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!

Eenybeeny, I am really really sorry that this happened to your thread and I hold my hands up for my part in this. I hope the other threads have given you more useful information.

At least now you know for certain that CC is not for you, that?s a result!

I really like Mumsnet, it has saved us so many times, so I felt very strongly that we need to keep it free from fabrications, ideology and the bullying that goes with it when people think only their beliefs are right.

Nik66, if only she did live in Academia! We have been given a whole bunch of sources, none of them academic, none of them conclusive, all of them quasi-religious.

I finally had a chance to look at the AAIMHI website and read their infamous statement on Controlled Crying in full. It was issued in November 2002 and revised in March 2004 so it is fairly recent and yet this is what it says underneath the Bibliography text:
?The list below is not specifically for studies on the impact of controlled crying on infants because there are no records of such studies.?

Now that we know there is actually an abundance of such studies the question is whether the AAIMHI is completely incompetent in their chosen field.
Or whether they are just liars.

Kiskidee, seeing as you believe in their statement which one do you think it is?

Cruisemum1, if you still want to know more I am happy to answer your questions but, you know, I have read a lot of your posts and I sense straight CC would not be suitable for you ? correct me if I am wrong!

What did you think of all the softly-softly versions of CC that people have posted?

Kiskidee, your source clearly states the definition of Prolonged crying.
? "Prolonged crying" was defined as "daily uncontrolled crying without any obvious cause, persisting for at least 2 weeks" but in contrast to colic, was reported both at 6 weeks of age and at the 13 week visit.?

When they say ?was defined? what they mean is that they were putting forward a definition. Can you see the definition for the trees?

You must read these sources properly otherwise you will scare yourself silly for no reason. Prolonged crying is a medical condition, what causes the crying is absolutely important to the conclusions.

Can you imagine the anguish of parents whose lo cries and cries and cries for no obvious reason?
And then they are told that their child?s development will be negatively affected and scientists can only ?speculate that irritability caused by subtle underlying neurological problems may be the cause of prolonged crying.?
It?s heartbreaking.
You should not drag this into the debate, kiskidee, it?s rather cruel and completely irrelevant.

Three more papers on prolonged crying, all confirming that we are dealing with a medical condition and giving clear definitions of what it is. (literature review , study , discussion )

I know you are increasingly forced to clutch at hairs and split straws but please post responsibly.

I found scientific studies that claim untreated sleep problems in infants can lead to severe behavioural problems, including ADHD, later on.
I chose not to post them as it was not clear how bad these sleep problems were and I did not want to panic parents.

We are not discussing medical conditions here. Post something that?s actually relevant.

[yawn] you're still here! and living in ahem Academia?

nik, did you sell your old book?

and will the last person please turn out the light?

the fat lady has sung.

Daddy J just wanted to give you a huge big pat on the back you're doing a great job. I've been really concerned about some of Kiskidee's posts myself which I feel are frequently irresponsible.

Kiskidee there will be many sleep deprived, desperate mums of newborns at their wits ends who will be reading this, they need balanced advice not sanctimonious bullying.

For others who may be as desperate as we were we did a form of cc with our 3 who are all 3 and under(2 of which are twins). As a result they all sleep and have slept 7till 7 from a very early age (a few months old), it didn't take very long at all, a few nights really maybe a week.

The reason we did was that we couldn't cope without sleep, I couldn't care for them properly in the day, it was affecting my bonding with the twins, I was worried about having an accident when on my own. I was getting resentful and cross towards them. I know all of us are different but I was a normal, real person living in the real world, not a baby expert at all and I found caring for 3 babies without sleep impossible. So we figured a few nights of some kind of watered down cc would be better than months maybe years of resentment and stress.

We were sooo right!!!! When I go and check on my 3 before going up for my lovely 8 hours of sleep I see 3 normal, gorgeous,non damaged children enjoying a lovely night of sleep. No cortisone flying about, just sleep. To me this is far better than continuous,stressful nightly battles of screaming, picking up, putting down etc. I have no scientific evidence for this it's just a hunch.

