Controlled crying - moving from attachment parenting to abandonment parenting?

[tinkerbellhadpiles]

I know this is going to get a few people annoyed so I've put my special teflon knickers and fireproof boots on first. This is a genuine question:
I don't get controlled crying. I've spent a long time thinking about this (mostly at 2am when my DD wakes up hungry). If you put yourself in the place of the child, is this not a movement from attachment parenting to abandonment parenting
You spend all day lavishing attention on your child, when the little one cries you comfort him or her, sacrificing your time to do anything else in favour of looking after her.
Then seven a clock rolls round and you suddenly start ignoring her, until she learns that you just abandon her at nights and gives up and goes to sleep through exaustion or frustration.
To my mind controlled crying is an oxymoron, a child cries because they are out of control, frustrated, hungry or frightened. And if you are sitting there on the stairs sobbing because you can hear her (as a lot of my friends do) then you aren't in control either. Is it just a battle of wills or is there a genuine bit of science in here?
Seriously, will someone PLEASE explain how this actually works?
Incidentally, I don't have a much better solution, my DD (five months) sleeps 7-2:30, has a feed and sleeps till about 6ish. We just deal with it now and honestly I don't mind now I'm used to it. She did wake up every hour for a month when she got to three and a half months and I was fairly psychotic after a week of it and did pick up, put down and that worked to get to the above situation.

I agree with a lot of things you have brought up tinkerbell, I went into DD when she woke up and cuddled her/fed her and just accepted it as 'one of those things'. I figured if I was going to be up anyway then why not be with her.

During the day, however, was comlpetely different, once DD hit 7 months she refused to nap, I lay her in her travel cot, and she'd stand up and sceram, not matter how exhausted she was. I did try CC, and leaving her to cry it out on one day when I couldn't take it anymore but found it so counterproductive, she was always a bit 'off' with me afterwards, although, like some have said, it could have been anything.
Even now, at 14 months, she goes down at night without a peep but for naps I have to cuddle her until she is almost out and then put her in a cot.

lodsanappies - why your hard hat?

Parenting is hard - and aiming for perfection is poison.

also...think there is a difference in using CC as first method...or after exhausted the whole list of other options and non worked, dis[ite followed correctly....

It's really not very different to pick up and put down. They aren't 'abandoned' - you go in and see them, you just don't 'pick up', apart from that it is the same. And if your child wakes ONCE a night at five months, well no wonder you don't need to consider controlled crying! I would have killed for that. At that age ds was waking sometimes every hour or less and staying awake for hours between 1 and 5am. DD was still waking up until a couple of weeks ago and she's over two.

lol tinker...am I right in assuming you hvae only this one...if youplan further Baby's...do keep an open mind...you just never know, lol!
Co-slept with es for a good 3 years with no probs really, and he slept well and we slept well....but forinstance ms slept better in his own space, i.e. if, out of desperation I bring him into bed with me, we end up sleeping even worse....whereas with ms, we got a good mixture of both, lol...he is now mostly in his bed, after falling asleep downstairs and usually joins me in bed in the morning....
lil blighters are soooooooo unpredictable.......

quite, Aloha. I knew a woman once, her son's sleeping at 18 months was so bad it was almost pathalogical. He didn't sleep until 9.00, and that was only if they drove him round in the car. He would sleep from 9.00 to 12.00 and then would wake every hour until 5.30 to 6.00, at which point he would be up for the day.

He was 18 months. It damn nearnly killed her, and it was only the fact that she was pg with her second that drow her to seek help from the sleep clinic. They told her to use very gradual CC. It worked and saved her sanity.

when does control crying start and "running round like a blue arsed fly putting two kids to bed fitting in a 'shush-shush' between bedtime stories and fetch and carry for the eldest" end?

Well, glad to see some other people are driven to desperation by dc's refusal to nap. My dd is 9 months old, and about 5 weeks ago, she just refused to nap in day. Tried all soft approaches, and am big fan of Baby Whisperer, but she weighs to much for PU/PD.

Eventually last week after nighttime shinnagins as well as daytime, I was driven to do very gentle form of cc. It seems to have improved nighttime behaviour and today improved daytime as well. She was a crap napper from day 1 so have been battling against her desire to stay awake in day for about 9 months. Finally bit the bullet.

Was against it, never needed it with ds, but she had me at screammg point, and was grizzly all day, from refusal to nap. In fact I started a thread on it.

Sorry 3easterbunniesandnomore - I haven't abandoned you or the thread , I was putting DD to bed.

3easterbunniesandnomore - bugger, meant to add, I guess I mean crying it out - although if you are leaving them in increments of up to twenty minutes, don't they necessarily exhaust themselves and fall asleep round about the 20 minute mark?

Kif - are you SERIOUS? Your parents divorced because you had a sleep problem??? What a tremendous guilt trip to lay on an innocent child. I must be misunderstanding what you are saying - surely?

fannyannie - I will agree with you that a child that has been seriously sleep deprived and who suddenly gets sleep will be much nicer the next day but what about those studies that point to authoritarian parenting methods leading to insecure little blighters?

Troutpout - no I don't think I do. I accept my DD waking twice a night is part of her being five months old.

