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Original poster

Do you feel like you have damaged your child and are bad mother if....

95 replies

mummylovesus · 15/05/2006 14:57

you have a baby who cries all the time, you pick him up that second but no amount of cuddling and loving seems to settle him, he is awake for hours at night and you are emotionally and physically at the end of your tether because your baby just keeps crying?

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SenoraPostrophe · 15/05/2006 15:34

the being left for 3 hours example was a one off absolutely desperate worst case scenario - it wasn't the thing gf usually recommended (she said she did that because they'd done normal cc and then given in too many times iirc). never say never I say (we did do something similar with ds because cc did not work at 9 months. he cried for about 40 mins)

zippitippitoes · 15/05/2006 15:37

Richard Ferber makes the point that newborns and young babies can be fed to sleep and this doesn't in any way jeopardise sleep patterns..I beleive the gf method departs from his

Dior · 15/05/2006 15:38

SP - the Ferber one is the one I did.

ladyoracle · 15/05/2006 15:39

No you don't feel like a bad mother if your baby cries all day and night, if you attend to your child in the best way you can, feeding calming playing...whatever, then you know you're doing your best, and that at least your child knows some one is there for them.

I would much rather be tired and emotional from carrying, comforting and feeding a crying baby than frantic and hysterical from listening to them cry by themselves. (and I don't mean for a couple of minutes)

morningpaper · 15/05/2006 15:49

I think the problem with the "rod for your own back" school of thought is that it gives the wrong message which is that YOUR BABY WILL LEARN THAT CRYING MAKES YOU RESPOND AND WILL NEVER GROW INTO AN INDEPENDENT BEING!

Whereas the REAL message that new mums should listen to is "This will all be over very, very soon."

zippitippitoes · 15/05/2006 15:52

In our case I think ds crying was an indication of dyspraxia

SenoraPostrophe · 15/05/2006 15:56

dior - I know. I'm just saying it's exactly the same as the gf one, but that it doesn't always work.

Original poster
mummylovesus · 15/05/2006 15:57

Do you know what I am sick of people who have miss read this book or picked out as many bad points that they can fin with the routine.

The book state in the foreword that it is a guid!

Gina Ford does say that she would be horrified if any baby cried for more than an hour a day.

She does not advocate CC on small babies - older babies and children is what it says.

She also says that if you are considering this type of sleep traing you should go to your doctor for a medical to ensur your child is healthy and ask to be put in touch with a sleep clinic!!

what is it with you lot!!

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zippitippitoes · 15/05/2006 15:57

If i had known what i know now then I would have tried cranial osteopathy I think, but i have only come across it recently

FrannyandZooey · 15/05/2006 15:57

I think there are a lot of defensive or even quite aggressive posts being stirred up by the GF / co-sleeping / CC threads at the moment. Discussing alternative ways of doing things does not mean that we think you are a bad mother, ok?

And the situation you describe doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with CC or GF.

zippitippitoes · 15/05/2006 15:59

I don't know why you started this thread but I also don't know why you have turned to aggression

bubblez · 15/05/2006 16:02

I used the cc method from 6weeks. Granted I never let my dd cry in excess of 5-10mins before going and settling her down, without picking her up if pos, (eg if she wasnt crying from pain or dirty, nappy or hunger) and from 6weeks she would sleep in her cot without being rocked to sleep. However I have no idea who gina forbs is and what she recomends and just to be clear I only used the cc method to get my dd to sleep at night (along with swaddling and a dark room). So by the time she was 6months she already slept throught the night etc. I know that my dd is not damaged she is the happiest child I know if I may say so myself. Grin

Oh and I curtainly do not feel like a bad mother... like filyjonk said we all parent our own ways.

ladyoracle · 15/05/2006 16:03

Thank you Morningpaper. Babies cry, some more than others, some for reasons that need more attention than others, but they all cry, It's the fact that it now seems unacceptable for babies to be grumpy, that the parent must be doing something wrong that puts pressure on parents to DO something about it rather than just learning to respond to their baby. IMHO.

bubblez · 15/05/2006 16:03

sorry to sound thick Z but what is 'cranial osteopathy'? Just out of interest

Original poster
mummylovesus · 15/05/2006 16:06

FrannyandZooey I know that the point I was trying to make is that everyone keeps going on about GF advocating letting small babies cry forever - no she doesn't and I have read the case study in which Robert 9 months was left to cry for over three hours because the mother after speaking to others had decide to use cc, fgs she was telling about one mother's choice to use a sleep training method!!

The point I was trying to make is that apparantly using the GF routine could damage your baby letting it cry, so does this mean even who cry all the time (bearing in mind babies on the clb routine DON'T) will they also be damaged even after the mother is exhaused from being up all night trying to calm and sooth her baby???????

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zippitippitoes · 15/05/2006 16:07

I don't have any experience of it \link{http://www.cranial.org.uk/page2.html\ but it's a gentle physical intervention}

zippitippitoes · 15/05/2006 16:09

mummylovesus I think you are being a little disingenuous

kama · 15/05/2006 16:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

bubblez · 15/05/2006 16:10

thanks will take a look Grin

foxinsocks · 15/05/2006 16:12

I have no idea what you are on about but I have 2 children both of whom cried for England as babies (one more so than the other). I never saw it as a judgement on my parenting skills more that I breed crying babies (and hence I shall have no more Grin).

morningpaper · 15/05/2006 16:18

Gina Ford does say that she would be horrified if any baby cried for more than an hour a day.

WHY is it necessary to quantify ANY of this??!

Mine cried for hours every day - does that mean I was a bad parent?

I don't give a shit how many hours a day a baby cries for, as long as someone cuddles it and it knows it is loved.

Wordsmith · 15/05/2006 16:21

I swore by controlled crying with DS1 - it worked a dream. But it hasn't worked with DS2 at all! Different strokes for different folks I guess. The problem I have with leaving DS2 to cry isn't that it harms him, it's that it wakes his big brother, who sleeps in the same room, and he has to go to school the next day, so that's not fair on him. Plus what works for DS2 is going in, picking him up, cuddling him for 30 secs and putting him down. It gets him to sleep again but doesn't teach him that he has to get to sleep on his own. But rather than completely re-arrange the household and getting DH and I to sleep on the floor or something, we'll put up with being woken up briefly 2 or 3 times a night. He'll grow out of it soon...

I think leaving a child crying for hours will dangage him/her in the sense that he/she will be very tired, but I don't think they'll be pyschologically affected and grow up to be an axe murderer or anything.

I'm on the fence with the whole GF thing but I agree, she never advocates leaving to cry for hours at a time.

Original poster
mummylovesus · 15/05/2006 16:22

lol foxinsocks, I'm glad you feel this way.

zippitippitoes you are right that may be how this post came across but it was not intended like that, therefor I immediatley explained why I had started this post!

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Original poster
mummylovesus · 15/05/2006 16:24

morningpaper no it doesnt but I'm sorry I just feel that others are made to feel like bad mothers

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Original poster
mummylovesus · 15/05/2006 16:26

and guy's I'm not new to all this disagreement, I'm mummygow but I am just sick of it!! (I changed my name the other night)

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