Controlled Crying - stress levels stay high even when babies have learned to settle themselves.

[Codandchops]

OMG!!!

Even worse is that I could not bear to leave my DS as a baby so used to sit in the room and re-settle him every 5 mins. How shit is that? He could see me for 5 mins at a time not comforting him (even though after every 5 mins I did comfort him).

Have always felt an irrational guilt about DS's autism and wonder if I made things worse .

Need to read the research and look at numbers involved.

I understood what you were saying slipslider and I did not think you were advocating ignoring or neglecting children at all.

I think most children are fortunate enough to have good care in the UK. There are those who DO neglect their kids but I doubt anyone on this thread does so.

DS has indeed grownn up to interrupt adults and to see his needs as the all important priority .....but that's his ASD and ADHD..... we are working on it

I'm not sure you do have a clue, much like acertainwoman who shall notbe named

Despite your qualifications, slipslider,you don't seem to understand what "child centred" means.

Does "child centred" mean different things to different people? In my opinion fwiw it means meeting a child's needs in a timely manner. That could mean meeting their need for sleep by using CC or it could mean picking them up at first whimper. No?

Well, according to slip slider "child centred" means not teaching any manners.

And at a risk of the most massive flaming I have ever, ever received, I nave never met anyone who has done controlled crying in order to meet their child's need for sleep.

What did they do it for then, their own need for sleep? How very dare they.

But don't pretend it's for the good of the baby.

And if you are desperate for sleep, the way to get it is to sleep with the baby.

Oh, your damn arrogance seeker. Are you aware that for some people sleeping with the baby meant less sleep and not more? Your tunnel vision is astonishing, not to say insulting too.

Let the flaming commence.

I am always intrigued to know what sort of children you are supposed to end up with if you do CC?
Are they supposed to be insecure, violent or what?

Not flaming here

@seeker

Funnily enough that's how I met my need for sleep in the end - co-sleeping and it worked far better for my sensory seeking (and mummy seeking) little baby boy than CC did. At age 9 he is still a bit of a Mummy seeking missile in the night - most mornings I awake to find him beside me....ad oh my - does he LOVE a cuddle.

And I am most emphatically NOT saying that this is right for everybody.

I think most parents are just trying to achieve a balance between both needs of Mum and baby

mama - ha ha ha! he who shall not be named?? I'm reporting no one...i have no reason to!

Sometimes you have to do things for yourself. Obviously. But be honest about them. Don't try to say that what you are doing for yourself is actually for your baby.

I once shut the door on one of mine and put my headphones on for 5 minutes because I couldn't stand the noise a moment longer. Buti don't say I did this for his benefit. it was for mine.

And in my experience most people who try controlled crying do it because "they want their evenings back" or something like that. Not because they are being driven to the brink by exhaustion.

I always find the co-sleeping brigade highly annoying with their 'oh it's so obvious' response. It's not bloody obvious. Co-sleeping was a total disaster for us and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. That said I'd not recommend what we did either, as each baby and each parent is different and I think you have to figure out what works for you as a family.

I'd be happy to share what did and didn't work for us, but without all the cod psychology that some of the AP movement like to come up with. If you want to understand what poor attachment is about go over the the adoption threads. Many children who are adopted have true attachment disorders, and it has a dreadful hugely damaging affect, caused by serious disruption, neglect or abuse. the idea that it might happen as a result of a few minutes crying is laughable, and some of the experiments quoted in some of the AP books (the truly horrific things that were done to monkeys come to mind) were so incredibly extreme that I don't believe they have any bearing.

NB my children are just turning into teenagers. When I look at the cohort children of friends and relatives who took all sorts of approaches you really cannot tell now what sort of approach their parents took when they were babies (I think that you could when they were toddlers).

"I always find the co-sleeping brigade highly annoying with their 'oh it's so obvious' response."

Try being told you're raising mannerless, boundaryless children.......

Well said nooka. I have watched lots of DCs grow up and it has been utterly fascinating-as one of DSs friends said recently, having reconnected on FB after years abroad, you get some real surprises! You do indeed! You just can't tell what you are going to get! There is no magic formula where if your do a, b, and c, you get wonderfully well rounded, caring, emotionally stable adults.
I have a friend who was a great advocate of co sleeping and attachment parenting-hers couldn't wait to get away!
All parents are different, all babies are different-there is no size that fits all.
Be yourself-if you want a good night's sleep try what works for you.

I certainly did cc for my eldest's sleep and for her benefit aged about9/10 months, she'd been a great sleeper, fell out of that pattern due to teething and a cold (during which of course I tended to her crying at night) but after she was better, the pattern of night waking persisted and she was as grumpy as heck in the day.