ScottishThistle - yes she is asleep during the dreamfeed, doesn't wake up at all! It freaks me out actually how babies, deep in sleep, will still nurse.

chirpygirl - now that's interesting. My DD would not nap at all and never has and just in the last couple of days she's started spontaneously falling asleep on her playmate or in her bouncy chair. No warning signs just zzzzzz

I guess she's taught herself to nap.

"but what about those studies that point to authoritarian parenting methods leading to insecure little blighters?"

hasn't happened in this house - he's a very happy, confident 6yr old now with a close relationship with both DH and I.

Aloha - yes I agree I'm very lucky in that my DD is now only waking twice between 7pm and 6am.

So do you think controlled crying is a last resort thing then? I'm trying to gauge whether it is a method people fall into through desperation (as many of the replies here seem to indicate) or is prescriptive - as in chosen as a method of mothering?

see that is the problem wiht the whole CC issue it can mean a whole lot of different things to different people....there is ferber, the lady we ain't allowed to mention, Penelope Leach, who is more attachment parenting, Babyled, but even she says there are times where a mild vversion i.e. maximum of 3 minutes between going in, can be helpful...etc....
And CIO is definately not the same as CC...as with CIO you just don't respond at all, and yes, that is kid of an abondenment, and I think that could backfire...however, as long as plenty of love and atention are given to teh child in the day, I am sure the effects won't be as desperate as those of true abondenment(i.e. lil Miles in the nspc ad...his problem isn't that mummy doesn't come when he crys in the night, his prob is, probably that mummy or any other adlt are on the bender and not actually there....)

I love the dream feed!

I've just had a very long e-mail from my Cousins wife asking if at 8wks her dd should still be waking twice in the night (ffs) - honestly some people ought never to read any books or try to compare their baby with their best friends!

and tinkerbell - waking 2 times at night sounds like pure heaven to me. I presume she also falls alseep on her own - or at least won't wake up if you put her down after falling asleep in your arms?? Because my DS1 wouldn't.

He would wake 8 or 9 times a night (sometimes more) and this was EVERY night from birth until he was 6 months old.

No I don't think it is the act of despiration always. Sometimes you do things for your children that may be unpleasent at the time, but you do it for the greater good.

So an example might be, you choose to give your child vaccinations. You know it will hurt them, make them sore and possibly a little ill for a while, but you do it because you believe it is better in the long term

Please people this is just and example, lets not have a spat about vaccination OK

CC may not suit you and yours, but it didsuit me and mine and most deffinatly wasn't abandoment parenting, OK I find that phrasiology deeply offensive, How about I call your choice somethig unpleasent?

Kif -when does control crying start and "running round like a blue arsed fly putting two kids to bed fitting in a 'shush-shush' between bedtime stories and fetch and carry for the eldest" end?

LOL - I can relate to that I have a DH who needs constant attention . I know it is MUCH easier with only one child and it must be galling to have the first one be a doddle and the second one a nightmare, let alone having three to contend with. I don't feel .

I always wonder about how much we should take this or that study to heart. Children have their own personality markers, and will go through plenty of experiences beyond babyhood that would determine who they will end up being. I know for a fact that my mother raised my sisters and me equally, but we went to different schools, had different friends and we couldn't be more different to each other.

If you feel you need CC use it, if you don't, so be it. It's not the end of the world. You have to find what suits your baby and family better (and respect that some solutions you don't agree with may work for other families, the same way things you may recommend highly may be totally unefective in other family settings)

When I was 17 I babysat 4 children (6mths, 18mths, 4y & 6y) from 5-10:30pm 4 nights per week.

Believe me CC does not have to be the last resort & yes I think it can benefit the child & infact the whole family.

tinker, I think there are those that will jsut use CC once they get peed off wiht child not sleeping through...and then there are plentysome parents that try everything else...like PUPD, like Elisabeth Pantly method...co-sleeping as a solution, etc...
it's just every child is different, and things will effect different people differently!

Also...not sure if anyone has ever read that story on Dr. Sears website, with the lil one that was originally demand fed and attachement parented and then due to outside pressure parents decided to be more "strict" and then the lil one was "diagnosed" with "failure to thrive" even though, until change of method things were just fine, and when they changed back to the weay they did it before everything worked out fine...so, dispite the fact that the Baby still was fed regularly and got enough nutrients this happened...
that story really brought something home to me, and gave me and my mum the aha-moment...!
My mum couldn't explain why, dispite the fact that whilest I was in hospital I was probably fed, i.e. nutrient input was higher volume then ever,better then I could ahve possibly at home (I was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, and therefore feeding me was a bit of a nightmare, but on my arrival at hossie, at 3 month of age I was given a nasal tube for feeding for the 3 month of stay in the Hospital).
Well...the true differenc ewas that obviously back then my mum wasn't allowed to stay wiht me, and if she came to visit then she would't be allowed to hold me, but only see me through a glass window, which is pretty pointless as in benefit to child...and obviously the nuns followed a strict regime of feeding and changing and cuddling wasn't much part of that, if at all....my mum was terrified by how much weight I had lost at the end of it, even though I went in as a 3 month old and returned as a 6 month old...but I went in chubby and came out skin and bones....

I know, bit of topic, but food for thought....