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.

Pitchounette: "Some babies will get miserable because they can't settle temselves but others will need some parental touch during the night even though they can settle temselves."

Juuule: "However, if my children are anything to go by, some only need a quite space or to be put to bed to nod off in a short time while others find it really difficult to settle themselves and if left alone get more and more agitated, eventually becoming hysterical in some cases."

Mine were the latter hysterical sort. Bear in mind Juuule is the voice of experience here, with 9 dcs. Juuule, hope I got that right!

Giantkatestacks: "do all the people happy to have disturbed sleep past the age of one work?"

I have had disturbed sleep for 5 years' now (with a 6 month respite between dd and ds). I co-sleep and bf all night long and have done so long after I went back to work when my dcs were both one.

Neolara: "I wonder how many people who are so vehmently against CC have dcs who were terrible sleepers."

I am no fan of CC for my dcs. Both my dcs are terrible sleepers. But they clearly wanted me to be there with them at night. And it was easier for all of us for me to meet that need. Co-sleeping is lovely, really. It is no hardship at all. I drink in their essence in the dead of night. I feel rather privileged.

I am a qualified clinical psychologist and have worked as a child psychologist. I currently work with adults with learning disabilities, but may return to working with children.

I am also anti cc and would never use it personally. It goes against my whole parenting ethos. I do, however, understand why people use it as a last resort when they are exhausted. I think this is a sad reflection of the lack of information and support generally available to families ( e.g.that health visitors rarely have adequate training in other approaches) and when used with very young children often reflects unrealistic expectations we have of babies in this society.

Amberc - It is quite possible to observe behavioural responses in babies as young as a few weeks old who have 'lost trust' in their care giver. Yes, to a certain degree it is necessary to interpret their behaviour, as it is with any pre-linguistic child, however by following them up over a period of time it is possible to see that patterns remain enduring and children continue to exhibit signs of mistrust and sometimes fear during interactions.

I'm a co-sleeper too - I love your line about drinking in their essence - I will remember that tonight blueshoes when DD is awake for 3 or 4 hrs on the trot and I'm losing the will to live.
DS still woke at least 10 times a night at the age of 1 but slept through at 1.5.
DD wakes up between 4 and 20 times a night. I can cope up to a point but am struggling with the long shifts between 1 and 5am. I'm still not going to try cc with her though. There must be another way.

I used a dummy which soothed them as they liked to suck. Worked a treat!!!

'Cruel, dangerous and unnecessary in children under 12-18 months.'

Call me cruel, then. I have two children who were CC'd and slept through from about 7 or 8 months. Both do well at school and, more importantly, are nice, kind, thoughtful people.

I also have doen well, because I have had adequate sleep. I have a career and a good relationship with my husband. Neither would have been as good without good sleep.

We used Gina. She worked well for us.

I have just read that bit about why we put our babies to bed at 7-7.30pm in the UK. The answer is:

"because I need 2 hours for me and DH to concentrate on each other and ourselves in the evening"!!!!!

My SIL is Italian and her baby stays up until when he wants to go to bed. Which of course he doesn't know. So he stays up until 9.30pm-10pm. He is overtired. Then won't settle. And everybody has a crap evening.

by the way I don't personally believe in controlled crying when they are still babies. but as I have already said, I make sure they are fed and watered and have had lots of attention in the day from me and then use a dummy.

expo - how odd that your nephew doesn't know when he wants to go to sleep.

I don't care what time parents put their children to bed. Except that when they complain that their children won't sleep/cry/get up at 5 am, I just wonder what the obsession with early bed times is? Surely letting a child find its own sleep pattern is easiest for both child and parents?

It's when parents of 8 or 9 year olds still have problems with sleep that I wonder why they think that CC is so cruel. Do they think it's kind to schoolchildren to let them have sleep problems which could have been resolved earlier on?

But why would CC of babies have any impact at all on the sleep of 8/9 year olds?

Many, many years ago I used to babysit a lot, for several families. Most parents used to "tell" me what time their children had to go to bed - 8.15 for one, 8.30 for another etc.

One family - and both parents were trained as doctors - just used to tell me that the children would tell me when they felt tired and wanted to go to bed. The children were quite little - say 2, 5 and 7 - at the time. They did.

Those children have gone far the furthest in life, with the fewest difficulties, of any of those children I used to babysit for. And I know why - their parents trusted them with their own feelings.

abraid, is there a correlation between non-CC and sleep problems in 8-9 year olds? Self-settling is a developmental milestone all children will reach when they are ready. Some are ready earlier than others and some are willing to be pushed along faster than others. So just because someone does not do CC does not mean they are making a rod for their own back.

BTW, my dd 5 (who was not CC-ed) sleeps like a dream now and has done so since she was 2.5.

Well, as some are making a correlation between CC and serious adult psychological problems it's not unreasonable to put up a robust defence.

Letting a healthy, loved, clean, fed, dry baby cry (not in a distressed manner: in an, 'I don't know what to do with myself because I'm tired' way) for five or ten minutes before they fall asleep is not exactly warping its psyche.

But people must make their own choice.

I think the correlation between CC and adult psychological disturbance is probably fallacious, given that CC, when practised responsibly (ie not on little babies and not to extremes) isn't cruel.

