Opinions on controlled crying?

[larita]

Hi Everyone,
Just wondering if anyone can give me some opinions on controlled crying/teaching to sleep?
I have always been against it, but after a couple of months of travelling my 9 month old appears to have lost the ability to put himself to sleep & is up 5 times a night again. Our doctor has recommended 'teaching to sleep', & as I am so tired I am trying it tonight - the wee man has been crying for an hour now. I hate doing it, he is such a wonderful boy & it absolutely wrenches my heart to hear him cry.
Some success stories would be much appreciated! I'd like to hear the againsts as well though.
Thank you.

And again, it's Controlled Crying!!! No letting the baby scream and scream uncontrollably! The point about orphanages is that there are children and babies existing for years there with no loving caregiver, and THAT'S why they are emotionally stunted - they being left to cry is the least of their worries the poor mites. Orphans in this situations often do not gain weight and "fail to thrive" even given enough calories / milk - and other studies have shown this phenomena in orphanages to linked to babies requiring LOVE and ATTENTION as well as food.

Anyway. CC. I did CC. With both of mine. I never left them for more than 5 mins,unless the crying was more of a whinge than a scream. Whilst it ws distressed crying, I would keep going in every 5 mins and reassuring, settling back down. I also did PU/PD with DD2 which was also very good for those not happy with CC. However, I only did this when small - not sure about older babies.

Even now at 9m, I find that if she starts getting unhappy (seperation anxiety at this stage start nighttime issues again) then I stay with her patting her bottom and saying night night, but not looking at her (hard, hard) but she settles quickly, and it's just my way of letting her know I'm not far away.

Bahumbug I was worried when I first heard this lady's claims last week, and I think she will create alot of unnecessary worry for many parents with this dilemma. But bear in mind that this lady has no children of her own, and has only helped out with other parents for no more than a week or two at a time. This is far removed from having a child of your own with bad sleeping habits and coping with it for months on end. As others have said it's extremely important for little ones to get enough sleep (not to mention you), and controlled crying is far removed from leaving a child to cry for hours on end day in day out. If you can't cope with the full cc method you could try what Amanda or I did, which produces the same result but over a slightly longer period of time. The most important thing I found was to follow exactly the same routine...children need routines/boundaries, they feel secure with repetitive behaviour because it's something they know and recognise. Tell your child you love them whilst firmly putting them into their bed, they will get used to it and you'll be grateful in the long run...and don't take too much notice of those who have no kids of their own, yet have loads of opinions.

Teabelly I think you're confusing Gerhardt with \link{http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-1380859,00.html\Margot Sunderland}, whose book is just out? I've no idea if Gerhardt is a mum or not but Elizabeth Pantley (No Cry Sleep Solution) is, Tracy Hogg (Baby Whisperer) was - both anti-cc - and Gina Ford (pro-cc) is not ...

Sorry to be ignorant here - what do those anti-cc people recommend that you do? A genuine question - I really don't know.

I used to breastfeed DS back to sleep - 3 times a night for the first 7 months or so, then once a night until he was around 12 months. According to popular wisdom, I should have been making a rod for my own back, but DS actually dropped the night feed on his own and turned into a dream sleeper around his first birthday. And has been ever since. I think the depth of his sleep just changed. For example, I was suddenly able to carry him sleeping from his car seat to his cot - previously, that would always have woken him up.
What I'm trying to say is - if you don't think CC is a good idea, and if you can hang in there a bit longer, things may just sort themselves out on their own.

I've often wondered that FlashingRudolph - great name - I never did any sleep training during the night cos I never had to, but we did teach dd to put herself to sleep at 3 months (gasps of horror all round at our barbarity!). But she was crying with exhaustion anyway, so leaving her to cry for 10-15 minutes on two nights, after which she went to sleep without a murmur seems kinder to me than the night after night of crying we'd endured due to an exhausted baby before that. I know it's a bit different when they're older, but you have to get them to go to sleep somehow.

Sorry maybe I am...I was talking about the lady who was on this morning last week...but which ever one they both say the same thing that leaving your child to cry may/will cause brain damage and yet the examples they use are the orphanage children. If controlled crying really was that bad for your kids we'd all be emotional wrecks, unable to feel love, my mum did it for us and I'm sure I wasn't the only one, yet I'd like to think I'm pretty normal (although DH would have something to say about that, he he he!). You just have to try what's best for you and your child. CC works for alot of children and parents, but if you are not happy doing it don't feel bad because you've decided not to, it's your choice afterall. I'm just, from a personal point of view, sceptical about following advice from people who haven't been in a particular position, yet give doom and gloom warnings to others who have gone through it and have come out the other side. I take your point about GF but don't think that she is pro cc...she says to use it as a last resort, but suggests that if you follow her methods the need for it won't arise.

