New proof about the dangers to your baby of letting them cry it out...

[jesk]

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out

I'll let the article speak for itself.
I never did controlled crying, I had my girls in our bed from the start.
Now they are great sleepers, and lovely gentle children.
Please take the time to read this.

Really interesting. It fits my parenting style, but I imagine it will be a bit controversial for some!

I hate things like this. I have twins. Pre-term, refluxy, colicy twins. I spend a huge amount of my day listening to one cry whilst I am dealing with the other one, or the mountains of meds prep/washing/etc that 2 very vommy babies produce. So whilst this does all make sense to me, really it's just one more thing to add to the epically long list of things I feel guilty about.

It's not new proof of anything, it's some stuff from some fairly old studies put together with a lot of conjecture...

there is no "new proof" in this badly written article. The author' most recent references are 2006.

this is a very biased article extrapolating wildly on cherry-picked studies and theorists.

I fact it is so biased, I wonder what the motivation is for writing it?

what Puddle said

oh Peeling

I also have twins. I spent their babyhood frantically b/fing/attending to one while the other one screamed. In the 30 minutes a day when one of them wasn't actually crying, I could be found in a heap somewhere, sobbing that I was "ruining their babyhood" by not giving them enough attention

now, at 8, they are great sleepers- but spend most of their waking hours squabbling, playing pokemon, eating crisps and watching telly

don't beat yourself up

the dangers? what a load of bollocks.

Oh and how much attention do you pay to the dangers of co sleeping?

I don't think this article is actually describing what is commonly called CIO. It seems to be describing the method of child-rearing my parents used, which was the Truby King method. You put your baby in a pram at the bottom of the garden, and just ignore it until its 4 hourly feed is due. You don't pick it up or cuddle it, because that "makes a rod for your own back". As an alternative you shut it in a room indoors and go somewhere where you can't hear the crying.

As a child rearing method it stinks, and I can personally vouch for the comments in that article about the child growing up not trusting people and having trouble forming relationships. And developing IBS.

My own DD was one of those with "evening colic" who screamed for 3 hours straight every night from about 3 months old. However the condition is self limiting, and hasn't affected her longterm, anymore than having to leave one twin crying while seeing to the other would. It is a matter of extremes.

I would imagine there are very few (if any) parents inflicting this on babies these days.

Well said tallulah,

Think there is a big difference in letting your LO cry for a few minutes when you nip to the loo!

My LO crys before he sleeps (he's 7.5mo). It's just the norm for him. I pop him in his cot and he tends lie quite happy for a few minutes then has a cry. I go back in, in 5 mins pop his dummy in give him a kiss and majority of the time he konks out. He wakes up happy with big smiles. I really think a small degree of crying is normal, its what a baby does. Hats off to people with twins or more.

Think articles like that are as peeling says are just another thing to feel guilty about.

All i want is happy healthy baby, i really dont think i am a terrible person because i let my baby cry.

Didn't even bother to read it.

Worked beautifully for my family. I read some posts about mothers on their knees due to lack of sleep and grumpy babies lacking in sleep and I am dumbstruck. They sounds like they are having a hellish time... both mother and baby. However they scorn the notion of cc/ crying it out.

We did it after DS started early waking. After weeks of faffing about trying different things, we left him for 50 mins crying, then silence. I crept in and he was sleeping soundly. He slept until 7.30 and woke in a delightful mood. It only required one night.

3 months later, he is still waking at 7.30am.

But I digress, my point of posting was to point out how insufferably smug the OP sounds. We have all met mums like it, and we know the type of off spring they produce... the children / teenagers / adults that never quite fit in because to be be brutally honest, they just don't 'get' how to be a decent, kind, open-minded and non-judgemental person because their parents did not display these traits.

Rather than focussing on the really importanbt aspects of parenting, they dwell on a technique that has worked for many and pour scorn over it.

Hear hear bbface!

Are the majority of people really decent, kind, open-minded and non-judgemental? Where does the daily mail find its readers these days?
Sorry - an aside - not read article as the link alone makes me suspect it is a rehash of previous research + speculation. Wish papers would stop writing deliberately provocative articles just to wind people up

Mercibucket... yep, I would say the majority of people are like this. Forgetting what we read in the paper for a moment, look around you, aren't the majority of people that you know decent?

