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.

For those saying 'sometimes you just can't rush to a baby straight away' - well, of course. I've been on the loo when ds has started to cry and haven't been able to get to him quickly. That's life and there's nothing you can do. But, that's very different from someone deliberately and calculatedly leaving their baby to scream when they CAN comfort them. Both in terms of how long a baby is left and the parent's attitude towards their baby.

There is a difference between a child accidentally banging their head
on a table and someone picking up a plank of wood and deliberately walloping that child. In one way, the outcome is the same - pain, crying child - but to argue that the events are therefore 'the same' would be very dishonest.

Fruity I never expected my baby to sleep through straight away not even when I did cc....I used to still feed during the night but getting her down in the evening was the first obstacle because my eldest needed me too. Once that was done I tried to increase the length of time of my youngest went between night feeds. But this was when she was at about 9 months old. And I was still breastfeeding.

I posted on this thread before and was accused of being smug about the fact that I've never left my DC's to cry to sleep, and saying that it was cruel.

Just wanted to add that, it wasn't being smug, I do what is right for our family, as everybody does.

I'm not really interested in entering into a debate on the rights and wrongs or CC or CIO. I just know that leaving a baby or a child to cry at night on their own just goes against my maternal instincts (and DH's fatherly instinct, he would never let them cry either) in such a basic way, that it would be the very last thing I would ever consider doing, unless I was extremely clinically depressed, and my DH was as well, and getting the DCs to sleep through would denifetly help me recover. I hope I am never in that situation where I felt that I had to do that to my children for everybodies benefit, and I am lucky that I haven't had to.

I strongly disagree with the setiment, that a child needs to learn to get themselves back to sleep and that is a vital life skill. Well then, in my country of origin, where CC and CIO are unheard of, babies are never left to cry to sleep at night, then do you think people can't sleep on their own?!! And they are missing this "vital like skill! What an absolutely ridiculous notion. How laughable!
Children sleep through and self settle when they are ready. Some do it sooner than others.

Agree with Fruity and choceyes

Reading some of the comments on here about night feeding, I was reminded of a corker by my HV who said I should try to give up night feeding my 6mth old because they didn't need it. I said that he always fed for quite a while at night but she said that if somebody offered me chocolate if I woke in the middle of the night I would take it so a little baby offered milk would take it too whether they needed it or not.

It was just wrong on so many levels but I was too sleep deprived, frazzled and stunned to actually have responsibility of my 1st baby that I didn't argue. What I should have said was that no, I wouldn't eat chocolate in the middle of the night if I woke up, or anything else for that mattter. Very few people as an adult would! Plus I am not a small baby who obviously needs the calories because he was growing so rapidly. DS didn't stop eating from the day he was born. He was a little chap (6lb 9oz) but very long and he shot up the centiles until his weight matched his height (at around 90th centile). With hindsight he needed to feed at night. I didn't stop feeding him at night until he started to sleep through (10mths) as that showed me he was ready and didn't need the extra feeds. Strangely he didn't ask for it either, even when he woke in the night as all small children do sometimes.

The thing about trying to make them wait longer between feeds always makes me laugh too. How the hell do you manage that? If I tried it I got a very grumpy baby and hours less sleep because he was harder to settle.

Honestly, she was a lovely HV in many ways. She helped considerably when DS was starting the dx process for AS but I wish I hadn't listened to her about CC. It really did more harm than good both to my self esteem and peace of mind and the amount of sleep we got.

But your hv was right , many babies are sleeping through at 6months. Both mine gave up night feeds at 12 weeks which is not uncommon. Ds went from 25th centile to 90th in his first year without a night feed after 12 weeks. There was no sleep training involved they just stopped waking for a feed one night

We're you bf bruffin?

Were not we're - iPad.

Sorry bruffin but did you actually just say that the HV was right to advise someone about a baby that clearly WAS NOT ready to sleep through to just not feed them simply because your baby WAS ready to sleep through?

BABIES ARE DIFFERENT

For goodness sake what a load of fuss over nothing.

When I did cc I just left my dc to grizzle very like when you're on the loo for 5 or 6 mins then comforted etc.They were in a routine so not hungry,not wet,not unstimulated but in need of a nap.After 3 days it just kicked in. They were never left to scream for long periods of time ever.All their needs had been met so they had buggar all to scream about.

