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!

I feel really strongly that, for some babies, controlled crying is the only way to ensure that they are getting enough sleep.

On the whole I am a bit of a lentil weaver - b/f ds who is 21 months, carried him in a sling for months, healthy food, co-slept etc

However, he wouldn't sleep during the day unless in pram/car. I had PND and got to the point where I just needed to have an hour a day to rest, I also knew that he was really, really tired, to the point where I was worried about how this would affect his development.

I did CC for day time naps at 6 months. It worked. We were all much much happier.

BUT, you have to be totally committed to it and be confident that what you are doing is right for your child. If not, don't.

You don't have to be one thing or another (earth mother/routine obsessed). I think it is sad that we label ourselves in this way - most of us just trying to do the best we can.

Kiskidee I really agree with your posts by the way.
I think the bf analogy is wholly misleading. bf is instinctive. left to their own devices (and unaffected by drugs during birth) babies are capable of moving to the breast after birth and latching on by themselves. It is our culture which has supremely buggered up our abilities to bf in so many cases - ie it isn't the instinct that is at fault, we have just put too many obstacles in the way (medicalised birth, too many interventions, too many cs, too little family/community support etcetcetcetc).
learning to sleep independently is just one of those skills that the vast majority of babies will pick up in time with a little gentle guidance from their parents. I don't think children need to be trained to crawl, to eat solid food, to walk, to talk etc, and I think sleep is the same. I think it would help us all to relax and reduce our expectations about what babies should do and when

yes daddyj this is science.

unfortunately it has nothing to do about cc. what i would hope you post is the full document of a scientific paper, not just an abstract of one, regarding CC instead of colic.

the full document because like you are alluding to 'garbage in, garbage out'.

(kiskidee my friend was involved in that study.)

harpsi, i would lurve a full document on it. as i am nerdy in that kind of way.

Agree with mcnoodle. Disagree with kiskidee on so many points that i'm not even going to go over them again. I would have gladly volunteered to do cc in a lab situation, unfortunatly my 5 1/2 mo dd2 now goes to sleep happily, twice a day and at night, after chatting to her blanket for 2 mins, so it's too late . As mcnoodle says
" I also knew that he was really, really tired, to the point where I was worried about how this would affect his development." Babies need a lot of sleep, dd2 wasn't getting it, now she is. She is a happier, more relaxed baby generally now and has also stopped puking up so much (not while crying, she never cried anywhere near that much, i mean just in general) which may be a coincidence or maybe it's because i'm not stuffing the tit in her mouth every time she wakes up from another failed nap and overfeeding her or interfering with her digestion...Now she seems tired when naptimes approach which bears up my theory that babies and small children are creatures of habit - get them used to a new habit and they will expect it thereafter.
As mcnoodle says too:
"You don't have to be one thing or another (earth mother/routine obsessed). I think it is sad that we label ourselves in this way - most of us just trying to do the best we can." I believe i am doing the best i can for my children and i'll be happy for them to submit to lab tests 20 years from now to see if cc caused them psychological damage, see you in 2027!

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more than 15 mins is prolonged if you were to ask me but i am not a scientist. read some of the articles, carefully, by some scientists and you will get a better idea of what prolonged is.

oh, going in every 2 mins or thirty secs or whatever and leaving a child crying does not mean that you have 'soothed' the child.

popping in every 2 mins soothes your own concience. not the child.

i am being generous, saying 15 mins btw. some children, will be hysterical after 5. once a child is upset, then it is prolonged.

then, PUH-LEASE! post find something, somewhere, for anyone on MN to see that parents somewhere have volunteered and completed a sleep lab observation on CC.

i would like to stop telling people that what they are doing is fine.

i will not until i see some evidenced-based research that says it is safe.

oh, bloss, your first sentence, did suggest taht your sister was using vomiting to maniupulate your mother. then of course your second sentence contradicted your first. how else was i supposed to interpret your first?

can you show me where i said that ALL mothers and babies fall asleep immediately when they co-sleep. i can't find where i said that and i'm in a rush.

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somthing here caught my eye...we had to try to get our son to sleep on his own. He simply couldn't sleep with us. Every little sound woke him, and I was constantly checking on him.

Possibly, for each parent, and each child, there is a right way. If parents can't find this way, it helps to hear of possible solutions, and create one around advice. For me, it was done with love and tenderness and caring, I'm sure it would be the same for most people.
If he had become severeley distressed (which I would have defined as being more distressed than I had seen him before), I would have adapted it to suit us.

I would imagine most parents, like us, do it but adapt the advice.

Good to see the anti-CC camp fleshing out their points but disappointed to see the points themselves: still absolutely no evidence and lots of the same old closed-minded thinking.

I had microwaved the humble pie and was bracing myself for
at least two or three proper scientific studies but: Nothing?!
All this SHOUTING about CC not being SAFE on the basis of NOTHING??
Just another old wives' tale then? But this one is being pushed with real venom onto mothers
who are looking for support and solutions not prejudice and judgements. That rankles.

The constant references to Ferber and his new insights are quite revealing about the
way the anti-CC camp sees the world. Let me deal with this misunderstanding:

Unlike anti-CC extremists, we are not dogmatic and do not follow one ideology or a particular
leader figure. We improvise, muddle through by picking the best bits from all the advice
we can find. CC works beautifully for many parents and children so we consider it.

