What are the cons of Controlled Crying? We know the pros...

[Bubbasmama]

My baby has been a good sleeper from the beginning (6 months old), but she has never slept through the night. She is BF and now, BLW. Not eating yet, still playing with her food. I imagine that being BF makes her wake and she, sometimes, seems genuinely hungry at night or wakes with a dirty nappy and is very chatty- at 3:30 am! The good sleep comes in waves and then vanishes! Sleeping for chunks of time- 4 hour stretches and then all of the sudden she will have a week of interrupted sleep and waking at 5am. My hubby and I have been thinking of trying CC. The one thing that stops me is that there is no talk of the cons of this method. And when I look around at most adults theses days, well, let's just say that most people seem pretty maladjusted. (especially city dwellers) I can assume that most people were left to cry it out. I really don't know what to do. I am tired.

Well, to me it seems a cold and harsh way to treat a really small and helpless person. TBH, it would have broken my heart to leave any of mine crying, and might have driven me mental.

I too opted for co-sleeping, and going with the flow instead of fighting it.

Everyone eventually gets some sleep. Babies really do grow into toddlers and then on to childhood and fairly good sleeping habits. The awfulness of sleeplessness passes.

I see no pros to controlled crying. The name implies some sort of control, some sort of surefire method that will defeat nature. It appeals to desperate people who dream about sleeping, IYKWIM. But crying is what babies are designed to do -- they cannot communicate any other way, and we are designed to respond to the cries of our babies.

bubbasmama - sounds like ds.

couldn't possibly leave 4.5 month DS to cry it out. he would wonder what on earth had happened. once i tried to pu/pd thing and he got in a right state. i left it a few minutes in between calmings to see if he could sort himself out and he got more and more upset, and in a right tizz - the poor pickle! it actually really upset me, not to mention upset him - he is such a happy chappy and he actually had tears running down his face - only seen that at the 8 and 16 week injections! i got to about 40 minutes and burst into tears. i am sure he was quite subdued for the rest of the day too. wouldn't do it again unless he is much older perhaps... i figure that there must be other ways when they are more cognitively aware/developed. at the mo, IMO it would be totally cruel. i don't want him not to ask if he needs me. we are not co-sleeping anymore and he is next door with doors open. i respond - it is what i signed up for when i got preggers. at the mo he is waking up alot due to growth spurt / comfort???? but i would not leave him to cry. ocassionally i hear him grumble and he goes back to sleep within a minute but i can tell if it is sleepy grumble or if he is calling me. if we were still cavemen/women we would not leave a baby to cry as it would attract predators, why do it now? (i don't know if that is a ridiculous idea - just a thought )

oh, and he is sleeping (without feeding ) for the second time today IN HIS COT! I had to get all atmostpheric on him! No tears either .

saying all of that, it obviously works for some, I am far too soft, clearly.

The one thing I don't understand about the arguments for and and against controlled crying is that, for several generations at least, it was the norm. In victorian times I'm pretty sure that if babies cried they were pretty much left to get on with it and going back further generations, mothers wouldn't have had time to constantly pick up babies, or they had nannies who wouldn't. I know for a fact that my Dad was regularly parked in a pram in the garden when he wouldn't stop crying. My mum would go in to us if we were clearly very distressed, but we got left to it a lot as well. I don't feel full of rage!

Unless you believe it's the case that every generation prior to the last have been totally maladjusted from being left to cry it out, then I think that some of these studies might be erring on the side of alarmist.

I don't controlled cry BTW because I don't like leaving DD to cry (is only 4 months old and my PFB so I have no other demands on my time right now). But equally I don't think it will mentally scar children for life as long as they're not actually being neglected and get lots of love and atention at other times.

Can an "old timer" say something here - clicked on this thread by accident. DS1 is 18 and we were totally ignorant parents when he was a baby, he woke us up repeatedly every night until he was 8 or 9 months old and like idiots we held and cuddled him until he went to sleep, and he promptly woke up when put in his cot and loudly protested for ages. With DS2 I got a book which had a version of the controlled crying technique in it and we always put him in his basket/cot to go to sleep, so that was easier, and we used the controlled crying technique once he got to about 6 months. No problems at all, much happier baby and much happier us. Both intelligent well balanced and affectionate teenagers. CC great idea provided you remain sensitive to any problems that might be causing crying.

