Can't find that thread on what child psychologists think of leaving babies to cry but...

[edam]

Interesting piece in the paper by Oliver James who is a psychologist IIRC. He writes about some research that suggests leaving babies to cry leads to unsettled, anxious babies.

Thanks for the link Edam.

Well obviously I love that article, edam . Research that confirms precisely what I believe...

(Me too, tbh...) Haven't looked up the actual study but the details are at the bottom of the piece.

I do hope they get funding to follow up these babies when they are older - would be fascinating to see if the different approaches have any noticeable effect in later childhood or even adulthood.

One strong hypothesis that you can draw from the article is that parents that from the outset are inclined towards scheduling have more anxious babies who cry more - which may then of course encourage those parents to adopt more drastic parenting choices (like premature controlled crying, cry-it-out etc) in desperation. So your beliefs about parenting before the giving birth would affect the type of child you believed you got given in the genetic lottery. But that same child, with "hugger" parents, might have been a lot calmer from day one, which in turn would encourage parents towards another parenting choice.

Quite, Anna. Funny how often people are determined to ascribe behaviour to nature when it is just as likely (if not more) to be nurture. Like the 'boys naturally like blue' argument, when back in Edwardian days pink used to be seen as a male colour.

Hi Anna8888 - would love to know whether that is true, but so hard to 'control' scientifically.

I

Difficult, but not impossible. Would be a rather detailed long-term study.

Anyway, in my family my sister and I have both done the same sort of extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-led child rearing and all four of our children are very secure so far.

I was very drawn to scheduling before my dd was born. I was such a calm and easy baby my mother could not believe it. But I had a very unsettled baby and changed my parenting tactics from scheduling to hugging. So the baby you get can also influence your parenting style.

I think with an article and study like this you can interpret the results as you would like them. Mothers who are schedulers have babies who cry more, and they know it because they consciously leave their babies to cry and don't believe in picking their baby up when it cries, so it's their philosophy really. "Hugger" mothers won't let their babies cry so pick them up/feed them/carry them, thus preventing any further crying (in general of course!). I think it's Oliver James' interpretation that crying = anxious insecure baby, therefore schedulers have anxious insecure babies.
He is right in saying that further studies need to be done to see how the children turned out. There's a lot to be said for personalities as well, both the babies' and the mothers'.

How many babies did this survey cover?

True, donteatyellow. Chicken and egg. I read something a while ago by a psychologist who studied personality - he reckoned the research showed parents reacted to the child's genotype. So while we do, of course, treat children differently (anyone who says they don't is deluded although you should try to be fair) he reckoned we were reacting to them, not the other way round.

more on the study here at first glance looks a bit more complicated than James made out.

original study I think but it seems to be 2006 while James appeared to think it was recent. And it's not clear on a quick read how many children were recruited.

I don't think it's at all easy to look at CC in isolation - it's a tiny part of parenting. As for how the child 'turns out' in later life - an otherwise loving homelife and secure child could be overtunred by a horrible school.

I could never, ever do CC myself, but I have 2 friends who have. In all other respects the children are showered with love and positive parenting. The children are lovely.

I have another 2 friends where both parents are FT workers, children FT in nursery, CC........ it's sadly too easy to pick them out in a crowd as kids in crisis.

I am not convinced Oliver James bases his 'theories' on particularly robust research.

I think the biggest problem with any personality research on humans is everyone is a different person and that's a variable you just can't really adjust for. Look at the number of threads on here where the first child slept like a dream and then the second one thinks sleep is the work of the devil, same parents and same enviroment just different baby.

Oliver James in They F... You Up (ie your parents) claims that nature plays no part in shaping a person. He says it is ALL nurture, hence the title of that book. Just so you know what you are dealing with if you read any of his work.

Bollocks.

but they aren't the same parents and it isn't the same environment, Libra. The parents have learnt from their first child, they are at the very least the best part of a year older, dc2 is born into a family with an older child rather than being a PFB, etc. etc. etc.

basically you are never going to have all other variables being equal in human personality research.

I think it would be interesting to leave the children out of it completely and study the parents who choose cc and those who do not.

Jusr from my real life experience, those who have used cc have been fairly anxious people. Without CCing both the parenting AND the genetics could lead to 'less secure' or 'anxious' children.

Ah, the Copenhagen study!
Someone had posted it on the other thread
but this study isn't about sleep as such but about responsiveness.

Sorry to put a dampener on things but neither the huggers nor the schedulers 'won'
(If you insist on seeing parenting as a contest!).

The middle-of-the-road, common sense Copenhageners 'won'.

Quote:
'Copenhagen infants cry as little per 24 hours as proximal care infants
but are settled at night like London infants at 12 weeks of age.'

Which they probably achieved by being responsive, caring parents, yes,
AND also teaching their children good sleep habits from an early age.

"Copenhagen parents' practice of placing their infant to sleep in cots during part of the night
meets current recommendations for preventing infant cot death."

I agree Starlight, that would be far more useful than studying the children.

Can't say I think this article is terribly useful, aside from saying more research needs to be done.

My DC4 is the only one who has felt any seperation anxiety, but is the one who has been breastfed for over a year, co-slept, and generally much more attachement parenting-led. DC1 who I had in a routine and did CC (but not leaving him to cry for extended periods admittedly, in the proper sense of CC with regular and frequent reassurance) with is self-assured, confident, and still kisses and hugs me infront of his friends (he is 7).

I researched the study a little more, and agree with DaddyJ - the result (from what I could gather) appeared to be that 'middle of the road' parenting actually led to the happiest babies (assuming you agree with the other assumptions in the study), which is probably what the vast majority of us do anyway!

I thought OJ's reporting of it was actually fairly irresponsible and misleading, given how much weight people might put on the article without ever researching the issue further.