what do little babies think of controlled crying?

[longlady]

"He awakes in a mindless terror of the silence, the motionlessness. He screams. He is afire from head to foot with want, with desire, with intolerable impatience. He gasps for breath and screams until his head is filled and throbbing with the sound. He screams until his chest aches, until his throat is sore. He can bear the pain no more and his sobs weaken and subside. He listens. He opens and closes his fists. He rolls his head from side to side. Nothing helps. It is unbearable. He begins to cry again, but it is too much for his strained throat; he soon stops. He waves his hands and kicks his feet. He stops, able to suffer, unable to think, unable to hope. Then he falls asleep again." I think this description from Jean Liedloff is very convincing and very heartbreaking. Babies cannot know that their parents are in the next room.

Urban, that's awful

Bernard, where is that quote from?

Mercy, not quoted from anywhere. Just imagined they might be motivating factors for some people.

My best friend was in a similar situation. She felt she'd run out of options and CC was last-chance type thing.

i don't like leaving babies to cry, and can honestly say i have never done it, but my best friend does, and we have talked about it lots.
her perspective is that if you are listening to them and it's only for a short time thats fine, but it's not ok to ignore them.

Mercy - we were just talking about it, and he said he can remember shouting for his parents through the window, and a passerby just said, "I don't think that'll help."

can you imagine if someone did that today? i can just see the thread on MN!

That's not 'controlled' crying by any definition, there's nothing controlled or loving about abandoning a child to cry it out.

Agree, massive difference between CC and 'crying it out'. The two are incomparable, IMO.

The thing that always confuses me about allowing babies to cry (I think I'm talking about crying it out, rather than controlled crying - a lot of people I know call it controlled crying, but they're really just leaving their babies to cry, hence confusion over what's what) is when people say "I know they're safe and warm and fed and clean and they don't need anything - so I know it's okay to let them cry, there's nothing they need". I can't even remember the number of times I have known dd was safe and warm and all of the above, but she'd managed to get her arm stuck in the cot, or had an extra burp to get rid of, or was getting a cold, or a million other things I can't possibly have known about if I hadn't gone to her when she cried.

I don't know, she was blissfuly asleep after 5 minutes...

Thanks. I have, in desperation, just started CC. I now feel an even shittier fuck up than I did already.

spottyshoes - don't worry, you'll know if your DC is benefiting or not. It's controlled crying, not crying it out...stick to multiples of 2 minutes. I did 2,2,4,4,6, for example. good luck

Spottyshoes

Don't feel shitty, you do what you have to do. I did CC with dd1 (in desperation, didn't enjoy it one bit) and within 6 nights she was sleeping through the night.

DD2 was another matter entirely... she has a will of iron

It might work, it might not. I do believe you have to consider your own state of well-being when things are bleak. Especially when NOTHING else seems to work. I mean, you wouldn't be contemplating CC if anything else had worked, would you?

Good luck

Thanks S.M. I can already see him benefiting from it and it is only night 2. I dont leave him for long and go in regularly to soothe and shush. But it was a horrible last resort for us and I feel incredibly guilty. Hate being made to feel even more so by rading that sort of thing. Maybe her baby read the manual but i'm afraid mine didnt.

this view totally reinforces my encouragement of my two youngest to thumb suck
Self soothing
Oh it's a good thing alright

QOQ, am interested in your experiences, my DS is in the overtired/screams all evening camp, in a colicky stylee.

I was vehemently anti-cc but am afraid Pantley won't work quick enough to salvage relationship with baby who I do really resent at times. Shall persist until golden 6m though ...

spottyshoes - you can already see some improvement, that's great. I did CC with DD1 at 3 months [shock horror], now 4yo, and she's never looked back. I havent been able to do it with DD2 for various reasons but at 14mo she's getting slowly better at sleeping on her own. Still some broken nights tho and still sleeping in our room instead of sharing with DD1 as I don't want her waking DD1 or to have to get up and go through to her in the middle of the night{lazy}. IME it's better to do it when they are younger, I think it would be hard with DD2 now. How old is your DC?

He is 7 months in a couple of days, Co-sleeping and fed to sleep, waking every hour or so for the past 6-8 weeks and 'helps himself to the buffet'. I do nothing but doze throughout the night and just want my bed back! Or at least for him to learn to settle himself to sleep at bedtime!

spottyshoes, nooooooo!!!

I mean, no to feeling guilty!!

The op is far too inanely parptastic for
me to regurgitate what we already discussed
in over 1000 posts at the beginning of this year
but, spottyshoes, if you want any supporting literature
I am more than happy to drop you some links.

Don't let wannabe baby-mindreaders put you off -
trust your own instincts.

Hi DaddyJ!(I used to be Malaleche but haven't admitted it anywhere else )

btw my post was from a wizened mum of 3...
If I had Mn when ds1 was a baby (13.8 yrs ago) I would have clogged the boards - he was heinous, less of the bufet more of the all you can eat at one sitting lasting 23 hrs thanks..

shit just re read that
he is 14 in 3 MTHS
OMG

Dont no exactly what you meant DaddyJ as I'm fairly new but get the gist and thanks! I do trust my instincts but when you've just managed to settle your baby after a battle of wills (and I fear his is stronger than mine ) it is awful to read that and imagine that he was thinking/feeling that. Nearly made me cry and I wanted to wake him up and cuddle him!

Even the people who wrote the book about controlled crying didn't recommend to for babies under a year. Babies cry - that's what they do. Parents get tired - that's what they do. It's only a very small part of your life - one year out of 80! I think it's a shame that people seem to have got the idea that there's someting wrong with them or their child if they aren't sleeping through by some defined age - some do - some don't. If you've got one that does, then thank your lucky stars - if you haven't - hang in there - it gets better, and sooner than you think.

Oye shitemum!! malamadre eh?
So nice to know you are still around!

Sorry to confuse you spottyshoes.
I can imagine how you must have felt when
reading the op but it is sod all to do
with what you are doing.

Good luck and if you have any doubts/questions,
just post them, we got answers! (most of the time )

seeker, sorry to be a stickler for detail
but who are these people who wrote the book
and where do they recommend from 12 months onwards?

I am genuinely interested, no personal attack intended.

spottyshoes - the op is talking about letting a baby cry and cry for hours, which you're not doing. i do think that controlled crying, ie going in regularly to shush and comfort works well for some people. don't feel guilty. however if you suspect that cc might not be for you (note: You, not your baby, You) then give Pantley a try. as i think i said earlier, we've only been doing it 2 nights and it's already seeming to work! i think it's specifically aimed at people like you and me, the co-sleeping, bf-ing brigade who are about to drop dead from exhaustion, although i'm sure it works well for other people too!!

DaddyJ, I think seeker means Dr. Ferber, tho frankly I never saw any mention of a minimum age in the original edition. Recently he said he woudn't recommend doing CC with babies under a year old, but I'm sure you know that. As I said below, I found it much easier at 3 mo than later on when they can stand up...
Urbandryad - could you sum up Pantley's method? Tho a confirmed CCer with DD1 I am still bfeeding and co-sleeping, some nights, with DD2 14mo ...oh, yes, and dropping dead from exhaustion, yes, that's me....