If Ferber has now revised his book to appeal to the modern parent - good for him.
What's that got to do with the debate? Have you read the new book? Why has he changed his mind?
You have no idea, do you? Because you have not read the book, you are just repeating a quote
you read on some website with an agenda.
By all means, let us know if he has found some real scientific evidence that backs up your views
but do tone down this strange obsession with what Ferber thinks.

You don't need to have read Ferber to do CC, you just need to be in tune with your child.

Kiskidee, your posts are passionate as ever!

We are not dismissing the scientific research - we are asking for more details.
We acknowledge that raised cortisol levels have been measured but the link between that
and this mysterious long-term psychological damage has not been clarified at all.

You are not prepared to provide the details but try to scare people into believing
in the horror conclusions. That's not convincing and does not help anyone.

'grief, fear, hopelessness, confusion, despair' - so you also do baby mind-reading in your spare time?
I knew you were talented but I am impressed now!
Again, you want me to believe that this is what baby is feeling.
No, believe me, baby is actually feeling:
'God, I am cream-crackered, I really need to switch off..hold on..er..how do I switch off?
Bugger - I have no idea. Ah! The boob, that's how it happened last time! But where is it??
Let's shout for it!....[some time later]...dude..I'm..exhausted...sod..the..boob...zzzzzzzzzzz'

But who to believe - you or me? Whose God is better - mine or yours?

Enough of this belief stuff, let's talk science.
You agree that my link revealed an example for a real scientific paper. Good first step.
Do you acknowledge the contrast between that and the various opinion-pieces that you have been
posting to back up your views? Do you acknowledge that you have not provided us with a single
piece of research that is truly scientific AND provides evidence that CC does real harm?

I know you are sleep-deprived (and proud of it!) so I won't hold it against you that you did
not manage to scroll down to find the Methods/Results/Discussion/References in addition to the Abstract.
(try again - use the scroll bar on the right hand side of your browser).
I am surprised you did not read the paper as you would have found that it did investigate use of CC
and - this is the fun bit you missed - actually came to some conclusions that you could agree with.
(Nowhere near as alarmist as yours but every little helps!)
I didn't mean to be sneaky and try and catch you out but I was curious to what extent you would
make the effort of studying a real scientific article which you assumed would challenge your views.
Here, read the Daily Telegraph take on it. It's easier to digest and the journalist has exclusively
picked the controversial CC bits to sex up her article. You will like!

And finally!
'I am still hoping that an advocate of CC would back up their beliefs with information
that shows evidence that cc is safe.'
'i cannot relate any evidence that directly CC harms or is safe specifically because NO parent,
ever, anywhere, has volunteered to conduct CC in a lab.
now why would you think that may be? Plenty of advocates out there.'

Hold on a minute!! Are you trying to tell us that you have been giving strongly-worded advice
against CC on these forums without even bothering to find out whether there is any evidence for
or against?? Would that not have been a good starting point before adopting your belief system?
You never actually looked on the Internet or in Journals to check whether after all these years
someone, anyone had ever undertaken research into CC? And then in the statement above you cheekily
transform your ignorance into yet another reason against CC - smooth!

Well, of course, these studies exist, Kiskidee.
Please tell me you did know but you are too tired to remember!
Anything else would be pretty appalling given that you are a self-annointed Anti-CC expert.

Not only do the studies show that CC does not do any harm, they also show the benefits of CC.

Let's start with this one. This paper titled 'Empirically supported treatments in pediatric psychology: bedtime
refusal and night wakings' gives an overview of many scientific studies done on
extinction (putting down baby at night, coming back in the morning - boo hiss!!) and on gradual
extinction. Bang goes your curious assertion that NO parent would consent to being involved in a CC study.

This one is a Swedish research paper from 2004. Sweden is one of the most advanced countries in the
world when it comes to an enlightened approach to mothering and child care and this is a very recent
study taking into account the latest anti-CC attacks. The graduated extinction (aka CC) was done with
children from the age of 4(!!!) to 45 months. The conclusion is very clear and very positive.
Who would have thunk it!? The softly-softly Swedes doing CC with infants from the age of 4 months!
They didn't even read Ferber's new book!!! Never again will I keep my fingers crossed
for these cruel Swedes at Eurovision contests, oh no!!

This paper is from the Journal of Pediatric Psychology and again looks at extinction (I repeat, a much harsher
form of CC) and its effect on children. It's conclusion:
'There was no evidence of detrimental effects on the treated infants whose security, emotionality/tension,
and likeability scores improved.'

I have found more sources but do start educating yourself with these. Yes, the latter two links only show Abstracts
because you have to pay for the full paper. I cannot post them on Mumsnet as that would trigger correspondence
from m'learned friends. You struggle to read other people's posts properly so I maybe it's a good idea
to take in the Abstract first and then go and read the papers themselves in the library at your own leisure.

themildmanneredjanitor, in your two sentences you highlight the fundamental problem with the anti-CC Taliban:

You don't read the threads. You don't read the scientific papers - you don't even search for them. You have never tried CC.
You have been sucked into a cult-like ideology and you refuse to acknowledge the real-world evidence that disproves your beliefs.

You are entitled to your beliefs but you have to expect your Yehova's Witness antics to be challenged.

daddyj - i find your posts agressive and offensive to kiskidee. perhaps you should try and be a bit less emotional

mmj

daddyj I have seen that first study before.
what is says is this - if babies are left to cry, they cry less.
so cc "works" in that babies cry less.
that is SO far off the point as to make me think you are being a little disingenuous
what the survey doesn't measure (which is kiskidee's point) is the effect of the prolonged crying on the babies concerned, in the short, medium long term.

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