Must have missed the 'new' bit

I wasn't even going to bother posting - but felt that PeelingMyselfOffTheCeiling and others need to hear it from as many people as possible it's a lot of shite needing to leave the baby cry while you go to the loo/deal with their twin or sibling etc and even CIO is not going to traumatise them for life.

As Tallulah said, it's more relating to the Truby King style of parenting - which probably was a bit damaging to some children, but even that didn't seem to traumatise an entire generation!

Psychological studies consistently show the majority of people would administer a lethal dose of electricity to someone else, so long as they were asked to do so by someone in a position of responsibility. In genocides such as rwanda, perfectly normal people prove capable of acts of utter depravity. If you collapse in the street most people would ignore you. Psychology is interesting but a bit scary as an insight into the human condition! (Not that I've studied it deeper than youtube) sorry for hijack - just it always seemed to me that those on the outside, as you describe, are often the minority with more morals, generosity and kindness than the great majority.

Psychological studies consistently show the majority of people would administer a lethal dose of electricity to someone else, so long as they were asked to do so by someone in a position of responsibility. In genocides such as rwanda, perfectly normal people prove capable of acts of utter depravity. If you collapse in the street most people would ignore you. Psychology is interesting but a bit scary as an insight into the human condition! (Not that I've studied it deeper than youtube) sorry for hijack - just it always seemed to me that those on the outside, as you describe, are often the minority with more morals, generosity and kindness than the great majority.

I have read the article and nowhere have I found by real proof of how CIO or cc affects the adult the baby becomes, and you know why that is? Because like feeding, the decision to use sleep training is only one small decision in a huge box of decisions you will make for the good of your child.

Who can say that it is a contributing factor to any issues that may arrive, it could equally be too much nurture, too little, divorce, abuse, bullying, self esteem issues, eating disorders, domestic violence, tragedy...

Any number of random things that no-one plans for and no-one forsees can happen in the life of a child and can all be a deciding factor on how they turn into adults.

I could never see myself ignoring my child for an hour, but then I have never been at the level of sleep deprivation that others have ( there is a reason why the CIA used it in guantanamo)

In the end we all make the decisions we feel are best for our children, it is down to ourselves not to be intimidated into toeing a line no-one can define.

People don't always necessarily make the decisions they feel are best for their children.

Peeling are you me?!

6mth pre term, colicky, refluxy twins with piles of washing, piles of guilt... Oh and a 3 1/2 yr old ds somewhere around too!

Op, please dont be smug, apologies if you arent but you certainly sound it, congratulations on your perfect children

Cinquefoil

Barring the obvious case of child abusers ( or at least I figured that would be an obvious omission) how could you feel confident in declaring that someone is or isn't making the best decision for their child?

And why would you think they wouldn't?

antsy, Of course I couldn't. And neither could you. Which is the point. We can't automatically assume either way. Some people might be making the best decision for themselves, at the expense of their child, and it might not be so clear cut and obvious as outright abuse.

All sorts of scenarios, really. If you think cc and cio are wrong, which plenty of people do, then by definition you think that the parents who do it are not making the best decision for their children.

I think it is wrong for me, I have no more moral objection to it than any other decisions people make, suck as dietary, religious, cultural or educational decisions, in the end if making a decision that benefits you in the main, and by doing so makes you a better and more capable parent, then ultimately that makes it a decision that is best for your child.

There is no need for people to martyr themselves on motherhood, there is already enough guilt and pressure put on you from yourself Even before society butts in.

What a terribly written, scientifically illiterate article that is, OP.

I appreciate everyone saying how just leaving 1 twin to cry whilst you settle the other is fine, but for those of you without twins it is not 5 or 10 minutes here and there. Feeding my 2 is a 3 stage process involving boobs, bottles, multiple medications... If god forbid they wake hungry at exactly the same time you can easily get to 45 mins of crying. Which as another thread has established, is unacceptable...