Controlled crying harmful?

[maomao]

Did anyone else see this in yesterday's Observer?

yes, dont agree totally, of course there is a limit to how far u go with c/c. and most of us wouldnt let a baby/child get distressed, i ll be interested to see her book, but alot of her theories can/could be combined with spock/ford/ your own and i thought they were kinda common sense.

Didn,t see it but am just about to try CC as my 4 MO DS has started waking in night every 2 hours for a feed (he only takes 5 mins or so, so suspect he may be using me as a bit of a dummy). Also he refuses to sleep in day, only about 15 mins 2 x day after 1 hour of screaming place down. does CC actually work? as i'm at the end of my tether - if not, any ideas on how to get him to sleep, not even through the night but maybe 4/5 hours at a stretch? - he slept like a dream up until 3 weeks ago and it just seems to be escalating - any tips of any kind gratefully received!!

emz31, i think that 4 mths is far too young to do CC.
You say you think he may be using you as a 'dummy,' have you considered using a real dummy?

emz31 - CC totally worked for us. The trick is, though, you have to be ready to carry through. If you give up after an hour, or whatever, then it ensures that CC will be much harder in future.

We did it with DS1 at three months. It took a couple of hours the first few nights, then less and less time. After about a week, it was fine.

maomao, I saw the article, and it really really pissed me off. I know a little bit about brain scans, and the thing is, they don't actually tell you anything! They tell you, the blood is going here. Unless brain scans of babies doing CC show that all the blood is falling out their ears or something (which I think the parents might notice!) how do the results tell you that the baby is being damaged! (We really know very little about how the brain works.)

I'm not totally fanatical about CC, I think a mix of attachment parenting and order-and-discipline is best. Strict attachment parenting might be better for babies - if parents could do it without their heads exploding! The observer article really offended me, saying, we know X because a brain scan showed it is just complete nonsense.

How can you leave a 3 or 4 month old baby to cry for a couple of hours? I don't leave bean to cry for more than a few minutes. At 3 months you've got to expect to be woken up in the night surely?

NQC, I don't know anything about brain scans, but was wondering what other evidence they would use to support the case. Also was curious as to how big the study was, how long they'd been doing research, etc. Didn't see any of that info included in the article.

emz31, I thought I'd read that cc shouldn't be done until the baby is at least 6 or 7 months old.... There are a ton of threads on here about cc, if you do a search.

Hermykne and NQC, I agree that a "menu" of techniques works far better for each baby.

twoforone - have tried countless dummies, he won't take one - i do a little CC in day and he eventually goes to sleep after an hour. notquitecockney - he goes to sleep independently at bedtime - but how do you do CC when he wakes in night seemingly hungry?? do you just ignore it or go in a couple of times?? beansmum, i want to do cc as he is capable of sleeping through, which he did from 3 weeks old so i know it's just a habit now - also i'm bloomin' knackered!!

I'm never quite sure what controlled crying means - we left dd to settle herself for her nighttime sleep by leaving her to cry at 3 months. But it took 12 minutes of crying the first night, 10 the next and not a squeak from her thereafter. Surely that cannot have damaged her in any way. It certainly improved her sleeping and she was more likely to settle herself at night if she stirred but didn't want milk. I always fed her on demand at night if she did wake up though.

The article is sensible in that it emphasises the importance of responding to the child's needs. But at some point you do have to teach them to go to sleep when they're tired and it's not very forthcoming on the details of how you do that.

emz31 would it be posible that you baby is going through a growth spurt he maybe only feeding for 5 min at a time but he is still getting enough to stop any hunger pain iykwim.

tania2, do growth spurts normally last for 3 weeks? and get worse each night? feel it is just a habit.

emz31 - I know how tiring it can be, bean has always been a really good sleeper but when he started nursery last month we had 2 weeks of waking every 2 hours during the night, exhausting!

I just think 4 months is way too young to be left to cry. Even if it's not harmful for the baby, and I'm not saying it is, how could you listen to your son scream and do nothing about it?

Have you tried using a sling to get him to sleep during the day?

Hmmm...if crying per se is so harmful (irritating that the article had absolutely not scientific evidence in it AT ALL) what about babies with colic then? Are they all disturbed? And whose fault is that then? Can we still blame the mother?

yes, yes, aloha: i'm also confused about the babies who cry because they're overtired. will a baby sustain more brain damage from insufficient sleep, or from crying?

grrr.

