I disagree with leaving children to cry especially at night

[serena]

I have been making comments to this effect and feel that I am alone on this site in not following Gina Ford routines etc. I really wanted to know if there are others out there who might agree with me .

Hi Serena, not sure about the relevance of the title of this thread to Gina Ford routines.And I don't know what you mean by "etc".
It is a misconception that GF is in favour of leaving children to cry. The whole thrust of her methods is they encourage babies in to a pattern of sleep which is both natural and comfortable for them .Whether you agree with her concept or indeed her methods is another thing but she certainly does not advocate leaving children to cry.
I have yet to meet a parent who "agrees" with leaving children to cry as such. Those I have spoken to who tried controlled crying did it because they were at the end of their tether, and decided a few nights sleep training was for the greater good of all concerned.I don't think anyone makes this decision lightly or would like to be described as someone who "agrees with leaving children to cry, especially at night".
We all make our own decisions about how to bring up our children, and the world would be a scary place if we all had exactly the same ideas!
I am particularly wary about being critical of others using problem solving metods for problems I am fortunate not to have encountered with my children.
You are certainly not alone in this site re. following GF. routines - it is a minority who do....but it seems the numbers are growing!
As for the "etc", depending on what you mean exactly there are probably lots of mumsnetters who do the "etc"!
DO you have children?

Not intending to kick off a row here but I picked up Gina Ford last night and had a quick flick through. I was taken aback to read that if your baby isn't sleeping through the night at 5 months you should definitely consider sleep training in order to avoid bad habits later. Well my daughter is now 5 months and isn't remotely sleeping through but frankly I wouldn't countenance any sort of "training" programme. My son was the same at her age but has developed into a champion 7 - 7.30 sleeper. Also, the case studies I scanned contained repeated references to babies "screaming" for 25 minutes or so as part of her efforts to "cure" them.

I know many of you swear by her and I definitely think that her book can be incredibly useful if simply used as a tool rather than a bible. But her tone is very dictatorial and I do think that for mothers suffering from a lack of self-confidence, some of her statements could make them feel very bad indeed.

Hi serena I'm almost frightened to make any comment re GF after myself and some others did so the last time to be told we were spouting "judgemental cr*p" but heregoes!

I happen to agree, I have not read GF so have to take it word of mouth that this is what she says. Certainly those who have taken the routine and worked out what they will and will not follow as regards this have probably gotten the best out of it however my concern is that a new mother who is clinging to a book like this for advice and support may be terrified to do anything other than follow her advice to the letter.

I do have one experience of someone following the CLB routine and after hearing the experience it did not leave me wanting to try it. One of my friends had her second baby recently and her SIL had her first baby at the same time. My friend has two of the most contented babies I have ever met and yes when they were very small she pandered to their every whimper. Her SIL however was following the CLB routine and my friend was shocked to hear the advice she was handing out about leaving her tiny (only a couple of weeks old) baby to cry to try to get her into this routine, telling my friend that she spoils her baby by going to her all the time, then the SIL was waking her up when she was sleeping because she had gone past the magic hour etc, etc. Now I do not know if my friend's SIL was taking the CLB routine to the extreme but to me it seemed that this could be a danger with mothers determined to follow it to the letter. I also met another pregnant mum having her first baby who said she had read a book (can only presume here it was the CLBB) that advocated waking the baby early in the morning and making sure that you are both bathed, baby fed, mum breakfasted by a certain time and she was in a right state about this, didn't know how she was going to do it. I however do not believe in being in bed all day but feel there could be a compromise here, when my DS was tiny I was very pleased with myself if I had completed the above tasks by about 10am/10.30am.

Anyway sorry to ramble on I have noticed that these routines seem to work well for some but from what I have heard I will not be following them.

Serena, I don't think anyone agrees that you should leave children to cry indefinitely especially if they are extremely distressed or ill or need attending to for some reason.

