Can I please have your honest opinions on CC? HV is recomending I am not sure.

[eenybeeny]

My HV is recomending CC for my 6 month old.

Our problems with his sleep are these:

1. He only naps in his pram. He screams and screams when I try to get him to nap in his cot during the day.

1. He wakes up to 6 times a night for one thing or another.

1. He wakes anywhere from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. and is ready for the day.

Please give me any advice you have and let me know... is CC cruel? I really dont know. Normally, the thing is, when he cries I want to rush to him to help him. I dont know if I can leave him to cry. Please help!

It was morningpaper who said that CC was not SAFE.

You said:

no evidence that CC does any harm

is not the same as

evidence of no harm

And harpsichordcarrier added the psychological damage claim.

As far as science is concerned none of those statements appear to be valid.

Message withdrawn

Hmm! Coming to this all rather late.
We tried CC with our DS at 10 months when he wasn't sleeping through the night. The decision to do so was because we were all exhausted (including DS) and we'd reached breaking point. We had to find a way of helping DS settle himself off to sleep.

I was a bit of a failure at it I have to say. Firstly I couldn't wait the 10 minutes advised and I found the other version of wait 1 then 2 then 4 mins too complicated (I was exhausted remember). In the end I settled for staying with my DS, not lifting him unless got hysterical and calmly talking to him. It was the easiest way for me - he didn't feel abandoned, I didn't feel I was abandoning him and I could lift and comfort him where necessary. Every 5 mins or so I would re-settle him.

I didn't get the rapid result of the CC regime but after three weeks DS was sleeping through the night.

What did I learn from this? No method is perfect, follow your instincts and adapt all these regimes to suit you and your baby.

My DS is now 4 and fortunately happy and healthy. He continues to sleep well at night (with some normal procrastination at bedtime)

so bloss, is that one way of you avoiding saying that i did not say that control crying is not safe without you actually saying so?

you chased me all over this bloomin thread, pushing me to defend my view! then you claim i said that contral crying is unsafe.

so bloss, and daddy j:
if you told me that you had no evidence that a bottle was full

am i supposed to think that what you meant was that the bottle is empty?

a great leap of faith that is, really. or is it really that you came to the wrong conclusions, as it is human that you can to other things and now are refusing to admit taht you got it wrong?

as i have said in the first post on this thread:

no evidence of harm
is not the same as
evidence of no harm

i stand by that simple statement of logic.

pity you can't see past your emotions and misguided conclusions and face them head on.

PS: bloss, you quoted the AAMIHI saying:

More relevantly, I quote from their own release:
"There have been no studies such as sleep laboratory studies, to our knowledge, that assess the physiological stress levels of infants who undergo controlled crying, or its emotional or psychological impact on the developing child."

back to the 'no evidence of harm' not being the same as 'evidence of no harm' syllogism.

but anyways, then you went on to denigrate them for you not being able to find contact details for them on their website or in the white pages. have you looked properly at their website? or is the way their contact system and national presence operate not suited to you discriminating tastes? if i didn't know any better, i might say you are a diva.

But back to the quote. You already knew since way back on Saturday that a little organisation you can have no respect for is stating something that you seem to agree with? I don't really know what position you hold anymore because i don't think you read that statement properly. or look at the layout of a website properly or even read my statements properly.

so, i agree with you one something finally, its been a bloody waste of time.

.... well not quite...

anytime i am given an opportunity to put the message out there taht no sleep lab has looked at the short medium or long term outcomes of sleep training(a neutral enough word for your discriminating tastes, i hope) then I will let struggling parents know taht fact. in more layman's terms, yeah, mine, they are using their kids as guinea pigs in an experiment no one knows enough about.

Daddyj, i don't intend to trawl through you links until you inform me which one was done in a sleep lab. none of the ones you posted before were sleep lab assessed. i gotta get some work done.

'as i have said in the first post on this thread:'

well, i was only wrong once.
that was the time i thought i was wrong.

You are not wrong there, neither your statement nor the AAMIHI?s can be proven to be completely untrue but they are highly misleading given all the evidence that is available.

The AAMIHI?s comment is

• partly wrong: a sleep lab would be insufficient to assess the ?emotional or psychological impact on the developing child?- round the clock monitoring over several months would be necessary.
• partly untrue: the emotional and psychological impact has been assessed by parents and scientists in study after study.

