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.

I don't think it's always a case of willing to have disturbed sleep. We co-slept at times to reduce the amount of disturbed sleep.
Tried leaving to cry with our first and ended up all night, every night. We realised with our later children that going with what they need is sometimes easier on everyone. No guarantee of a full night's sleep either way ime.
Perhaps the babies of parents who leave their baby to cry for a short while need to be left alone as it never worked for us.
With the first 3 children I woh.

OK I am doing a PhD in child development and i know that there are studies which have shown that

1. the less responsive a mother is to her baby crying in the first 6 months, the more that same baby will cry in the second 6 months

1. cortisol levels in a baby who is distressed and not comforted are affected at a critical time of development of the limbic system

will see if I an find some links...

Meant to say perhaps the babies who stop crying and fall asleep after a short while need to be left alone.

I would think that these babies must already be tired, though. I don't think it's beneficial to leave a baby to cry for very long and I would have to be convinced that the baby had had enough of being handled. I do think that some babies do get fed up of being jiggled about.

Hmm as far as I can see CC seems to be a version of classical conditioning (pavlov).
Each time the crying fails to attract comfort, the behaviour of crying should lessen. Therefore it's teaching that crying won't achieve anything I suppose.
Classical conditioning isn't really used for anything else anymore - wonder what the reason for that is...psychologists??????

Shoeflypie - I really feel for you. I've had similar with both of mine. DS decided at 8 mths that it wasn't so bad after all. DD is 5.5 and occasionally tolerates the pushchair. Sometimes the crying isn't avoidable but I've found the best way to deal with it is to always have a carrier under the pram. Then I can relax and think - OK if she's really miserable I'll just pop her in the carrier and she'll be fine. You prob do this anyway, but had to mention just in case

but in controlled crying, babies aren't left to cry.

baby cries
parent comes
parent checks baby is ok, and soothes baby
baby stops crying
parent leaves.

the whole "controlled" thing is about limiting crying to short intervals, comforting a distressed baby, but not cuddling/feeding/rocking one to sleep.

can I also ask those who are concerned about the cortisol aspect how this works in colicky babies, who may cry for extended periods despite being offered every available comfort?

my DD cried nightly for about 2-4hours for the first 3 months of her life. She was with me/DH the whole time. but if unabated crying per se is "damaging", would she be already "damaged" by 3 months?

"7 pm is bedtime"

OMG what an utterly ridiculous thing to say. You have 6m old Twins. I don't think I could communicate with anyone on this level of thought process.

@Starlight"CulturalAssumptions"McKenzie

"This is riddled with assumptions. Is it indeed possible for a baby to become overtired? What does this mean exactly? Why would you assume babies might not get as much sleep as they need?"

It's not exactly riddled with assumptions, is it? It makes one assumption, which is that babies need a certain amount of sleep and that it is possible for them to get too little.

It doesn't even assume that there is a particular range of hours within which any individual baby's sleep tally must fall to be sufficient.

You're right that the word overtired is not clearly defined, so I will clarify that what I mean is a baby who has not had as much sleep as they need.

Now the thing to tackle is that one assumption and turn it into a question: is it possible for a baby to get less sleep then he or she needs?

Can any of the child development experts weight in here?

I think unless I am proven wrong that I will make the assumption that it must be possible for a baby to get insufficient sleep as I think it is not contentious to say that it is possible for adults to get insufficient sleep and I am prepared to assume that since babies are also human that the same might be true for them.

Could it be that people are born always getting the right amount of sleep and only develop the ability to sleep less than necessary as they grow older? Is it like breastfeeding that a baby somehow knows how to regulate their own sleep so that they always get exactly what they need?

Personally I don't believe that the above is the case, but that is entirely based on personal experience and anecdote and I'm open to having my mind changed on that.

Perhaps where you stand on that central assumption will inform how you deal with your LO when it comes to sleeping.

For example, quite recently my DD (8 months) began waking a lot during the night. Someone of the "sufficient sleep" persuasion might have just assumed that she needed less sleep and just got up with her when she awoke. I dealt with it as a problem that needed to be fixed and tried to find out what I needed to do to make her start sleeping until morning again.

