects milk production and breastfeeding management is mom?s milk storage capacity. Storage capacity is the amount of milk that the breast can store between feedings. This can vary widely from mom to mom and also between breasts for the same mom. Storage capacity is not determined by breast size, although breast size can certainly limit the amount of milk that can be stored. Moms with large or small storage capacities can produce plenty of milk for baby. A mother with a larger milk storage capacity may be able to go longer between feedings without impacting milk supply and baby's growth. A mother with a smaller storage capacity, however, will need to nurse baby more often to satisfy baby?s appetite and maintain milk supply since her breasts will become full (slowing production) more quickly."

blueshoes - Why would you think your baby wouldn't feed more during the day if you cut out night feeds? What else is he going to do? Mine certainly did.

Re "have to feed my babies because can't listen to them cry" - that is a choice. I didn't have a problem with it, because I knew the long-term benefits far outweighed the short-lived grief. Up for hours the first night, less than an hour the second night, sleeping through the third night and every night since then. (Besides, as I said earlier, she was crying the house down for most of the day and the night, anyway, and we hardly noticed the difference those two nights of sleep training).

Once she started to sleep through, DD was much happier and we were much better parents.

There will surely be other times when I will have to hear her cry because we, the parents, have chosen to do something for her own (or our collective) good that she doesn't like. And those will be OK, too.

I already had to hear her cry with real pain when stupid nurse missed her vein three times, but I held her tight with tears running down my cheeks because she had to have the blood tests. More prolonged misery when we took away the dummy.

I do understand what you mean, and it is hard, but honestly, I don't know how any of us survive parenthood if we are never to hear them cry.

You'd certainly never cope with twins if you couldn't bear to hear a baby cry (which could be why many twin mums FF, unless they can do tandem feeding which I never got the hang of).

Thanks for that blueshoes - very interesting!

Doesn't the same "Kellymom" say breasts manufacture milk instantaneously? If so, why should storage capacity matter?

(I always found this claim very , by the way)

cotedazure, as to why my babies won't feed more during the day if I cut out night feeds, I did not say they wouldn't. They would, but just won't get enough milk from me because (I believe) my breasts don't store much milk between feeds. So if I did not feed for 10 hours, say, during the night, I would not have close to 10, or even 6, hours' worth of milk in my breasts to satisfy my baby when he/she wakes up ravenous.

Plus at that young age, their stomachs are tiny. Like their mothers, babies are different. Some babies' stomachs can stretch to take all their milk during the day, others might have to feed at night because their stomach capacity is smaller.

As for "I have to feed my babies because can't listen to them cry", I don't think that is entirely my stance. Of course, like any other mother, I don't enjoy hearing them cry. My stance for co-sleeping and no cc-ing is knowing how persistent and strong-willed and they are from birth and seeing how much they need cuddles, it is not going to just take 3 days. In their case, is not likely to be a short term gain for long term benefit. It would snuff out what I feel as a mother my babies consider essential for their emotional wellbeing. Not all babies are like that, as yours aren't. I have not said cc-ing is damaging. Only that there is a greater chance it could be damaging to my babies.

But since I am fine with co-sleeping and disrupted sleep without feeling sleep deprived, it works for us and I decided not to go down the cc-ing route.

How old are your babies?

DD was 4 months when she started sleeping through the night and managed to get enough from my tiny breasts in the day to compensate.

cotedazure, I'd be very interested to see a link to the part of the kellymom site that says breastmilk is manufactured instantaneously in the breasts. It does not sound right to me either and would at the very least defy the laws of matter and physics.

Could you have been referring to this instead - ie that milk is continuously being produced in the breast, just at different rates depending on how empty or full the breasts are. If so, it would make sense that for a small storage capacity mother to empty their breasts more often rather than have them fill up, say overnight, and slow milk production to almost a halt, without being able to sufficiently make up for it during the day:

From Kellymom website - same link i posted below:

"What does the research tell us about increasing milk supply?

Milk is being produced at all times, with speed of production depending upon how empty the breast is. Milk collects in mom's breasts between feedings, so the amount of milk stored in the breast between feedings is greater when more time has passed since the last feed. The more milk in the breast, the slower the speed of milk production.

To speed milk synthesis and increase daily milk production, the key is to remove more milk from the breast and to do this quickly and frequently, so that less milk accumulates in the breast between feedings:"

cotedazure, my dd is now 5, my ds is 2, still bf-ing.

This issue of storage capacity does not necessarily depend on size of breasts. If you read the literature I posted from kellymom below, that is what is said. I am sure your storage capacity is more than adequate for your babies' needs.

In any case, once a baby gets past a certain point - 4 months for yours, others when they start weaning onto solids and their stomachs get bigger, their nutritional intake is no longer as limited by the size of their stomachs or their mother's breast milk storage capacity because of course they are getting food from solids. Hence (I assume) why a lot of cc proponents advocate cc from earliest 6 months or 1 year.

That "stomach capacity" argument never sounded credible to me. Yes, they have tiny stomachs, but their bodies are proportionally tiny. Besides, breast milk doesn't accumulate in stomach and wait to be digested like solids, but passes straight through. Isn't that why little babies poo while breastfeeding or immediately afterwards?

neenz, I have more than one child, so I am used to hearing children cry. Crying per se does not faze me. My babies cried a LOT more than other babies anyway - that was just part and parcel of their personality. Like I said before, a few hours crying over 3 days is a drop in the ocean for me. My reading of my dcs is that it would take a lot longer than that with loads of relapses and retraining.

Good God, woman, are you still night-feeding a 5 yr old and a 2 yr old

cotedazure, breastmilk is very likely to be digested faster than solids or formula, but trust me, it does not go straight through. Otherwise, a bfed baby would not vomit more than 1 minute after a feed, which we know is not true.

My understanding is that breastmilk is fully digested after 3 hours.

The poop after a feed could come from earlier feeds further down the intestinal tract which is pushed out by intestinal peristaltic muscular action triggered by the act of feeding. Just like many of us want to go to the toilet after a big meal. That does not mean our food is passing right through.

just the 2 year old

Why?

Serious question. Go on breastfeeding until her teens, if that is what you feel like, but why on earth would you feel you have to night-feed a 2 yr old?

Is her stomach still so tiny that she will wither away if she doesn't eat every few hours?

Even if so, why can't you put a beaker of milk (expressed, if you wish) next to her bedside so she can help herself if she wakes?

Sorry, but