Doing controlled crying now - DD seems to have more stamina than me...

[babybouncer]

DD is now 7 months old and given that she has only been sleeping for about 45-90 mins at a time during the night for the past week or so (she's never been a great sleeper - always woken two or three times a night) and feeding her back to sleep has been taking longer and longer, we've decided to try controlled crying. We started at 7 and fully expected it to take and hour, but its now 8:20 and she isn't giving up. She had a big dinner, a couple of ounces of formula and a full breastfeed. The room is not too hot or too cold. Does it just take this long? It's so much hard than I thought it would be...

No, I just wondered what you thought, I dunno, I quite like his views on attachment and object permanence and so on, and it doesn't sit well with CC imo. That's all, but if you can't stand the guy then fair enough.

Controlled crying (going in at increasing intervals while the baby cries) is the Ferber method.

I don't think it is true at all to say that Bowlby has been "discredited". But Eds, I don't recall Bowlby concluding that leaving babies to cry for short periods of time did long term damage? He did conclude that babies stop crying if ignored as they give up and become apathetic, rather than their distress being reduced, but this is the point of controlled crying methods - see the OP regarding the baby "not giving up". It is whether this causes any long term problems which isn't clear.

What method are you using then BB? Out of interest.

Sam, just been reading 'Attachment' and there's a chapter in it describing babies being left for relatively short periods and how they react, it's really interesting.

My mum has gorn off with the book now so I can't quote.

Wasn't it his Maternal deprivation thing that was discredited, not sure about everything else...

Yes, he looked at the reactions of babies left to cry (something like distress-despair-detachment) but I don't recall their being any conclusions about this doing long term harm (though obviously not nice for the baby at the time). His famous work on maternal de/privation involved children who either were prevented from ever making a primary attachment or who experienced separations of several months from their attachment figure in the first 5 years. These had huge consequences (attachment disorders, "affectionless psycopathy", delinquency) but of course were very different to learning your attachment figure does not always respond/responds inconsistently to cries as an otherwise securely attached baby.

Also when you say Child Psychologist, do you mean you studied psychology, or that it is your job? I think that has a bearing on those of us engaging with you on this thread.

You can safely assume I have no qualifications in this field, fwiw.

Elphaba, sorry but what a load of nonsense.

and you called us lot rude, Anna?

Well,

Sam, no, I haven't got that far so I don't know about long term consequences.

It just is something that seems counterintuitive to me - that's all.

Elphaba - there are loads of ways to sleep train a baby though. It isn't a choice between leaving them to cry alone OR doing nothing and hoping for the best

I didn't 'reference' him. I said I liked him, had no idea if he concluded CC would cause long term damage, and asked BB what she thought.

You've totally misrepresented what I, at least, am trying to do, or put across.

Why is there such aggression here? All I basically said was that there are other ways to get a baby to sleep that don't involve so much hard work on both parts.

Calling people names doesn't achieve anything. Aren't we all on the same side?

and not all his research was done on abused children afaik. I don't think the bits I was reading involved abused and neglected children. I'll check though.

I just thought it was interesting.

Elphaba - Bowlby did some research with children who experienced long periods of separation, and some research with normally attached infants.

and calling me, for instance, a superior mother is about as bollocks as it gets! You should SEE how rubbish I am.

7 months, leaving a child to cry is not okay in my mind. And I had two very very sleepless years with my last two children (reflux) and two perfect sleepers before them.

OP. Does your baby sleep during the day? Is she alone at night? Is she generally a happy child? Does she get enough fresh air? Does she have worms? etc etc until you find out why she isn't sleeping at night.

In answer to your OP, OP, yes it can take a while and yes it does feel hard.

DD1 slept through after 4 nights of CC (1st one was pretty awful but now she's 3.5 and never wakes in the night).
DD2 slept through on her own.
DS is nearly 8 months and still wakes once in the night for a big bottle of milk. Once he is taking 3 proper meals a day and a good 8oz bottle at 7pm (prob by 1 year), we will do CC to get him through the night if he isn't doing it on his own.

I am happier when I sleep through, so are my children. Helping them get there after 3 or so nights of crying was absolutely fine by me.

A hopefully constructive suggestion for OP and others trying to stop the all-night sucking -
Introduce a comforter asap if your babies don't already have one. Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution has details of how to do this effectively. It's a great long-term measure imo and a good sleep association.