I think two world wars in the course of 50 years is a sign of some sort of maladjustment. OK, that's a bit of an equivocation. But there were a lot of baby and childcare practices besides leaving babies to cry it out, back in Victorian times and the early 20th century, that would leave us appalled nowadays, all based on what was then accepted as science, or appropriate for one reason or another.

mathanxiety - while Iraq and Afganistan show that nowadays we're well adjusted and full of fluff and rainbows? There are many truly good people from history to compensate the evil, and I bet some of them were left to cry it out.

Of course child care has changed, and opinions have changed. I suspect when my daughter and maybe her children will look back at some of the things we all do now and recoil in horror. I'm also not saying that controlled crying is particularly great, I just think that to start saying that children who are left to cry will grow up to be maladjusted adults full of rage is alarmist in the extreme, especially when the child is loved and cared for the rest of the time.

Maybe my attitude to cc is a little coloured by the fact that my neighbours have been doing this with their DD2 for the past few months [really groggy unsmiley face needed here]

I agree it's the whole spectrum of response to a baby that makes a difference. Response to crying during the night is just one part of the picture. But still, I don't understand how my neighbours can switch off whatever instinct they have to comfort their baby when she cries -- it's quite a heart-rending sound to me.

Are you 100% sure they are ignoring her? When DD is struggling to get to sleep we can walk her, rock her, sing to her, shush-pat her and she will still wail in a way that would make anyone outside the room think she was the neglected child from an NSPCC ads.
I sympathise though, I'm pretty sure my neighbours hate me right now.

Actually...you're not my neighbour are you???
;)

I hope not .

They explained what they were intending to do beforehand, and they had done it before with their older DD, so this is Round 2.

I know my DD3 woke the whole neighbourhood with her endless shrieking, even though I wasn't doing cc, so I can't really complain about other people's babies. She was capable of stunning a whole supermarket into silence.

Hi Sorry I have not read all the post but because my job is to help people through their child's sleep problems I just wanted to say I think many people assume that with CC you will leave your baby/child to cry for long periods of time, I go in every 2-3 mins depending on how anxious the parent is, and the parent offer comfort with a shush and some light pressure on babies tummy, foot or forehead (acupuncture points) to calm baby. This will reassure the babies you will come, they are not abandoned and It does work and after only a few nights. The plus points of CC is that it is relatively quick and babies establish better sleep patterns and of course the benefit for parent to be able to put their children to bed at 7pm and know that they are there till the morning. Parents need time alone without their children and an undisturbed nights sleep.

Worked well for us with our son, within a few days. Doesn't mean he never wakes now, he often wakes for a few minutes, cries and goes back to sleep (all within 5 minutes or less) but it just means when he does cry for a longer period, we're actually more likely to pick up on potential problems.

The thing that always concerns me most in this debate is that supposed "scientific facts" are thrown about carelessly.

The AskDrSears web page that's linked to is a case in point. If you take a quick look through the references to back up that article many of them are dubious at best. The first is a Masters thesis, another is about development in rats, and even those about human development mostly refer to "persistent crying" as a symptom of other problems, not as the cause. For example, "Persistent Infant Crying and Hyperactivity Problems in Middle Childhood" is an article about children who are reported to medical professionals as having problem crying. That's isn't the same as controlled crying, where a parent has deliberately allowed their child to cry for a short period.

Their stated conclusion was that children referred medically for problem crying and associated sleep problems are more likely to have hyperactivity problems in later life.

Another referenced article, "Long term cognitive development in children with prolonged crying" comes to similar conclusions from a similar starting point - "excessive, uncontrolled crying that persists beyond 3 months of age in infants without other signs of neurological damage may be a marker for cognitive deficits during childhood. Such infants need to be examined and followed up more intensively."

So in both cases we've discovered that problem crying persisting for 3 months or more might indicate deeper problems.

So neither of these articles (I haven't read all of them) provide the slightest evidence that controlled crying causes harm to children. Similarly, there are no major studies on the effects of cortisol on babies, though I'd be interested to be directed to any that I've missed.

