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.

Hopefully, I understood that the studies suggested that middle of the road AND huggers lead to the happiest babies, implying that the third option was potentially harmful!?

I agree that the reporting wasn't the best though. I'm sure you're right that most mothers are down the middle, caught up between trying to get their babies to sleep through the night AND responding to them.

The study suggested that the copenhagen parenting was the most successful (well, it didn't say successful, but led to less crying), because what 'proximal' parenting (baby led/attachment parenting to us mere mortals) led to more crying at 12 weeks, while parent led parenting (or whatever it called it) led to more crying at 5 weeks. therefore both extremes of parenting led to higher incidences of crying at some stage.

I wish more research were done into this - it would be fascinating and a real insight into modern parenting techniques. Although I agree with others that it is virtually impossible to take account of all the variables.

Thanks missed that in my skin!

skin?

I meant 'skim'!!!

I often find the skin I'm wearing affects my reading ability

i never left my ds to cry, not even for a minute yet he was the most anxious, sensitive, unsettled baby i have ever ever met. i know my case is just one of thousands and i still wouldn't leave him to cry.

Starlight, you said "from my real life experience, those who have used cc have been fairly anxious people".

Well I used controlled crying - at 3 months - and I'm one of the most laid back, calm people, as everyone who knows me comments. Our daughter is a perky, confident, sociable, happy bunny with no anxieties. The question is, is that considered 'real life'?

I have used CC too with my DS when he was 6 months old, not because I was anxious but because he was waking every hour for a feed through the night and I was a walking zombie. It was the best thing by far for both of us- after a few nights he was sleeping through and mummy and baby have been a lot happier since! He is very secure IMO, goes to anyone, can play with people and on his own, is smiley most of the time, has a great personality and rarely cries (he is now 13 months) and I am a pretty laid back person. So I don't think you can't transfer these theories to real life all the time!

DontEat Of course, and I have been known to be anxious but I don't do CC. Only anetdotal, however it would be interesting to study the personality traits of the parents who do CC and compare them with those who do not, and see if there was any pattern - doncha think?

It could be as simple as ability to cope without sleep (although this certainly wouldn't apply to me).

It strikes me that there could be something about the parents who cope with babies that do not sleep in the way they desire, to turn to CC in particular. I would be interested to see.

That would be a very interesting study, Starlight. I wish someone would do it! Oliver James is right in one respect, that there should be more research done on this.

I'm probably more of a Copenhagen parent (whatever that is, they didn't define their terms or the numbers involved very clearly) in that I didn't do controlled crying but didn't co-sleep or have ds in a sling either (was too worried about tripping and falling).

There is also another scenario, Starlight: parents whose child is unsettled from day one, due to other causes (medical, individual etc) gradually turn into an anxious parent (A) who needs support in a way that is really alien to their nature.

The same parent with another child might parent in a different more relaxed way (B).

Also, parent of anxious baby may find that they are being nudged into the CC position by people around them.

I thought I had everything going for me when it came to relaxed parenting and was totally thrown when my parenting experience wasn't like that. Now of course I know that dd is disabled and couldn't be in any other way. If I had known at the time I might have been more relaxed, but at the time it was very difficult not to feel that I was doing things wrong and that it was vitally important that I gained control.