MilaMae, my pleasure. Nik66, thank you.

The Americans would affectionately call the anti-CC lot ?flat-earthers? but in this context their stupidity can do a lot of damage to vulnerable mothers, families and babies.

Kiskidee, I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you are finally trying to sneak off ? by feigning boredom. How original, how Jeffery Archer! Just as we found out that your entire point was based on a lie.

Time for au revoir? Mais non?

There is an obvious analogy in the circumcision study, applied to CC this is what would happen:

The very first night cortisol levels would shoot up because of the long crying spell and, for argument?s sake, stay up until the next morning.
You then cuddle, kiss lo, spend loads of quality time with him and cortisol levels drop back to normal.
The next night the crying period is shorter and cortisol levels go up but not as much. The following day again you give lo all the love and attention in the world, cortisol levels drop back to normal.
Repeat this a few more nights and your lo sleeps soundly and cortisol levels are permanently at a normal level.

I have to stress through: this explanation for why CC is safe, is for people who don?t trust parents and want to get the answers through physiological measures like cortisol ? people like you, kiskidee.

I rather recommend the studies based on parental observations and feedback.

I wonder why the MNers who introduced cortisol to this debate 250 posts ago never posted their actual source.
Maybe because it had very little to do with CC. For all it?s worth, you can find the study here.

Speaking of scientific sources, 300-odd posts and still no evidence for this mythical psychological damage that CC is supposed to cause.
Will you ever provide any kind of evidence that it exists, let alone that it can be measured ? in a sleep lab?

I do love the sleep lab idea. Please provide us with some sources, kiskidee, I am ready to make a sizeable investment in this exciting new technology!

Think about it, get rid of all psychiatrists (saving £000s) and simply take physiological measurements while the patient is asleep and the next day they can find out whether they are psychologically damaged or not.
For a small fee, of course.

No more listening for hours to patients, no more relying on unreliable people - like parents, eh?!

This is truly cutting edge stuff but how does it work? Should we ask the AAIMHI? Ah, we can?t: there is no way of contacting them.

kiskidee: 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.
DaddyJ: It usually takes longer than 2-3 days, not like flicking a switch. If you want to do the whole night in one go I would estimate 7-10 days.

kiskidee: also, if they do, how do you determine whether your child is waking up because of teething or illness etc
DaddyJ: You go in and check at regular intervals. If you sense or already know from daytime that your lo is suffering from teething/illness: to hell with CC, go with the flow.

kiskidee: 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.
DaddyJ: This might apply to standard extinction but not CC. CC is about two-way communication not an excuse to ignore lo.

kiskidee: humans can be conditioned to accept just about anything.
DaddyJ: Not for long. Sooner or later they rebel and turn on you if what you are doing is going against their nature. Ask former communist rulers in Eastern Europe ? the ones who didn?t get shot.

kiskidee: 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.
DaddyJ: You communicate to your lo that you will be always there for them when you are needed but that they don?t need you to go to sleep and resettle themselves.

kiskidee: it is the conditioning effect of cc which may have a long term effect not the 3 nights of tears.
DaddyJ: The long term effect is that lo will have learned the skills to enjoy sleep completely independently while being secure in the knowledge that you will break the routine if she is poorly.

kiskidee: 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?
DaddyJ: Once you have learned a skill, it only takes a little time to get back up the learning curve when you haven?t applied it for a while. Same applies to lo in this context.
We were in this situation in the last 2 weeks. Stomach virus was affecting dd who was eating less and less, going through lots of nappies and eventually she was almost completely on boob only. This was affecting her sleep so for a week we were co-sleeping and demand-feeding at least part of the night. Once she was better and eating more during the day we did CC at 7pm and again when she woke up at 4:30am ? both times it took between 5-10 minutes and the level of crying was very moderate. Nothing like the crying intensity and length that you get the very first time you teach lo the skill.
This was quite fortunate because I was abroad for some of that time and dw (who will never become a total fan of CC) had to do it by herself. She coped fine partly it was fairly short and low-level, partly because when you as a parent have done CC before and seen the positive effect on lo, you are more confident that you know what you are doing and that what you are doing is just fine.

kiskidee: these are questions for you to consider. not answer to anyone.
DaddyJ: I agree. If you are not convinced by CC, stay well away.
Particularly when you go in to check you need to come across as reassuring and calm as possible which you won?t be if you are in any doubt about the method.