Some people need to get a life and actually try what they feel the desperate need to criticise. Sorry but this hysterical running down of something a lot of posters have never experienced smacks of severe parenting insecurity. Cc and routines are a god send for many families with many families thriving on them,get over it and concentrate on your own kids instead.

Yes but she said that no 6mth old baby could possibly want feeding - they were just doing it for comfort and because nobody turns down the opportunity of a feed in the middle of the night which is just not true. Some babies sleep through at 12 weeks but most don't. When my DS slept through at 10mths it was clear that he no longer needed feeding, both to him and to me so it was no longer an issue. She tried to force a regime on us that wasn't appropriate without any warning to me that it might not work through no fault of my own.

The point was, I was advised to do CC was based on some notion of what all babies do. It wasn't a success even though it worked for 2 weeks, as I said in an earlier post. It made DS miserable and it certainly didn't make me feel better which was supposed to be the point of doing it. Consequently I have every sympathy with the OP's guilt and am not surprised if any research showed the results that Mail/Telegraph study purports to show because it seems to mirror my experience - although without measuring the cortisol levels of course!

That last post was to Bruffin btw!

Big you have no idea as you don't know at all how the cc was done so really can't get on the CC bashing bandwagon.The research was done by somebody in the AP brigade on very few children with no details on how or what was done-nuff said.

All 3 of mine slept through at 12 weeks,yours didn't .Personally I find it hard to believe that any baby would ever be left to scream for ages considering if in a routine they wouldn't be hungry,wet or bored just knackered and I personally don't know any mothers who having done cc in the correct way that have actually ever needed to.

So it didn't work for you,it works for thousands-move on.Sling wearing and co-sleeping didn't work for me but I don't feel the need to obsess and call them the work of the devil.

My GP said that no baby needs a night feed after 3 months, so errm, even HCPs disagree on this. Their advice is not based on much evidence at all, most of them are talking from their own personal experiences, forgetting that not all babies are the same!

rockpool - I have known quite a few mothers who left their LOs (under 6 months) to scream for a couple of hours a few nights in a row to get them to sleep through. One of them did CIO from 10 days old - her LO was sleeping through by 6 weeks old. Wow...what an accomplishment.

And also I think a lot of parents expect sleeping through to mean going 12 hours. When infact the proper definition is 6 hours of sleeping through, usually 12am-6am.

Choc that isn't doing CC correctly thats just leaving a baby to cry.

Rockpool - I never wore a sling and didn't do much co-sleeping. I'm certainly not an AP follower. CC may have worked for many people. Bully for them. It didn't work for us and I sure I am not alone. All this crap about, it only takes 5 minutes and a couple days to work - it might for some (because are all different) but even the HV said it would be hellish for 3 or 4 days and would take hours of crying not minutes, as did the book I read on the subject. She wasn't wrong. Shame she didn't say that that even after all that crying and upset, it would only be a temporary effect.

I don't understand why, if you can accept that all children are different, that CC believers can't also understand that it might be damaging to some children if done at the wrong point in their development. Seems pretty logical to me. As a consequence I don't follow anybody else's regime and did things my own way. It makes for a much happier life that trying to fit in with somebody else's ideas of what I should be doing.

If done properly it's not damaging for any baby.My baby ended up in SCBU because of my Bfing incorrectly,I wouldn't say bfing is dangerous and damaging as some babies can get malnourished and dehydrated.

Mums try lots of things over the years,I would hope any mother who followed CC as it should be done and found it didn't work would move on and find something else not switch to leaving their babies to scream for hours and calling it controlled crying.

IME babies only cry when they need something, could be anything from food, nappy or just boredom. They don't cry because they are manipulative FGS.

I check the basics and if DS2 still cries it is usually tiredness so I place him in his cot and potter around in the room so he knows I am near and usually he settles within a few minutes (he is 12 weeks)

I did have problems getting DS1 to sleep at around 18 months (he was fine as a baby) and had to sit in his room until he dropped off, then at the top of the stairs so he could check I was still there. Took a few weeks but it worked.