Sorry - no time to read all the thread so may be repeating. We used controlled crying on dd (now 6) when she was approaching 6 months and she has slept brilliantly ever since. As to it causing her harm, she is top of her class, has been described as "gifted" by one of her teachers, has always been a very happy and content child and is hugely popular amongst her peers (to the extent that they follow her around at school and vie to sit next to her). She's also extremely loving, cuddly, affectionate etc. An all round "good kid" - and I'm not just being a biased/boastful mother, I have had loads of positive comments about her from complete strangers (i.e. shop assistants etc.). So I can honestly say that cc did her no harm whatsoever and in fact may even have been beneficial.

bahhumbug I'm glad I'm not the only person who is having a dilemma about this. I used to be such a staunch advocate of controlled crying (as a read of archived sleep boards on here will show!) but since reading the Sue Gerhardt book and also what Elizabeth Pantley says about controlled crying in her book, I feel very uncertain about it

Part of the reason I have the yips, tbh, is that I did it with DS1 who is actually autistic, although of course I didn't know that at the time, but I keep torturing myself with the thought that perhaps I made his communication difficulties worse by not responding to his crying. However I left it with DS2 (not autistic) until he was 15 months old and I am pretty confident that it didn't do him any harm at all. I think that with DS3 I will (a) soldier on until he is a fair bit older and (b) try all the suggestions in the No Cry Sleep Solution book first and only if those fail will I consider controlled crying.

Dino, I can tell you now, I've reached my utmost limits over the last couple of months, and particularly the last week or so. Over the past 7 nights, I started using the Baby Whisperer 'pick-up-put-down', then sort of dovetailing it with the No-Cry Sleep Solution's 'last resort' technique (i.e. staying with him but not picking him up at all - I only moved on to this when he stopped needing to be picked up). Things got dramatically better at first, then worse (as Tracy Hogg warns), and now seem to be improving again. We're not out of the woods but I do see light at the end of the tunnel. This method is obviously not as quick as cc, but I'm so glad I decided to stick with it. Do read the section in 'No Cry' entitled something like 'I've tried everything, nothing works, help!' before you resort to cc, if you think cc is no longer for you. I'll keep you posted on our progress. It IS good to find someone else on the same wavelength - although you MUSTN'T feel guilty about the cc you've done in the past - you have to go with whatever your instincts tell you at the time, and I'm sure you are a loving parent who has done her babies no harm at all.

Agree with everyone who has said that comparing the abandoned, unloved, neglected victims of Romanian orphanages to adored, cuddled, cooed-over babies who just have a couple of nights where they cry a bit is just absurd. If crying per se is so damaging, well, babies can perfectly well cry when you are actually cuddling them! I don't know what she'd make of that.

Also 'very stressed'' mothers may be mothers who get no sleep. It's not used as torture for nothing. So you basically can't win!

Dino, I can't believe that using CC with your child with ASD had any effect on the Autism at all. In fact, the reason we found ourselves using CC with our DS with autism, without knowing that's what it was, is because nothing we did made any difference. So we checked he was OK and let him cry. I really think we discovered CC by accident, our very first bit of behaviour modification, because picking him made no difference, reclining made no difference, feeding made no difference, staying or going made no difference, you get the picture. And then we discovered that it worked quickly. Its harder with DD, I have done it at bedtime but not in the middle of the night because of the night but she's pretty settled.

Thanks bahhumbug! That does sound encouraging. I haven't actually read Baby Whisperer - do you think I should? I've been a bit of a baby book junkie this time around, precisely because I know it's the last time - I've actually read the Contented Little Baby Book this time as well as No Cry Sleep Solution!

Aloha and others, sorry if I sound a bit of a wimp about all this - I really really don't want to undermine anyone who is doing/has done controlled crying, but I am just (rather selfishly I suppose) trying to explain my own feelings about it and the way they have changed.

Davros, thanks for the reassurance For ages I was really good about not blaming myself for DS1's ASD but for some reason recently I have got right back into "Was it this? Was it that? Was it the other?" Very unhelpful I know.

I don't think you are a wimp. Guilt comes with the territory. I wonder if I caused my son's motor skills problems and worry about it quite a lot even though they aren't very severe. I just think that comparing Romanian orphanage children with normal much-loved kids is really pushing it IMO and can only make perfectly good parents feel dreadful.

And that's aimed at the writer of the book - not you!!

I know what you mean Dino, like the thread on difficult births and ASD etc. Its all chicken and egg. You can't blame yourself because, not only is it not fair on you but its not true. I suspect having the little one is bringing these thoughts and feelings up, I've done it a bit myself in the last year, hormones don't help either!

To be fair, aloha, she doesn't do that - she uses them as an extreme example of how lack of affectionate interaction affects brain development.