Back to the AAIMHI, kiskidee: I reckon they are liars and they know it. No phone number, no email address, no HQ address but one comprehensive, wait for it, disclaimer page?!?

They are baby-whispering cowboys and unfortunately you, morningpaper and harpsichordcarrier fell for their bogus statement because you desperately wanted it to be true.
At least you are in good company: Pinky, she of the ?con of controlled crying? fame, also has a link to their page on her site.

The conclusion is that criticising CC as ?potentially unsafe? or ?psychologically damaging? is a sign of ignorance. And attacking a CC support thread twice is truly moronic.
It is intellectually on the same level as vigilantes beating up a paediatrician because they think he is some kind of ?paedo?.

I understand the concept of shame ain?t too popular in the happy world of natural parenting (must come in handy when telling lies) but don?t you feel even a little remorseful?
Might there even be an apology forthcoming??

i don't feign boredom. i was being too polite to say that i find you smug, (from way way back,) rude, (from way way back and ignored it), and really not very bright. you think that research not designed as evidence for or agains CC is gospel with which to advocate it. i could go on but taht will do for now.

one example i can now be arsed to detail about your not very 'brightness' is you 'definition' of what scientists mean by prolonged crying and how you seem to think you have some kind of 'victory' out of it. your definition seems to hinge on 'uncontrolled crying' for days on end. a definition you got by reading the abstract of a document, not the document which it is possible possibly didn't even define what they meant by prolonged or uncontrolled in a scientific setting, never mind what else could mean.

you are building a castle in the air and i cant be arsed to build them with you mate. even at 3 am to do. which i would rather do than chat to you. so my reason not even to bother discuss prolonged or uncontrolled.

then you bring up the circumcision thing again. sigh.

like i said, there is NO research out there that states that CC is safe, that it has any long term benefits to the child. if it was a night of uninterrupted sleep parents are after, can i suggest a cat or a doll? babies wake up during the night. so do adults. i wouldn't expect my dh to have 8 hrs of uninterrupted sleep so why would i expect a child to have 12?

so here is a list of questions for you to go away and beaver about the net. i am off to read something more entertaining in chat.

cant even be arsed to read your last 2 or 3 posts.

Questions to ponder from somewhere you have already discounted because it questions you beliefs, not by the veracity of what it has to say. here

What are infant sleeping problems? Can the health disciplines agree on this? There are many different definitions, and different disciplines within Western culture have different theories. Different cultures also have different theories on ?sleeping problems?.

What is normal child development? Do infants need to learn skills such as teething, crawling or sleeping or do they simply achieve these things when their bodies are ready?

How much sleep is needed by an infant?

How can studies be conducted without these above questions being defined accurately first?

What stress levels if any are experienced by the infant undergoing the behaviour modification of controlled crying? (these can be measured by cortisol levels in saliva, blood pressure, and so on or perhaps be determined by the chemical makeup of tears)

What amount of time is acceptable to leave a crying baby?

What amount of time of leaving an infant to cry is considered abuse / neglect? How long are parents legally allowed to leave their child to cry?

Where is the line drawn? (eg. One mother I have heard of locks her babies in their rooms for two hours at ?nap time? and will not return until the end of that two hours. If they cry the whole time she does not attend to them. She believes this is controlled crying).

Studies clearly indicate this method works most of the time. Why does this method work? Is this simply an infant survival / protection mechanism? (And what do you do when this method does not work as even Ferber admitted that not all babies are 'ferberisable' - my addition)

and how do you know when it is not working - also my addition.

What age of an infant is this method suitable for? Why?