And hence taken as a whole the statement is pretty useless to parents who are looking for some guidance in plain English. The same unfortunately goes for the rather esoteric ?no evidence of harm etc? claim.

Maybe I will come across a study that has taken measurements of the physiological stress levels before, during and after CC but what I have found so far is something similar that does show ?evidence of no harm? on the basis of an anti-CC favourite, cortisol:
Coping with Aversive Stimulation in the Neonatal Period
If cortisol levels return to normal within 3-4 hours after a painful procedure like circumcision, it is reasonable to think that the same goes for CC which would strongly support what bloss has said all along:
CC is highly unlikely to lead to permanently elevated cortisol levels.

Don?t worry about the studies, they were aimed at parents who are looking for further information on the topic.

I have found one study that you AND bloss will like which would be a nice way of rounding off this fantastic debate. Just give us a day or two, am still a bit snowed under.

Aragon, that sounds like a perfect compromise for many parents! If I understand correctly it is similar to jetjet?s spaced soothing and the link that kiskidee provided on that same thread.
I agree, sift through all the advice, pick what chimes with you and works with the lo, dump the rest.

if you appreciate one my Megan Gunnar, you may appreciate reading this one as well. read from a wide angled view:

it talks about cortisol levels on toddlers in the good ole, us of a. not 'just' in orphanag raised children as someone else seems to think we can learn nothing from their experience.

here

and this one one on prolonged crying. a term i was informed ealier in this thread that scientists don't have a definition for. again.

here

ps: i already saw the stuff on circumcision. i don't think anyone in their right senses would leave a distressed neonate to 'cry it out' after being circumcised. it tells me that pain causes cortisol levels to rise.

Hi, I did cc with my dd when she ws about 10months old as would only go to sleep when rocked.

I found a really good book called sleep solutions in the library which gave full instructions on lots of different methods and advice on how to choose the best method for you. It was only when I read all the background info and options I was able to make a fully informed decision.

My story was a success with dd going to sleep on her own on the first night after 40 mins (not 40mins of cont crying as the book does not recommend this). By night four there were no tears and it has pretty much been that way since and she is now 16months.

Good luck

Kiskidee, I am getting used to you not reading my posts properly ? you didn?t understand the implications of the circumcision study.
And I can?t blame you for not looking at the studies I have posted.

But now it?s getting to the point where you don?t even read your own sources.

Please have another look at the ?prolonged crying? study you linked to. Fortunately, the full text is available for free.

That?s where you will find the definition of prolonged crying: ?daily uncontrolled crying without any obvious cause, persisting for at least 2 weeks?

Again, bloss was right, this has nothing to do with CC or even with sleep as such.
The issue is uncontrolled, excessive crying, a serious condition that affects some infants regardless of what the parents do.

What are you trying to achieve by scaring parents with bogus claims ? or was it just another honest mistake?

maddy'smum - i looked up that book you mentioned on the net but couldn't find one matching that title. Was that the actual title or was it 'someone or others' sleep solutions? Would like to take a peep at it, just need an author. Cheers

what do you think they mean by 'uncontrolled crying'?

a brief scan shows that the term 'prolonged' crying was used far more often than 'uncontrolled' crying. Was there a difinition of either given? was there one intended?

you see, what we are debating is pointless without the knowing the definitions of a lot of the terms that are bandied about.

it goes back to the my original statement that there is insufficient evidence out there to say whether or not CC is safe.

from what i can see, prolonged or uncontolled crying or whatever you want to label it, is linked to raised cortisol levels in babies and raised for a longer period of time than some of us would like to see.

the cause of the crying is possibly irrelevant to the baby and his cortisol levels.

ps, i do understand the implications of the circumsision study. it is saying that after 90 mins cortisol levels return to normal.

you are looking at a one off event in a baby's life. an event for which he is likely to be cuddled and hopefully bf everytime he cries.

not left in his cot to cry it out because it will heal up anyway after a few days.

CC, isn't quite the same.

Many children who have undergone CC are separated from their parents all day as well because both parents work. then they are spending their nights separated from their parents too.

separation from parents seems to be linked with raised cortisol levels as the nursery study shows. separation at nighttime too doesn't seem to alleviate the child's need for contact.

This may be sticking my head above the parapet, but DaddyJ, since you seem to have done the research on this and are broadly supportive of cc, I have a question for you - should it be done before 6 months and if not, why not?