However, I am very opposed to authoritarian parenting and think it does do a lot of damage that is hard and laborious to repair in later life. Letting tiny babies cry it out is authoritarian parenting in my book...

And I much prefer letting children work out what they need for themselves. It just seems so much easier in the long run.

As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, all the women on here are doing what they believe is best for their child. All of us here whether cc or ap are choosing what we believe will most benefit our families. None of us are choosing to raise unhappy, damaged children. We are doing the best we can in an age where we are bombarded by one expert after another. Every child and family is different and all need a different approach. I am not saying we shouldn't debate the choices but these threads often degenerate into defensive outbursts. Although it is a mark of what good parents we are that we enter into such debates and are so concerned about how we deal with our dcs. The problems arise when the parent doesn't care.

My biggest problem with sleep issues is other people reacting in horror to my baby's sleep patterns and not respecting my way of doing things. I find it hard to act on instinct because that instinct is being drowned out by the sound of other people's views.

I think i have been rambling, apologies. I blame sleep deprivation

Absolutely. There's a huge difference between a baby of six weeks and one of eight months.

Thing is, once you have the vitality which a good night's sleep gives you, you actually have the energy to let your children explore their own needs. We cook with ours quite a lot and have done since they were toddlers. No way, I'd have done this if I had been sleep-deprived.

Not would I have done art and painting with them or gone for muddy walks.

Why be tired and miserable with your children?

I have literally never been sleep deprived because of my DD. Like blueshoes, I co-slept for a long time - it just seemed like far the easiest way of ensuring we all spent a long and comfortable night in bed sleeping. And I have never tried to impose any kind of sleep pattern on her - I just couldn't be bothered with the battle. So much easier to let her sleep when she felt like it.

I co-slept occasionally--usually if it was too cold to attempt to put them back in their cots.

Penthesiliea- A loved, warm, well fed baby can in no way be compared to romanian orphans. The orphans didnt trust anyone because they had no-one to trust. I am actually shocked that you have used this analogy. As for cc, if u r comfortable doing it-try it. If not-dont. It really is as simple as that because then you know that what you are doing is right.....for you and your children.

I'll probably regret weighing in on this, but I'm astonished by how few people seem prepared to accept that there might be more than one way to raise a happy confident human being.

A few (very sensible) people have pointed out that one size doesn't fit all. however, plenty of people seem to be of the opinion that, although we acknowledge our children are all individuals, we should all be using one 'correct' style of parenting.

Is it not possible that some children respond very well to CC or similar, because that's what they need to develop the ability to sleep, and without it they would remain appalling sleepers for months or years more? While other children might genuinely need physical contact during the night to remain asleep, and therefore suit an AP style better?

So many of us accept that we changed our attitudes to parenting as soon as we had children, why can't we get on with the idea that we also choose the best method for getting our own children to get the sleep they need?

Hi techprep. If you read my post carefully, you'll see I'm making exactly the opposite point to that which you assumed I made. I said:

"The studies done (on those poor Romanian children) only show that prolonged periods of crying and lack of response are damaging to children."

Ie. These studies are no use to people talking about cc because the Romanian children were exposed to prolonged periods of lack of response.

Ok????????

On a nerdy point sasamax I think CC is more like operant conditioning than classical because the baby is doing something (crying) which gets a reward (cuddle). The theory would be that if there is no reward the behaviour will be extinguished.
Something which has always puzzled me though is that CC is essentially a variable reward (baby gets cuddle sometimes ie if 5 mins is up but not other times). This should in fact be more reinforcing than going every time. (That's why gambling is addictive). This is why my friend who is an experimental (rather than clinical) psychologist leaves her babies to cry until they stop. Can't understand how she physically can but she does.

It's like this.

I do understand why people look for a set bedtime, a routine of an evening for a 6m old baby. Some are lucky enough to have babies who settle into a bedtime the same time every night -I think they are v few and far between but I understand it all the same. What I think is ridiculous is plucking a number that suits you and imposing that a baby fall asleep at this time exactly every single night, getting upset when they don't and using CC to get them to do it because you have decided it shall be so.
I personally think having the patience to wait a little later (or earlier) when the baby is nicely tired is best all 'round.

(Sasamax, thank you for that great idea about the sling. It never occurred to me to do that! Doh! )

(Sasamax, thank you for that great idea about the sling. It never occurred to me to do that! Doh! )

Hey Neenz, good thread - and timely, too.

There hasn't been much news on the CC front since
our last major ding dong in Spring 2007 (see here
and here for the two threads if you have time on your hands).

To answer your question:
No, there are no studies measuring the long-term impact.
There are studies looking into the short-term impact with the
help of parent questionnaires and none of them find anything untoward.

Have a look at this fairly comprehensive review of all the pro/con research
out there here - a mother had asked a Google researcher a similar question to yours
and his verdict (I paraphrase):
'The anti-CC lot might have a point but they are not making it.'

They cannot make their point as they have no evidence. You either believe in it or not.

The anti-cc equivalent to that page is this blog. Just about anything that supports
the blogger's point of view has been linked here.

I have worked my way through every single document - and some of them have been quite interesting -
but not a shred of evidence that CC does damage, short-, medium- or long-term.

Right, more after breakfast.
Btw, this has been one of the most civilised, yet interesting sleep training threads for a while.