When does Object permanence develop? (I've read it develops at 18months, 2 years, 6 months and 8 months, and need to find more information)

What affect does this method have on maternal attitude and responsiveness to their baby?

Why do parents need to distract themselves from going in to their baby? Do they feel an innate need to pick them up? or is this socially conditioned (a learnt social behaviour)?

kiskidee, I have read lots of your posts on the sleep threads, and I think you are fab

Just wanted to say that!

i am glad someone does. i hate to think i was only writing for one person.

kiskidee, please don?t be upset. We could have stopped at the 200 post mark but for some reason you just won?t stop the lies:
There is plenty of research out there that shows Controlled Crying is safe. There is no research that shows any harm.

The ?Prolonged Crying? example was awful, please let it go. I thought at least you had done some real research but then I found it on your favourite anti-cc blog?I should have known.

Something else that is useful in this debate: I have found some evidence of harm ? harm to the mother, that is.
There is a proven link between symptoms of depression in mothers and sleep problems in their children.
Study 1, study 2, study 3.

If some of my post have come across as a bit rude, that?s because at times I find it hard to show much sympathy to people
who put sleep-deprived mothers between a rock and a hard place by making up scare stories about Controlled Crying.
Being an ignorant bully is bad enough but going after vulnerable mums, that?s pretty low.

That?s what this thread is about, putting parents? minds at ease. And giving bored anti-CC bullies something to do

Bloss, if you ever check this thread again: I noticed from my Mumsnet searches that you have been giving no-nonsense advice on these forums for more than half a decade!
It has certainly been a pleasure debating alongside you.
I suspect we will have to do it again sometime

Au revoir, for certain!

An apology would have been nice but we can still put this thread to bed on a high note.
Here goes:

It is alleged CC is damaging because of ?the negative effects of short-term mother-infant separation. ?.just being alone can make babies insecure and they will cry unless they are scooped up in parental arms. Before about eight months of age, babies have no idea of object permanence.?
On anti-CC/attachment parenting websites you find a lot more along the same lines peppered with alarming phrases like ?high levels of cortisol? or ?neurological damage? etc.

You can safely strip away all the doom and gloom exaggerations from these statements as they are simply not applicable. They either relate to very general findings or to extreme situations, e.g. abuse or neglect.

What you are left with is the issue of separation anxiety which I think is important to anyone considering CC. If I understand this article correctly it has been one of the reasons Ferber had to clarify his advice.

We arrived at the same conclusion when we compared CC at night with our failed attempts at CC during the day.
At night dd?s cries sounded angry the first 2-3 times. When we entered the room to soothe her, she would stop crying for a couple of seconds and immediately resume once she realised that no boob was forthcoming. This was with us in the room so the issue was less separation fears but a tired baby trying to get to sleep.

Very different story during the day. Over the last 9 months we had 3 aborted CC attempts during the day and every time there was a real terrified edge to her crying, very unpleasant to listen to and for a reason.
The last time we did that, I went in after 10 minutes and she was inconsolable. It took her 5 minutes of heart wrenching sobbing in my arms to calm down. That was that, straight CC was off the options list and we were back to the boob/pram crutches with both options becoming more and more unreliable but we had run out of ideas.

Until kiskidee (What?s ?How ironic? in French? Quelle ironie?) inspired me with Dr. Jay Gordon?s advice.
Strip away the AP ideology (no sleep training before 1 year, family bed) and you are left with ? CC with parental presence.

My main doubt was that dw or me sitting next to dd?s bed would be too stimulating but I mulled it over and gave it a try last Saturday.

