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.

Oh ScottishThistle - you sound like me, I too love the dreamfeeds - except I'm knackered by half ten and want to be asleep not having a sleeping baby suckling away making it harder and harder for me to stay awake.....
My friend decided at 8 weeks that she had had enough of 'bfing at 3am' and decided 'to just let her cry'. So I guess she did crying it out, rather than controlled crying.
I asked her about it because frankly I was shocked that she'd done it and she said that her DD had cried for two hours but then fallen asleep, and had cried three more times during the night and she'd just stood outside the (closed) door and the baby had gone back to sleep after a few minutes.
After this 'success' as she claimed to me, she was going to do this every night - and is still doing this.
Her daughter, is frankly skittish (even her mum says this) and withdrawn. She's also dropped from the 50th to the 25th percentile and I do wonder if she's getting enough to eat (she's only getting breastmilk 7am to 7pm. )

martianbishop - I'm sorry you find it deeply offensive - suggest you call my method, dippy hippy giving in all the time parenting if you like? This is a reasoned discussion, not worth getting upset about

actually I can see where MB is coming from - what you say in your post (indeed your title) is that anyone that uses CC is abandoning their child..........which is a pretty horrible thing to say!

I do the same as you tinks.

At 8wks old a baby is far too young to go 12hrs without a feed!

What you have said infers that by using CC I abandoned my child. Yes, I do find that needlessly offensive if you ment it as a joke and even more offensive you are are being serious about it.

actually that was why I asked if she meant CC or actually CIO....

After nearly a year of my disturbed sleep, baby's disturbed sleep, DHs disturbed sleep and other DCs disturbed sleep I was up for anything. Lock 'em in the cellar, put them out in the hen house, send 'em to Granny Murrays. ANYTHING I TELL YOU.

tinker - no my parents didn't divorce (due to my sleep or otherwise)!

Hypothetical scenario to make the point that there can be a trade off for everyone in terms of 'short term pain' vs 'long term pain'.

Sorry for misunderstanding.

The thought of my fat little ds (who looked exactly like a Sumo William Hague as a baby) being diagnosed with 'failure to thrive' makes me lol.

Aloha, my point was that there is more to a bit of CC....CC isn't about withdrawel of love and closeness and attention full stop...it's about sleep training...

I have only read the opening post and as far as i'm concerned....is my baby was sleeping from 7 - 2.30, feeding once and then sleeping until 6am, I wouldn't even know what cc was!!

Tinkerbell- some parents have it much MUCH worse than you at night. You really have to live thru the sleep deprivation to realise how desperate the situation can get. My ds is 8 mths and I think I have had loads of sleep if he wakes once for a feed at night and then comes into our bed at 5am ( mainy for mummy to get an hr or so more sleep)

Some mothers are responding to hourly wake ups when the child is over a year old and have had this from the start.

As far as I can see, cc is about trying to teach your child to go back to sleep themselves - a skill that has to be learnt sooner or later. It's like a lot of things in life - sometimes my ds screams about being in the car seat - I would love to pick him up and soothe him but that would be dangerous. I follow the rules and he has to learn. I know that being picked up in the night is not dangerous but it can reinforce behaviour - and frequent wakings.

As for attached parenting - I think it's a trend like a lot of others. Doesn't necessarily mean it's right. ( BTW, I never let my child cry for the 1st 5 mths of his life and people used to comment on what a good baby he was - it was just mummy that was a sleep deprived nervous wreck!)

that was meant to say, that there is more to it then a bit of CC, lol....

ap is not a trenbd....fad...or new thing...it's actually what is done in many cultures...and used to done in western countries, too....probably before men had an opinion on childbirth/feeding/rearing...

Only read bits, can't be arsed with the rest.

Try setting your alarm for every 2-3 hours in the night every night. Be awake for a minimum of 20 mins each time it goes off. Do it for 12 months.

Then spout cr*p about the evils of CC.

LOL, flame!
I had to do cc with ds1 and ds3. Sometimes you have to be the firm-but-kind parent rather than a servant who answers to every whim of an infant who doesn't even know what he wants because he's so tired. I found "pick-up-put-down" to be an utter load of twaddle, ds3 didn't get it and neither did I. I largely did cc with ds3 because he is still breastfed at 2 and I was seriously exhausted by having a constantly sucking baby in my bed who then didn't feel the need to eat during the day, also I was concerned that the milk swirling around his mouth for the whole night, and it was literally the whole night, would eventually lead to tooth decay.

See, tinkerbell, you have me fighting now, I said "twaddle"!

There's also the waking up in the morning in pain because of sleeping with your arms in weird positions and a baby attached just to get some sleep.

oh my god - it's the neck that kills me!

You all seem to be very emotional on this subject, it was an innocent question, I just didn't understand where you were all coming from, I can understand it now. Don't agree with you, but do understand how you feel.

I hope you all get more sleep in the future.

What I don't get is why people think it's okay to have interrupted sleep for months or worse, years.

It's just shite all round - the parents are knackered but more importantly so is the baby/toddler.

Teaching your child to settle themselves is not a crime or a bad thing but there are ways to do it which will benefit everybody.

Sitting on the stairs crying your eyes out whilst baby screams is idiotic. But no more or less idiotic than getting up 10 times a night without making some sort of effort to get it sorted.

I don't think we should have to suffer years wihtout sleep but I seriously disagree with controlled crying and I know that others way will work for everyone