Eventually it occurred to me that perhaps she was being disturbed by us in the night, so DH and I moved to another room to see would it help. It did. Instantly she started sleeping through again. I had been planning to share a room with her until she was at least a year old. This was my compromise with DH who really didn't want to do co-sleeping. I missed her terribly when we first started sleeping in another room , but I thought it was important for her to get a good night's sleep. Sharing a room wasn't working for her anymore, so I fixed it.

Another parent with a different approach might have done something entirely different. I could say that it would have been cruel to have stayed in the room with her when it was obviously disturbing her. But perhaps a different me would think it more important that when she did inevitably wake (which she still does occasionally) that I was right there beside her rather than it taking me a few minutes to get to her (I'm not far away, I just lose my glasses most nights).

Crush: why is it "utterly ridiculous" for babies to have a bed-time? If you can't communicate with anyone who has a set bed-time for their babies then I fear you are going to be rather lonely. IME most parents put their babies to bed at a fairly regular time, earlier in the evening than the parents go to bed, by six months. I'm quite certain you will find that this is what the vast majority of parents do.

Be careful when you describe something that seems perfectly reasonable to many many people of being "utterly ridiculous". It makes you look foolish.

While I wouldn't say that the statement is 'utterly ridiculous' I think I understand what Crush is saying.

By saying "cos 7pm is bedtime! And because I am the parent and I am in charge. " Neenz seems to be saying that the babies will go to bed and sleep at 7pm whether they like it or not.
It's impossible ime to impose a bedtime on a baby that really doesn't want to go to bed. So obviously saying that "7pm is bedtime because I'm the parent" is a bit for some people.

Maybe not an utterly ridiculous statement if that's what Neenz will make happen regardless of whether or not the babies get upset, distressed or how long it takes them to settle. She is in charge and can ultimately over-rule any of the babies ways of not wanting to go to bed even to the extreme of leaving them crying all night if she so wished. Athough if it took a while I suppose it could be argued that 7pm wasn't the actual bedtime just the time the shenanigans started.

I think that Neenz has 2 very amenable babies who are happy to go to bed at 7pm. Hopefully they will continue that way otherwise she may be in for a rude awakening if they start to object to her 7pm bedtime.

As usual on these threads I am at the times parents put their babies/toddlers to be in the UK.

I have always let my DD choose her own bed time. When she was little (before school) that mostly meant late evening; as a result, she always slept until past 8 am (often until past 9 am) in the morning, which was lovely .

Now she goes to all day school, she goes to bed much earlier. But it is her choice - she likes to take her school clothes off as soon as we get in so that she is ready to go to bed whenever she feels like it.

Yes Anna, it's just so awful the way people from different cultures, climates and latitudes do things differently and sleep different hours. I mean it's nearly as bad as those awful Spanish sleeping half the afternoon and then staying awake all night

Really, you'll seem a lot more sophisticated if you don't try so hard all the time.

@Starlight

"I'd like to suggest that babies have much less control over their bodily needs and functions than adults. An adult can consciously control her sleeping to a large extent, as she can control when she has a poo."

Of course. But I guess assumptions diverge when you get to the implications of what you've said.

Is it the case that because they have less control that they cannot keep themselves awake when they should be sleeping and therefore must always get enough sleep?

Or is it the case that because they have less control they need more help to get to sleep and to establish a sleep pattern?

I tend to believe the latter, you perhaps the former.

As for there not being criticism of people who use CC? Well a post that has been removed from the thread used the word "torture" to describe it.

Many other people have come on and abused the OP for her, rather forthright, admission that she uses routines and CC to parent her twins. Telling someone that they are so awful that you can't communicate with them for something as innocuous as having a set bedtime (aside from making you look ridiculous) rather makes people afraid to talk openly about how to deal with these kinds of issues.

I think we've agreed that babies sleep differently from adults, so most of us are going to wonder how to approach it for the best.

Quite simply ekkamouse I feel that a designated 7pm bed time for 6m old twins is utterly ridiculous. If you feel I am the one being foolish in this I can only at you.

Why is it ridiculous?

My DD has been going to sleep between 6pm and 7pm since she was a week old (or so, the memory of that time is rather vague).

The few times we've attempted not putting her down at that time have been an utter nightmare for her and everybody near her.