It was 10am, me on babysitting duty, dd had had breakfast and fresh happy and was looking very tired.
I first tried to bachata-dance her to sleep but gave up pretty soon? she?s just too heavy to do this for the necessary 30+ minutes.
I then put her in her cot and sat next to it. She played with her feet and babbled for about 5-7 minutes, rubbing her eyes every now and then.
Then she started raising her voice, shouting a bit and looking restless. I started saying ?shhh? and tried to reduce eye contact by closing my eyes when she looked at me.
She then entered the crying stage and I waited for about 3 minutes, then picked her up for a cuddle and the moment she had stopped crying (10-15 seconds later) I put her down again. Crying started again and went on for another 4-5 minutes at full strength, then it went down a notch and suddenly she had her eyes closed and was almost back to loud shouting level. I shhhed as gently as I could every 10-20 seconds. She opened her eyes and looked at me one more time, I looked down, said my piece and when I looked up: she had settled herself.
I was in heaven. Until 5 minutes later when my mother-in-law called and woke dd up again?grrr?but: I actually managed to resettle her, quick Pu/Pd to calm her down, followed by 1 minute of crying.

Despite the fact that I was sitting right next to dd and getting the full hairdryer treatment (It?s a footballing term ? I am a bloke, after all.) her crying was a lot easier to bear than the 3 times before because it was clearly ?settling crying?. The terrified edge was completely gone and instead what she was doing looked and sounded like a determined, focused effort to expend surplus energy and achieve what she wanted: a good snooze.

In sum, separation anxiety can be an issue but is no obstacle to doing CC as such. Apart from the method that I used (CC with parental presence + PuPd) there is also a technique called gradual retreat described in this Guardian article.
For those with a fondness for cortisol I have also found a scientific study that emphasises ?the more positive role of anger as opposed to sadness in overcoming an obstacle? which could explain why CC worked when dd was angry (or rather, determined) but didn?t when she was sad.

Sacre bleu! Nous somme arrivee?!

Well, let?s just tie up some loose ends then.

kiskidee, your questions have mostly been covered already. Search this thread at your leisure.

Couple of clarifications, just for you:

Legal limit on crying? In the UK, it?s illegal for anyone with Upper Class aspirations to cry at all. Stiff upper lip and all that.
For lower middle class and working class babies gentle sobbing is tolerated. It?s known as ?trembling lower lip?.
I believe the authorities have temporarily legalised crying in Brixton but that might be a rumour.
Answered your question?

Regarding night time waking it is well known that babies wake up quite a few times during the night, with or without sleep training.
It?s not the waking up but the resettling that?s the issue.
If your dh woke up 5 times a night and needed you to cook him steak & chips every time to help him get back to sleep,
you might just be slightly unhappy about it.
And you would be right because there is no need for it, it?s just a habit.

This mother who lets her baby cry for 2 hours because she thinks that?s what Controlled Crying means ? that?s exactly the kind of person who could benefit from coming onto Mumsnet.

She would be advised that what she is doing is a form of standard extinction which can be too blunt and can be much more distressing to lo than need be.

We would explain to her that CC requires more frequent checking to communicate the message more clearly. We would provide her with links to Ferber?s advice (Ferber interview , Ferber demystified ) who agrees with her that babies are ready to sleep through the night from 4-6 months (depending on breast or bottle, though ? 4 months is probably too early for breastfed infants) but puts forward a more enlightened method than standard extinction: Controlled Crying.

We would point her to sleep advice from the resource website of one of the largest paediatric teaching hospitals in the world.
It would provide her with professional guidance and reassurance on sleep training for babies from the age of 4 months - a quote:

'Believing any crying is harmful.
All young children cry when confronted with a change in their schedule or environment (called normal protest crying). Crying is their only way to communicate before they are able to talk. Crying for brief periods is not physically or psychologically harmful. The thousands of hours of attention and affection you have given your child will easily offset any unhappiness that may result from changing a bad sleep pattern.'

But this mother would not come to Mumsnet because of a group of flat-earthers who are frothing at the mouth, wanting to judge her and scare her with ideology.
Instead, she will continue subjecting her lo (and herself) to unnecessary levels of stress.

That?s why attacking CC support threads is so despicable.
That?s why trying to shut down debate is wrong.
That?s why your lies are so damaging.

A question for you: Will you apologise for your bullying behaviour?

I see you have brought up your sleep lab idea again ? kiskidee, you can drop that now.
I know you hold it dear because without it, that statement from the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health would be a complete lie, n'est-ce pas?