I saw doing ccing for two nights out of her entire little life as a way of helping her get back to good sleeping habits, it worked, and she started sleeping well including in the day as well and she was much happier and back to the delightful child she'd been before.

I was a nervous wreck as it was, without even attempting CC with either of my babies. I found it too stressful to hear my babies cry when they were smaller. I had to settle them straight away.

I would guess that most people are somewhere between extremes. I didn't co sleep but I didn't cc. You will be much happier if you go with your own instinct as opposed to what you think you should do. My way wouldn't suit everyone-no reason why it should.

yes its all about finding a balance, asi have already said in the thead, but several posters have said on its only 10-15mins of crying for a couple of nights, for your children that may well have been the case, but i know of others ie freinds where their children have cried for 45-60mins and then still woken in the night and its taken weeks, not days only for htem to have to do it all again when their baby has been teething or got a cold etc. there have been trheads on here where people have said htey cried for 50mins one night, then 30mins the next night etc. i think that is a LONG time for a baby to cry, and i couldnt do it.

for the average child that is otherwise looked after, loved and parented well it probably doesnt make a difference, but for some it might in temrs of how they deal wiht stress as adults. its probalby one of those down to temprement/personality things, all babies are different, some will cope wiht it better than others, but you cant tell.

and i am not a martyr parents and my kids to have rules and consequences etc, but i do think they ARE only little for a short period of time, so we did what we could to get by, taking it in turns to sleep, co-sleeping, we even used a baby swing for one of the boys for daytime naps so i could do stuff with the others. we tried various different things, but didnt leave them to cry and they all got so that they would sleep all night in a bed in their own rooms. i feel happier knowing they got their without us leaving them to cry, my instinct (and dp's) was that we couldnt do that.

BUT if people ask me what i did, i will always say well this it was worked for us, but your baby is different, my sister has a 5mth old and has asked my advice, i have offered her techniques i used with the caveat that he is her baby and she will find what works for them.

i do agree with seeker that its for the parent and not the child, generally a baby WILL get as much sleep as it needs, it may not do it when its conveneient for you! but they do esp when very little sleep as much as they need, in my ds1's case that was NOT VERY MUCH! and now at 12yrs he still doesnt need that much sleep, its the kind of person he is, and i dont think that leaving him to cry would have made him sleep anymore, he would just have cried.

Ah yes, the old 'it only takes 5 minutes of crying for a few days and it is done' made me laugh too, 5madthings. I wish.

I did CC with DS1 when he was 6 mths old because I didn't know better and the HV was clearly worried about my tearful sleep deprived state (but only when I was talking to her strangely - the rest of the time I was tired but fine). DS never napped during the day for longer than 20 minutes and woke frequently at night. I agree with a lot of what Seeker said and the comment that CC is often for the parent's benefit rings very true with me. I got it into my head that DS and I were somehow doing it wrong and that I would feel so much better if we did CC.

Oh yes, CC worked but it wasn't 5 minutes of crying, it was hours of it. And it only lasted about 2 weeks. I never bothered with it again. All that anguish just wasn't worth it for 2 weeks of going to sleep easily. As it turned out, 4 months later he managed to start sleeping through all by himself, despite being totally chaotic with his sleep up to the night he finally managed it.

The stupid thing was that I don't know why I caved. It was obvious what DS wanted - me, or probably more to the point the milk I could give him. He wasn't a big cryer because I went to him fairly quickly and never let him get worked up.... except when we did CC and then he would start bawling again even before I had finished settling him.

Needless to say I didn't do with DS2 who was thankfully a more settled kind of a baby who got himself a routine, even if it didn't involve sleeping through until he was 8 months. You could still predict when he would wake.

I wouldn't have said I was an AP parent - no co-sleeping except on very bad nights for example and I am certainly not a GF/Supernanny type. What I think we all need to do is rather than go with the programme of any 'expert' (they aren't an expert on my child though) is trust ourselves. When I didn't trust myself with DS1 it turned out badly.

Do I think it did any harm? Well, I didn't have the chilled happy baby I was promised by the HV and nor did he 'forget' the crying (how he can be meant to I don't know - surely he was meant to remember not to bother crying. ). He was positively off with me the morning after whilst smiling at everybody else. CC may be fine for other babies but I do object to the idea that if you just do it all will be well. It doesn't always work, no matter how closely you stick to the rules and I don't believe it is always the solution.

"Try being told you're raising mannerless, boundaryless children......" I'm told that a lot. That if I do not smack they'll be tear aways as teenagers too

Haven't you worked out that a parent's place is in the wrong, teanadcakeplease?