But, IMO, there's nothing wrong with the odd bit of controlled crying (as per Christopher Green and other childcare writers) as a method of sleep training. Is that what you meant?

I don't think you're alone in not following GF but it clearly works for some people so that's good for them. I may be missing your point here. If I am, sorry!

Bells- as you know I have read GF back to back many times... so I think I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the case stories you refer to are of mothers who called in GF when their babies were several months old and crying a lot, not sleeping well,.... she didn't make them cry - they were already big cruers- but as she was asked to help, she did have to let them cry a
little bit as she "had" to resort to CC.
She does CC with a maximum of 20 minutes and she is always next to the door (at least that's how she tells it).

IME, Babies who are on GF don't need CC it is those who are poor sleepers/feeders and who do not settle well and who'se mother wans to introduce a routine or change that need CC!

Serena - you are not alone in not liking GF---- please do not pretend you didn't know that : Lizzer, SueDonim and Scummymummy to name just a few are well-know anti-GF

P.S. I am also aware of plenty of pro-GF who are too frightened of the anti GF - "how can you do this to your poor baby" - to post under their real name.... how sad is that ?

I have never read Gina Ford but have read the Baby Whisperer and some of it was good advice. I know my DD has a routine and lives by it, she loves it but i haven't had to let her cry because she normally goes to sleep fine. Thankfully - apart of course from the last 6 days nightmare ! The only time she doesn't is for her daytime naps sometimes when she prefers to sleep outside in her pram than sleep in her cot and I must admit I let her.
I think this is a very touchy subject because each parent has their own feelings about how to deal with issues like this and sometimes, when desperate for sleep, it's necessary I guess. I do know that for the first 6 months of my dd's life I never put her down and there was no routine and she cried a lot. As soon as I had a routine and put her down regularly for naps she was a different baby. I haven't ever left her to cry because I haven't had to. I don't think it is something that any parent enjoys in fact I know that a lot of my friends have done it and the mother is in tears downstairs. But they tell me after a couple of days they are all happier and better rested.
I also remember reading somewhere that crying is good for babies. Not sure about this though. Has anyone else read this. It was something like a certain amount of crying is good because it helps them exercise their anxieties and if they don't do this then they still have them.

I have been told by my osteopath that crying for newborns is essential... he said this to me as DD never (and still hardly) ever cries... to do with irrigating some of their "canals" ?!??! So he did suggest that my 10 days old be left to cry for 2 to 3 minutes when she started.... believe me we were struggling with that as she was not interested in crying.

BTW both my babies have never cried much - both on GF. DS was MUCH happier on GF (first 3 weeks of his life he would cry non-stop in my arms between 1 and 4 AM- a dream - HV and midwives said nothing you can do.... it will sort itself out!) that is WHY we tried the routines.
Since then I don't think either has cried for more than 10 minutes a day. DS has had worst days in toddlerhood of course but fundamentally they don't cry... is it genes ??? I wonder ???

I mix & match bits of GF (& have met her! - for work - and she wasn't a bit like I'd imagined) with my own instincts..dd isn't a big crier either..I think a lot of it is tied up with the genes, I'm sure you're predisposed to have a certain type of personality, although this can obviously be heavily influenced by the environment you grow up in. I remember dd crying in the night when she was tiny, but this could nearly always be remedied by nappy change, feed, cuddles..one friend's ds used to cry constantly even when he was in her arms, which I found baffling and distressing - colic was the label put on it, and he did improve greatly around 3 mths in so that was probably the cause. dh is much stricter than me with going to dd on rare occasions she does wake in the night...I'd rather go into her bedroom sooner & find out what's bothering her, he's more for letting her cry, but as I'm nearly always the one she wants I tend to cuddle her after a couple of minutes.

So what is she like???? Dispell the myth !

Fair point Pupuce - actually I think it's her writing style more than anything that I find annoying. She comes across to me as very smug, unemotional and very matter of fact. I also don't find statements of when babies should be sleeping through the night based on their age particularly helpful.