We now know that their entire position paper, never mind that statement, is fraudulent so: sleep lab, shmeep lab.

They are liars and, sadly, so are you. It?s not being rude, just a statement of fact.

Another question for you: Will you apologise for lying?

For anyone who has come onto this thread for the first time and does not like CC and would never do it with their lo:
In my opinion, your attitude is perfectly reasonable and there is absolutely no debate about it. You don?t like it and that?s that. There are plenty of other methods.

As I have said before, the missus is part of that camp and as a well-trained husband I am fully aware that my wife is never wrong

The anti-CC flat-earthers are those who believe there is a scientific case against Controlled Crying and attempt to impose their mistaken belief on others.

There is no room for smugness or complacency in this debate.
I am aware that all the rational arguments, the clear evidence and the many studies will not make any difference to people who are true believers.

I suspect we will just have to challenge them again, and again, and again, and again.

And for those who think this debate was for nothing, I am afraid I have disconcerting news: the next one is just round the corner.

Happy days!

wow. daddy j! this must be really important to you. lol lol lol.

ps. I speak both french and spanish in addition to english and another language which is largely unwritten.

a sprinkling of phrases in french and spanish thoughout your posts leaves a very collegiate impression.

much like everything else you say.

daddyj

I just wanted to let you know that my ds is now sleeping from 9pm until 6am. We achieved this with only a few days of crying.

I wanted to thank you and all the other positive comments about cc - it definitely works. We are ALL much happier and I'm going on my 1st night out this friday after nearly 9 mths. ( cruise also had positive results)

To me, it's a no brainer. I stayed with my son a lot and shhh/patted him after the inital crying out ( which was minimal) I know that if I had not taken action I would still be waking/feeding him 3-4 times a night until he was 2 years old and beyond.

Just to add to the debate:

Learned helplessness is a psychological term from the 70s. Part of learning theory, which CC theories draw from (conditioning etc.). Seligman gave dogs inescapable electric shocks and after a while they stopped fighting it. I can't help but see the analogy. Babies learn that something horrid happens, and they are biologically geared to stop themselves getting left alone, so they react in the only way they can. When this fails to change things then what they have learnt is not to 'soothe themselves' but to stop trying to affect the world, and this will affect how they subsequently process and interact with the world.

Learned Helplessness has been linked to depression in adults, and the similar kind of processes - hopelessness, inescapable feared event, experiencing that nothing you can do will affect the outcome) is a factor in depression.

I think CC has a place. I'm not a flat-earther anti-CC campaigner. I would have done it, but it was a last resort and other things worked for me first.

BUT - it was a last resort for me because I knew about processes in emotional health, and in early infant-parent relationships and the long-term effects. I DON'T think anyone who's done CC will have a depressed child - thats simplistic. I think its a (possibly tiny) risk factor for depression in adulthood (of which there is no evidence either way). I can't protect my son from bereavement, trauma, ill health or society, but I can reduce some of his vulnerabilities.

I just think that when people have books that say - do this it won't hurt your child - then they seem to have more certainty than is merited when no-one knows how it might contribute to LT mental health.

Also I think parents have the right to choose their parenting (within child protection reasons), and people prioritise different things (my friend's DD never eats food that fell on the floor, mine has a brush off the hairs approach ), but I'm more sensitive to emotional than physical health. So I chose to lose my sleep and some of my sanity (and at 18 mths he doesn't sleep through still) because my priority is his emotional health. I don't think everyone else should make the same choice. But people should be aware of all the research and I don't think its contentious that CC works on principles of extinction, which fits in with conditioning theory and the original LH research.

Having read the post back, I have to say I don't think its a huge risk and my post makes it sound like CC will make your grown up children depressed. It is personal choice, I just wanted to point out that we do have to consider longer-term vulnerabilities when we make parenting choices.

Oh - and I think things are different when children get language - this mediates their understanding of whats happening - so my post mainly relates to babies under 18 mths (def under 12)

oh perleease! give it a rest!