No way would I leave either of them to cry on their own, my DS1 was terrified of being left on his own and it would have really distressed him and made him even more clingy.

Babies and older children need to know their needs will be met and need to feel secure. Yes I have let them cry whilst having a shower etc but I don't see the need for CC for babies, they don't understand that it is "for their own good"

yes from what I understand, CC involves going in at increasing time intervals to sooth the child(not picking them up?), and eventually the baby will give up I guess? From what I can see, the LO is still crying almost continously for the length of time it takes it takes the baby to final go to sleep. So one could be CC for a couple of hours every night? Just going in and consoling, baby stops crying for a minute, then out again, and baby starts crying again...so and so forth for 2 hours? And CIO is not going in at all?
That's my understanding anyway.
I guess CC is a bit less extreme, but essentially the child is still crying and not really being consoled. (if I just turned up and tried to console my DCs without picking them up, they would be very unhappy, wouldn't stop crying anyway).

It's not like I respond to their every cry. DD who is 21 months, till recently was fed to sleep every night, but now she has grown out of it. My DS, 3.5yrs also wants me at bedtime to read him books etc. So I hand over DD to my DH and he puts her to sleep. She does cry for a few mins in his arms, and would rather have me, but I have to give my DS some attention too, so that is not always possible. I don't feel guilty that she is crying for a little before sleeping, because she is in my DHs arms, or laying down while being comforted by him all the time. he never leaves her room until she is asleep. She loves her daddy, although she would rather have me, so her crying a bit (more like protesting that she doesn't want to go to sleep really!) in his arms is not comparable to being placed in a cot and let her cry herself to sleep IMO.

Rockpool unless you are a child psychologist who has researched the subjectI don't know how you can categorically statement that CC does no damage.

We did move on when it didn't work. And we didn't 'leave him to cry for hours' we left him no longer than the prescribed 5 - 10 minutes or whatever it was. It just took a lot of those 5 to 10 minute sessions before he finally cried himself to sleep. It took the text book 3 or 4 days before he was able to go to sleep alone. My issue with it was that he wasn't ready and showed his lack of readiness by only managing to stick to the going to sleep alone for 2 weeks. I may have had 2 weeks of evenings but it wasn't worth the effort. We did things my way after that but I would love to know how you can so categorically statement that when it fails it causes no damage. It worked for you - whoopie doo. Please don't start implying that if it didn't work for other that they somehow did it wrong and that it couldn't have been the methodology at fault. Mother's get enough blame as it is without you adding to it.

A couple of times when DD woke up in the night when she was a small baby, and I was in the loo so couldn't get to her quickly (DH went to her immediately), within a minute or two of crying, she threw up, she was so distressed. And I remember DS doing the same when he was tiny. So i don't understand how anyone can to CC from a practical point of view either. Would not have worked on either of mine!

I was advised to leave my 18 month old in his room with the door closed so he could cry himself to sleep. This was my Health Visitors advice. It terrified the poor lad, hence having to then stay in the room with him, then top of stairs etc. If it distresses a 18mnth child then why do it to a baby who has less understanding?

I know nobody in RL who did cc with a routine and regular feeds,changes,playtimes etc for whom it didn't work.The reason it is so popular for many is it does work.You can't do it without a routine imvho as their needs need to have been met before putting down for a nap ie it's no good putting down a hungry, wet baby.

If you try it for a few days with comforting after 5 mins a few of times I fail to see how it could damage a child even one for whom it didn't work. For those it does work for,it doesn't take long,there is very little crying involved and they errrrr sleep so couldn't give a stuff where you are.

For those it doesn't work for I don't buy that leaving a clean,fed,tired baby (who has had masses of love and cuddles) 2 or 3 times in a day and comforting after 5 mins will be damaged in the slightest.

Babies cry occasionally they're designed to,they're not made out of Dresden china and 3 days of being left for 5 mins with mum popping in is going to have no lasting effect on a child-I don't need to be a child pych to know that,anybody with half a brain would be of the same opinion.

rockpool why leave them on their own tho? I potter around in the bedroom so baby knows I am there and he goes to sleep within a few minutes. Surely this is preferable to leaving them on their own?