We have never used controlled crying and never actively sought to impose a routine as such. It has just been a case of gradually pushing out boundaries. My daughter sleeps in my arms and yes I am tired because she feeds at least 3 - 4 times a night. However, I love the physical closeness (especially after being at work all day) and also I know she will be a baby for such a short time that it doesn't bother me. Co-sleeping has worked very well for us and has been lovely!.

well....very short and shall we say quite plump? a very strange accent (kind of borders, I suppose, but you could hear bits of geordie) and a bit - how can I put this - sartorially challenged. She may have smartened up since then, it was a while back & I'm sure she's done a lot more tv since then. Even though she was a tad nervous I was terribly impressed by her confidence over her methods and how she'd incorporated ideas from different cultures into her methods. but she was much more like a nice - if quite strict - auntie than I'd expected thanks to the spectacular success of her books.

How interesting, bundle! I easily forget these theorists are real people.

Serena, I am confused by your original question. Babies can be anything from 1 day old to, what? 12 months old. I'd say few mothers would feel OK about leaving a newborn crying in its cot without comforting it, but might feel a better about using controlled crying for a 12 month old baby. And then you get to toddlers of course - IMO they need a long, sound, sleep at night, but in ensuring this, are you advocating using exactly the same methods that you think works for a newborn? ie being cuddlerd to sleep, co sleeping etc. It seems to me from reading your stuff that you see no progression of approach from a newborn to a toddler, but I may be misreading you

I'm also curious about why you're lumping Gina Ford and Christopher Green together. I havn't followed GF at all, havn't read the book, didn't know of her existance when I had newborns. I don't think I would have ever stuck to her routines, but can see it works for some people and believe it can be sensibly interpreted. But not by me

I have read Christopher Green on 'Toddler Taming' and 'TT and beyond' and feel he talks lots of sense, though I'm not a slavish believer. IME, I find CG more relevant to my toddlers than GF would have been to my babies. However, on GF I am speaking from a position of ignorance, so I will stop right now!

I too am against methods that leave babies (or small children) crying, however "controlled" it is - you are not alone in this serena!

Serena, I understand where you are coming from this and I am an utter whimp about leaving ds to cry. However, all babies/toddlers are different and I honestly do think that some are better left for 5 - 10 mins to cry. If the crying seems to be tailing off and shortly afterwards they go to sleep you know that they were just crying because they were so knackered. If they seem to be getting more anguished then it is time to try something else.
We have had long struggles at various stages of ds's 2.5 year long life with him sleeping and I have never left him to cry for more than 10 mins, but I know that sometimes he gets so tired he will cry before he goes to sleep and that if I keep popping in to comfort him every moment he starts crying, he just stays awake longer and gets into an even worse state.
I would like to think that no parent leaves a baby/toddler to cry for the sake of it and I feel that those who do try leaving their babies for a short period if they are following some kind of routing are doing it because they think it may be the solution to a problem.

Just to add my bit, GF only really recommends controlled crying in instances where the parents are at their wits end and have not had a night's sleep for months. I did this with my dd just a week ago now, and to me it was a necessity. She had started screaming when we put her to bed (after previously sleeping through fine since she was 4 months old following GF rountine and she is now 21 months) and would only stop if we stayed in the room with her. Sometimes I would be in there for up to an hour before I could sneak off. Then she would wake twice in the night and me and dh took it in turns to stay with her again. After a couple of days we were both shattered, and as dh drives for a living I was really concerned that this had to stop. We looked for a reason why she should suddenly start crying at night but could find none, the only explanation we could come up with was that she had got into a habit, knowing that we would come if she cried.
So on my sister's advice (not a GF follower) we let her cry herself to sleep. This was awful and I would not recommend it unless you really have to. She cried for 45 mins the first night, woke up once in the night and cried around 20 minutes then. But after that first night, the crying got shorter until on the fourth night it stopped altogether and she was happy as larry once more. It started up again this last week so we did the crying thing once more and we have managed to nip it in the bud.