I just can't understand why it is wrong to have a set bedtime? I mostly go to sleep and eat at the same times every day, and not just because I choose to. Those are the times I get tired and hungry because that is the rhythm my body is adjusted to. DD seems to be the same. She always seems to want feeds at around the same times each day and gets tired like clockwork (although the times have gradually shifted as she's got older).

I accept that not all people are like this, but I don't really see how one way is bad and another good. Surely these things are just some of the ways we are different?

OK, I actually am a child psychologist (at least I was about 100 years ago) and my opinion is......

....I haven't a clue! As others have said, there would be immense difficulty doing properly controlled trials to see what effect CC made. (Too many variables, ethics of using babies etc.)

I think as someone else said, there is evidence that not responding to babies who cry increases their levels of cortisol, which will have a knock-on effect for how they deal with stress later on in life. There seems to be a "critical period" in the first year (or maybe two years, can't remember which), when when the way were respond to stress is set for life.

Attachment theory also says that in order for children to have secure attachment in later life, they generally need to be responded to effectively and lovingly in the first couple of years.

So, the above would suggest that CC would not be a great idea. However, if you have a baby who does not sleep well and has not slept well over a number of months, the parents are likely to be very stressed. A stressed parent will probably be less able to quickly and effectively met the needs of their child. In these cases, it is possible that CC might actually help because a mum or dad who has had a decent nights sleep may be more responsive to their child over the rest of the day.

I should hold my hands up now and say I have done CC because both of my children were terrible sleepers and it was either that or throw them down the stairs (well not quite, but you know what I mean). I didn't like doing it, but I think it made for a happier relationship between us all. I know both my dcs have a good attachment with me and I'm pretty sure I haven't damaged them long term.

I wonder how many people who are so vehmently against CC have dcs who were terrible sleepers. Not trying to start and argument - genuinely curious?

Why is a 7pm bedtime ridiculous? I don't use CC but my DD also goes to bed between 6-7pm if she doesn't she has a complete meltdown. There is nothing wrong with a parent guiding/manipulating a child's daytime naps in such a way that a child has their 'long' sleep at a certain time which most parents I know do.

'I wonder how many people who are so vehmently against CC have dcs who were terrible sleepers. Not trying to start and argument - genuinely curious?'
Good point neolara.
Do you think I am right to compare cc to classical conditioning or am I way off the mark??

It is not ridiculous for 6 month old twins to have a bed time of 7pm. It just isn't. You might not agree with it. You might not choose to do it for your child or children. But it is not ridiculous.

My babies went to bed at 8pm to 8.30pm. Not when they were tiny of course not (although some people do this, there are loads of threads on Mumsnet on this very subject) but certainly before they were six months old and they did not cry or have trouble settling at 8pm at all. They went to bed at 8pm or thereabouts just like I go to bed at 11pm or thereabouts. I don't lie down in the middle of the afternoon and aim to take my longest stretch of sleep at that time and I wouldn't have been doing my babies any favours if I'd facilitated them doing something similar.

I am against CC. My DD1 had terrible sleep difficulties, we were utterly exhausted, we didnt like the idea of CC so we searched the internet and found the baby whisperer. We used the ssh pat pick up put down technique.You stay and reassure your child through the whole process. It was really hard work but it did do the trick.
There are other ways, they just require a little but of extra work rather than just sitting outside a room listening to your child crying, for whatever length of time it is ( 5, 10 15 mins)

My ds had a set bedtime from when he was a few weeks old. I thought it was important to have a calming routine which involved bath, bf/ff, story & bed. The timings changed as he got older as obv he changed over time but the basic principle was the same. I would leave him for 5 mins then 10 then 15. Never longer than that whilst he was a baby. I think maybe part of the argument comes from people having different definitions of what controlled crying entails.

DD is a terrible sleeper neolara. She had a week or so at 12 months where she only woke once for a feed, but the MMR, teething and subsequent illnesses put paid to that. DD is up approx every 3 hours atm, sometimes more.

With our children we eventually accepted that we were unlikely to get a reliable nights sleep until they were around 3yo. Anything before that was a bonus.
Once we'd accepted that and worked out other ways to catch up on sleep at other times things seemed to get more relaxed and somewhat easier.