The article does mention her four-year study of brain scans and scientific research and I've been searching to see if I could find the actual research results but no luck.

i suppose ideally a baby should sleep 18 hrs a day and never cry, but how often does that actually happen?

well bean does most days, but he's an angel

Pick up/put down is exactly the sort of thing that would have made my son cry and cry and cry!! The sheer frustration of it!

Bakedpotato - what about if they - horrors! - have both!

beansmum: CC isn't easy at any age. But DS1 refused to sleep anywhere but on me or with me (and I hate hate hate sitting still for hours), so at three months, we moved him out of our bed. I still fed him in the night, but I made him learn to fall asleep on his own. He was a lot happier and better rested when we did this, and started gaining weight better ever. (And CC doesn't mean just leaving them to cry, you go in to talk to them every little while.)

maomao: The article was very strange. The headline talked about CC, but the article mostly talked (fairly sensibly, I thought) about dealing with normal emotional upset. Maybe the underlying research is interesting and valid and the CC thing is barely mentioned?

I've read in a few threads people saying no CC before six months. Ferber says you shouldn't try to impose a schedule for the first few months. I certainly wouldn't do it before two or three months, but after that, it depends on the situation, I'd say. I'd rather not do it at three months with DS2. He's a better sleeper so far, and easier to share a bed with, so we might put it off until he's happy to go without feeds in the night.

emz31: There is a CC method to stop night feedings - we did it with DS1 at 6 months. Once they've got used to falling asleep without your help, you reduce how long you feed them for (or how much you give, if you're giving formula), gradually, night by night. Sounds like it wouldn't work, but it did, really well, for us. It was much easier than the initial controlled crying thing.

aloha, bakedpotato: Well, quite. I'm always really envious of people whose babies sleep easily and lots, but mine (particularly DS1) don't, without lots of structure and routine. Surely being kept up all night and wearing out their parents can't be good for babies either?

Great something else to feel guilty about!

I didn't think you were supposed to use cc until they are 6 months old?

Dd at 2 is still waking and crying, we are currently trying to ignore it, but it is so hard. If we do go in coz she is really screaming, she just stops and smiles at us. Agghhh!

Was a thread on this yesterday girls - title was 'thought his might be of interest..'

I did CC at 12 months and it took 3 nights - bingo!

My child is not psychologically damaged by routine or cc and our house is pretty calm with 3 ds's under 4 - all sleeping soundly through the night (youngest only 10 weeks). You can just adapt GF and others to your own circumstances but use them as a guideline.

But the point is it's CONTROLLED crying - not leaving them to scream for hours on end.

I've done both with a 4 month old - just to settle at nights for bedtime. CC worked exactly as Pidge mentioned. 15 mins first night ( going up to settle crying every 5 mins); next night crying for 7 mins (I was going to leave her 10 mins this time) by the time I'd reached the top of the stairs - not a peep. Thereafter a settled baby at night times. This was after 4 months of b/f to sleep for up to 2 hours before she was ready to be put down and not wake up until next feed.

At 4 months, most babies go through an ectra feeding phase - it's why old fashioned advice was to start eaning at 4 months.

I'd never heard of pu/pd until I had DD2 and used this method with her. Cry, pick up until stops crying. Immediately put in cot. Cry again - pick up, repeat as necessary (this can continue for a while - I think I did it 30 times on the first occasion.) But eventually you hear them start to yawn and after about 3 or 4 yawns, she didn't bother crying again, and went off to sleep. Now again - I have another baby who settles herself to sleep at nights.

pu/pd worked in the middle of the night at 7 months too when I wanted to stop night feeds, and knew she was getting enough calories in the day to sustain her.

I do agree with taking children's feelings seriously. I certainly do that. I try to use a lot of empathy and I don't tease ds. I'd always try distraction as my first strategy, but I really don't think ignoring crying for chocolate is going to cause lifelong emotional problems.

notquitecockney - have just dragged my tired ass into town to buy the richard ferber book - feel more positive after reading about the methods to stop night time feedings - what he talked about was exactly what DS is doing. also feel very heartened about the fact it worked for you, so we begin tonight! - hopefully i won't have died from sleep deprivation by friday!! - incidentally, anyone know of a good way to get DS to take good long naps instead of the 15 min catnaps he has only once or twice a day??