I know a lot of you may think how cruel and awful, but she was tired and grumpy during the day whilst she was playing up, so was her mummy and dh was going to work tired. Now we are a lot happier. So don't knock it - it may happen to you one day!

BTW, GF does say in the chapter on crying that she would be mortified if one of her babies cried for more than an hour each day. The idea of the book is to have a happy and contented baby. For most people their babies fit into the routines quite well as they fit around the babies natural sleep patterns. But if your baby has sleep problems and you take it to a sleep clinic, one of the methods they will suggest is controlled crying. They know it is in the best interests of the baby to sleep all night, as well as the parents!

Louisa- I might well agree with you if your sentence started with the word "Ideally" and had the word "my" inserted before the word "children". I'm certainly not particularly fond of Gina Ford, as my old sparring partner Pupuce has mantioned.

I would be interested to hear about your own parenting experiences. Can you give some positive advice on how to achieve your ideal of a never-left-crying child? Up to what age do you follow this policy? (I ask because I remember some champion and emotion-releasing solitary cries as an older child/teenager/adult at which I would not have rejoiced at the presence of my parents!)

Do you accept the concept of parental stress, I wonder? What should we do if our child's cries are eliciting aggressive or despairing emotions within us? Is it wrong to leave the room?

Scummymummy, I think it's absolutely right to leave the room. I have been so fed up with DD occasionally that I have put her somewhere safe, cot or something and then left the room to compose myself for a few minutes before going in and trying to comfort her / start again.

There are a couple of things I want to say here. I know that my dd and I think most babies, react greatly to the moods / emotions around them. My dd senses when I'm wound up / frustrated and just gets more wound up and upset herself. She is only 7 months but has a real little temper on her.

This I know, when DD was 6 weeks old she started to scream everynight from 6pm and was INCONSOLABLE and I mean inconsolable. DH and I were almost in tears each night and would jig her around, pass her between us, try singing, playing, rocking, everythig for about 2 hours and the crying would just get worse. It was awful. We even called the doc out and he patronisingly told us not to be silly she just had colic. I swear if you were in our house you would have thought we'd chopped her legs off ! But you know what, it wasn't colic and I think this is a highly overused term. I tell you what it was. She was tired and she was trying to tell us she was tired and we'd missed the signs. She wanted to be put down to go to sleep and the more we tried to stop her crying by doing things the more overstimulated she became and the harder it was for her to drop off. Now she was desperately tired and just wanted to sleep.

Once we'd figured this out and had a routine she was so happy and content and now never cries except for a few minutes after her bath (hates getting out and being dressed ) and if she's overtired.

When she is too tired and won't give in / keeps fighting sleep during the day I will put her in her cot or outside and she will cry - I don't actually leave her but stay with her but won't pick her up, instead try to soothe her to sleep. It works 99% of the time. I won't get her up because I know that she is desperately tired and needs me to help teach her how to sleep. She will be so much happier when she wakes and she is always. We did this during the night to stop her wake ups. We'd go in, give her a dummy, stroke her head etc until she went to sleep. She would complain bitterly at first but after a few goes, didn't do it anymore and is so much happier when she's better rested.

I think another thing that should be mentioned that hasnt' been so far is that a mother should also know her babies cries and if something is wrong, should never be left to cry. I will always pick my dd up if her cry is anything other than her ratty, overtired, angry cry which she often does when she can't quite get to sleep for a few minutes before sleeping. If a mother knows her babies cries she knows if something else is wrong and if she needs to respond by picking up.

