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.

Completely agree with you lazycow!

Plus it is all well and good to quote ideas about 'natural' sleeping, and that this has happened for millenia.

That is obviously the case.

However we no longer live in that environment.

In out 'natural' state you could sleep in! Now we have to get up and get to work! And even if the mother has chosen the SAHM route, other children have to be taken to school etc etc. In addition in a tribal situal we would be living with our families, or mothers and sisters would be on hand to help us out.

"1st Centuary woman seldom has this support on hand. So you are missing one salient fact, while co-sleeping etc may be eminantly 'natural' the rest of our lives are not.

And Please cut the patronising comments, you many well be surpirsed at how well read and educated many MN are.

hi cruise

sorry you are still having probs. Your LO is a mth younger than mine and I am at work after having had 2.5 hrs sleep in total ( interupted)

We are seriously gonna do a form off cc this easter as I am not working and can sleep in the day if need be.

Do you care to join me??

By the way, I don't agree with kiskidee but I understand how she may be feeling.

When someone is affected by an issue - say, sleep, and they choose to follow a certain path, they may be very against alternative methods as it undemines their way of doing things.

Example - " I choose to keep my baby and not have a termination, therefore termination is wrong"

I think a lot of this type of thinking goes on in MN conversations and it's sad.

I wish people would realise we are all different with different choices and babies are little people and all different too.

Oh amijee, insightful, considerate and true.

Hear hear!
I've relativelt new to MN and am astonished at how vociferous (& rude, even) some people are when putting their pov. Bet it wouldn't happen if we were all together, face to face.

just realized, writing another post, that my ms must have been older then 10 month when we did CC, he must have been nearer his 1. Birthday...as he wans't bf'ed anymore when I did it, and he was bf'ed until 10ish+ month or so.......
to my excuse he is 4+5 now...so, it's been a while....and having |Baby's really does nothing for yer brain, sigh...

I stopped b/f ds during the day 3 weeks ago and then decided that now's the time to stop b/f at night because 21 weeks pregnant etc. (Ds is 21 months). Up until then always b/f to sleep or out in car/pram etc. 2 nights ago there were tears (dh or I were always with him, comforting etc), last night no tears (still with him). First night slept through 6 hours straight, then hour of crying, (with cuddles) then 3 hours straight. Last night similar but no tears, just time to settle. Can't believe it, not sure when bubble will burst.

Kiskidee

I co-slept (started in a cot in my room and moved to my bed in desperation) and did this from when ds was 3 months to 7 months old. $ months of trying this method resulted in a screaming unhappy waking baby.

And PLEASE if I see one more person say that bfeeding always knocks them out I will scream. Bfeeding did not always make my ds go to sleep - I so wanted it to but about 60-70% of the time it did not and this was more often at night. I appreciate that this may be unusual but nonetheless it is true. I breastfed ds for 2 years and in all that time I was amazed and delighted if his last feed of the night resulted in him going to sleep.

If my ds had woken hourly, fed quietly and gone back to sleep I too would have advocated co-sleeping and no CC as that would have been OK with me too. The fact is this did not work - nothing did and I was unable to sustain months of practically no sleep whatsoever. I think 4 months as a trial period was enough and all it did was make the situation worse.

You have to do what is right for you, your baby and your family. Bringing up kids is very sensitive. As long as you go by your gut instinct and are not blinded by mindless books or parents etc who did it their way, and you always evalute what you are doing to make sure you're on track - you can't ask for more.

Yes, of course breastmilk equals instant sleep, sleep problems only appear from four months and sleeping with a baby equals instant sleep. It's such a pity Kikidee wasn't there to explain that to my breastfed ds who from birth stayed awake for hours and hours in the night in bed with me until I was bursting into tears every time he woke, and dh and I took turns to share the torture.

you are right on one thing amijee when you say "she may be feeling"

the operative word there was may it does not say how i feel.

please don't hypothesise about other people's feelings when you don't know them. it leads you open to being wrong, or for some to disagree with you just because they can.

"When someone is affected by an issue - say, sleep, and they choose to follow a certain path, they may be very against alternative methods as it undemines their way of doing things."

and you can say exactly the same thing about CC advocates so that statement is neither here or there.

it is patently obvious.

scottishthistle: everyone comes into a light sleep several times a night. babies come into them more often till their sleep cycles lenghten to the length of an adult's - which you may be surprise to find out how short it is.

the difference is that some babies go on to wake up fully and some don't.

i said babies come into a light sleep. i didn't say they wake up all the way.

now i am laying off the sleep threads because i want to enjoy the next few days of sunshine and warm weather along with my family.

but also have coursework to mark before i go back to work.

Kisadee do you see cc as the same as 'crying it out'?

cc comes under lots of names and a variety of forms. controlled crying as i refer to it is the form that Richard Ferber popularised in his book.

CIO i believe - not know is closer to what is also called 'extinction'

some people favour euphemisms like 'self soothing' you'll have to ask them what they mean by that.

now really staying off the sleep threads.

Shame I was just beginning to get interested. Wouldn't mind a chat sometime.

'please don't hypothesise about other people's feelings when you don't know them. it leads you open to being wrong, or for some to disagree with you just because they can. '

OK. Will you please pass comment on what people need to read based on how much you think you know about other peoples understanding of brain development, as it leads you open to being wrong and also smacks of being patronising.

Bravo MB!!

kiskidee, shame you didn't respond to psycho's post of 14.10 which was excellent and had much good sense to say about the benefits to children of having been given the opportunity to settle themselves to sleep.

It appears that some of our fellow contributors are happy to dish out the criticism (bullying ?) but not so keen to partake when their own views are brought in to question. Ho hum...

I always like a challenge. i will always answer any questions about my views.

kiskidee, i'm sorry if i sounded patronising - it wasn't meant that way.

I just wanted to acknowledge that we all have different ways of parenting and there are so many different reasons for that.

We just need to try and understand each other a bit more and why we choose the decisions we do.

Kiskidee, it may surprise you to hear that I in actual fact am very well read re child development & that I've been working with Babies for 15yrs.

Please don't undermine my experience, as I'm sure you'll agree I haven't undermined your method which worked for you.

Question: If you had twins/triplets would you co-sleep?

No sign of kiskidee? Funny that!!