I'm not an expert, nor do I castigate people who use one approach or the other, but I think there's a lot of misinformation about this subject based on people's more general perspectives on child-rearing, and unfortunatley a lot of people might be put off controlled crying, or else do it and feel guilty that they're harming their children.

My little boy is 9 months old and sleeps from around 7pm until 6-7am most nights. We used controlled crying several months ago. To each their own.

Have I have been reading this thread and as I have said on a previous post I am a trouble shooter and with my clients we don't put babies in their beds and leave them screaming!! We go in every 3 mins and comfort the babies or child till they are calm and then leave the room, Then we wait outside the room for another 3 mins if the baby is really screaming then we don't wait 3 mins we go in and calm again, of course they start to cry when you leave the room but they are not screaming, I had a client last night with a 13 month old and it took 35 mins to settle him and he did not get to screaming point, he then slept for 35mins and woke again and it took 30 mins to resettle, still going in every 3 mins, he then woke at 5.30am and took 30 mins to resettle, he had woken once at 3am and settled himself in a minute. I will go again tonight and hopefully they are on their way to a full nights sleep. Most people I work with have a cut off point and have tried many things and are at the end of their tether. I think co sleeping is a great idea but it is not for everyone, babies and children need guiding gently to sleep as they need guidance in all other aspects. I think done correctly CC is fine and in my experience will take up to a week, If it is taking longer than 2 weeks it's not being done correctly.

I must have a masochistic streak in me because I always get myself involved in these CC threads which have a definite groundhog day feel about them .

Anyway.

As Lee has pointed out (and she's quite right) the research most people cite that supposedly 'proves' CC is harmful is very dubious. The 'cortisol' research (which itself has been criticized on many grounds) has been based on very extreme situations, wholly different to 'normal' families who reach the end of their tether & resort to CC.

There is & never can be any serious research on CC. Its simply one of those things that for ethical reasons cannot ever be tested, plus, even if you could somehow 'test' something about the babies' immediate response to CC, how on earth could you then check long term effects, separating them from other life experiences? Simply impossible.

I'm not saying that leaving a baby to cry night after night, without wondering what the crying is about, is good parenting. But even in such cases of extreme Cry it Out methods, there are, I'm sure, fantastic parents in every other way who feel that's what best for their families. In fact, I've met lovely parents who believe being firm with their children's sleep is good for them & good for the family as a whole. Obviouly there's a middle ground but I'm just arguing that even with CIO there are loads & loads of otherwise perfectly normal parents who resort to it & find it works.

My own personal experience: we did CC at 9 months with my DS to get rid of his dummy which was waking him every hour or so. It worked within 4 nights & involved much less crying than we had expected. It changed his sleep patterns & he finally started sleeping long stretches. He still has sleep issues (he's 19 months) for various other reason, but the mad waking every hour thing stopped with CC & I'll never regret doing it for one minute. And before you ask, YES, we tried other 'gentle' methods (using Pantley's NCSS book) for at least 2-3 months: they didn't work, not to the slightest.

And and to directly answer the OP's question.

I think the main con with CC is that it's often used incorrectly.

First, parents are sometimes not persistent / consistent in using it. So they 'cave in' after 40 mins (say) & then when they try it again the baby / toddler cries even harder. Or the parents don't have a united front on the sleep training, again can create huge confusion to the baby/toddler.

Second. Another con IMO is when CC is used as a first resort when actually it should always be an absolute last resort, only for sleep association issues. SSo, say a baby is actually hungry in the night & their eating is not structured well in the day, & then CC is tried without thinking about the context of the whole day. Then in that case CC IME is not only not going to work, but its cruel because the baby is actually waking out of hunger. Still won't do 'irreperable damage' to the child, I reckon, but its not addressing the real issue (hunger) & is lazy parenting.

Third, I think that parents need to be attuned to what the crying of their child means. IME (limited) experience crying during CC has an angry, protesting feel to it i.e. 'I don't like that my habit is being changed'. Its very very different to crying in pain, crying in hunger, crying in tiredness etc. That's an important distinction to keep in mind.

Fourth big con: CC is not pleasant for the child nor the parents while its happening (quite obvious that!). But I do believe in some cases it leads to excellent results. If a family for whatever reason can't cope with the sleeplessness anymore, then something needs to be done or the family as a whole will go bonkers...and CC is often the method that works the best (unfortunately).