Having read both GF and CG... I can say that GF makes far more sense (to me) than CG !!! And I didn't think so from what I "knew" of CG before I read him actually... so it is interesting what sort of impression we have from books/authors until we actually read them !
At the risk of repeating myself : GF books are FAR more than routines. You can read her book get a lot of it and STILL not use the routine. My colleague did read the book for her 2nd baby - hates the idea of routine and has therefore chosen not to follow the routine but she did tell me that some of what GF had written made her understand what she had done "wrong" the first time (in particular sleep associations and feeding patterns) - I do know that for her 2nd baby she did follow the suggestions but not the routine.

CC could be used to good effect without having to follow GF or anybody else's routines. I personally would not be happy to do this with a little baby but would try it with an older baby/toddler who was otherwise happy and well fed and just needed a little help to settle into a better routine. I am in agreement with offering plain water to older babies who wake in the night wanting comfort feeds etc as I understand this would obviously be a bad habit to carry on. Obviously for some following GF etc works for them but I'm sure most mums would find their own way to contented little babies and would not have the pressure of trying to conform to someone else's routine.

I never read GF but read Tracey Hogg who is another routine suggester but not as harsh as I understand it. I simply followed my own instinct and actually, DD really developed her own feeding and sleeping routine with a little help from me other than the bedtime thing. Once I understood her signals it was easy to develop a routine to suit her and now she is a stickler for it.

One amusing addition. A HV said to one of my friends when she was talking about routine etc. "So has your dd read the CLBB?" Hope this makes you giggle

Also interested to hear about your own personal experiences serena.

I had a miserable baby who cried A LOT. Took her to a cranial osteopath, did GF, and in two days she became a happy contented baby like magic. What can I say, she loves routine. Still does, and she's nearly 2.5. Next baby might not, who knows. Dp made me leave dd crying in her cot when she was 10 days old, he insisted I eat my supper in peace. When he went to check on her, after 20 minutes, she was fast asleep. Neither of us believe she suffered or was scarred mentally in anyway because of this. And hey, I had eaten a meal and had a break, which may have helped my feeding. serena, what do you think?

Tillysmummy, I think you're so right about the crying sometimes being due to tiredness and not colic. We had a terrible time with ds, and spent hours walking and rocking him etc etc. However, I found that after dd was born, being a more experienced mum, I could tell when a cry was 'I'm tired so I'm going to grizzle for a bit and then drop off' and when a cry was serious. Consequently dd got plenty of cuddles, and certainly wasn't ignored when she was really upset, but she also didn't get jiggled about when what she really wanted was to be left to go to sleep. Looking back at the time when ds was a baby I'm sure we could have had an easier time if we'd relaxed a bit and not panicked immediately he let out a whimper! (Easy to say with hindsight, of course - as anxious new parents dealing with the only baby either of us had ever had anything to do with, it wasn't that simple!)

Azzie, we did exactly that and to be honest for the first 8 weeks I didn't know what her different cries were but now I do like clockwork and can tell. If I'd known that earlier on I think she woulnd't have cried so much but I panicked every time she cried and had to pick her up etc. Now I know why she's crying and NEVER leaver her if she's distressed, in fact I never leave her for any lenght of time time but if I need the loo I'll put her in her cot or wheely chair and go and if she cries that's too bad, I need to go to the loo ! I know her cries so well and I know now that the angry cry she had when they said it was colic was her grumbly going to sleep cry which turned into an angry frustrated cry because she wasn't being left alone / being able to sleep.

Having looked at the comments on this thread (including my own) it appears to me that almost everyone is following some routine be it GF, CG or have found their own way, probably helped along the way by Midwives, HVs, family, friends, info in magazines and websites etc. As I have said before I prefer to go with the flow and as a family we set our own routines with influences from the above. At the end of the day does it matter. You are certainly not alone serena on not being a GF follower but I am sure if we are all honest we don't achieve contentment in our children totally on our own. I always appreciate hearing how other mums do it, although wouldn't always agree with the methods chosen and although saying all this still don't agree with letting small babies cry for long.