My instincts are against it, but my 4 month old DD is really struggling with sleep and a lot of people I know used it successfully with no apparent problems before 6 months and are encouraging me to do it...any ideas based on the evidence (such as it is) or sound theory would be appreciated.

lilysma - hi!
Me too, scared s*less of doing cc but even more scared of endless sleepless nights. Not good for me or baby. What I want to know is EXACTLY how to do it. Now I bf to sleep which is peaceful and calm. No problem, lovely in fact. Trouble is he needs me to fall back to sleep each time he wakes at night. Need to know if I do cc in the middle of the night or do I withdraw boob at first settling? Want specific instructions I guess. cc or csettling? Are they the same? I don't actually believe that short term fixes like cc have any long term detrimental effects on lo's but I haven't read up. Just makes sense to me that in the grand scheme of things, 3 - 7 nights does not a lifetime maketh!

then cruisemum, you have to ask yourself what if my baby does not settle after 2 or 3 nights of cc as some don't. also, if they do, how do you determine whether your child is waking up because of teething or illness etc and then you leave them for 10 mins to settle themselves, which they will do if cc took. are you willing to condition your child to accept that you do not respond to them in the night unless you know something is wrong. because that is essentially what cc is. conditioning, not understanding. humans can be conditioned to accept just about anything. surely you can condition a child to accept that you don't come into them between 7 pm and 7am unless you know something is wrong.

it is the conditioning effect of cc which may have a long term effect not the 3 nights of tears.

then after they are conditioned and they get truly poorly and you come out of the cc routine, are you willing to recondition them into accepting the routine again? these are questions for you to consider. not answer to anyone.

these are some of the questions i asked myself coupled questions and life experiences with others that are unique to my situation before i decided that cc was not for me.

Is your pram lie-flat? If so, I wouldn't worry about using it for naps, tbh, whatever works so he gets some sleep and you get some rest (if it isn't, unfortunately not a good idea as bad for backs and breathing).

sorry can I just say I cant believe this thread is still going!

eenybeeny,did you actually get any help?is your lo now sleeping?

hi kittypants! Well I have to say this thread wasnt overly helpful for me. The main thing I got was reassurance that I need to follow my instincts. Which I have done and decided against CC.

Alex is sleeping in his cot for naps now (MAJOR breakthrough!) but his night time sleeping is still pretty awful. We are trying other things but it seems to be in the lap of the gods.

,i lost interest in thread!as you said not too helpful .glad you sorted naps.

I simply didnt have the time to keep up with the thread!!! So many words!

Seriously though I understand its a subject people feel passionately about and I hope everyone who has debated on the thread feels a sense of... I dont know, satisfaction, for having a good debate. I really do appreciate it when people post on threads I start as they wouldnt if they didnt care. As I said we just decided CC wasnt for us.

have had start of similar exchange with kiskiidee - is to get a life and start living in the reraldee but honestly people just want helpful advice not self opinionated people spouting out thier views and attempting to bully others into accepting their views.

With any debate on sleep and how to help both child and parents/family - surelt the important thing to do is to read around the subject and ultimately make up your own mind, some things work for some not for others !!

I'm sure I'm not alone in not having either the time or actual incentive to spend my days googling to find all these articles however intersesting - with family and day job - !

My best advice to kiskidee is to start living in the real world , not that of academia !!!
Daddy - good fight!!

Sorry, was abroad on business ? back to the debate with relish!

Lilysma, you certainly are brave ? welcome to the battlefield! I wish I could offer you an answer but I have asked the same question on these boards myself without any proper answer.
You will get the usual suspects shouting about cc not being safe before 6/12 months (or ever!) but apart from the fact that Ferber (who they revile) has revised his book they don?t offer much supporting thought or evidence.
I have not come across a single study that tries to establish at what stage baby is ?ready? for CC.

My personal answer is: when you are ready

We were not ready until our lo was 3-4 months old because until then we did not have a problem, everyone was happily co-sleeping and demand-feeding through the night, lo would wake up maybe 2-3 times which dw could cope with ok.
At 3 months that shot up to 5-7 times and this was no growth spurt either, I have no idea what changed so we went for cc (just for the evening sleep ? we would still take her into our bed for co-sleeping when she woke up between 1-3am) when she was 4 months old.
The studies I have found have based their research on babies between 4 months and older. If I find something further I?ll post it.