Do you do controlled crying?
How to respond to a crying baby always divides parents. At the extreme, some believe every whimper should be responded to immediately, while others insist on leaving their child to wail away until they calm themselves down.
Given the divisiveness of this particular issue, it is little surprise to see newspapers leaping onto this latest piece of research, which suggests that babies who are left to settle themselves remain just as stressed as when they were crying.
This would appear to leave advocates of controlled crying with some questions to answer.
The basic premise of controlled crying is that, by leaving baby to settle themselves, they will eventually get used to falling asleep without needing a carer’s comfort.
Anecdotal evidence shows us that babies do indeed take less time to settle over successive nights of applying controlled crying. It was even recommended to my daughter by the midwife, although she didn’t decide to do it in the end.
But this research suggests babies are still stressed, even after they stop crying.
Now I’m not a huge fan of controlled crying, if I’m honest, although I do appreciate the thought process behind it.
The thing that worries me about this strategy is that there are clear instances when babies are in quite substantial distress, which is entirely distinguishable from a normal ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘I’m tired cry’.
If mum applies controlled crying methodology uniformly for all of these different demands, then I can see how baby could very easily get stressed out.
A baby’s cry can be quite a subtle thing. And while I would be at great pains to leave a baby to settle themselves under most circumstances, I do think there are probably instances where it’s more acceptable to leave a baby to cry and whimper than others.
But then, I also appreciate why some parents may turn to controlled crying if they have a particularly demanding child who is unable to self-settle. If successful, it can certainly lift a substantial burden.
Ultimately though, this research doesn’t provide me with enough answers. For example, is baby being stressed out actually something we should be overly concerned about?
I don’t mean this to sound cruel at all. Of course we should do as much as possible to stop babies getting stressed. But it is in their nature to cry and, by extension, get stressed out now and again. Surely the important question is whether this level of ‘controlled crying’ stress is damaging?
Cry-sis offers support for families with excessively crying, sleepless and demanding babies.
I don’t agree with controlled crying. When babies cry it is for a reason. If you don’t know the reason you need to find it out, not just leave them to it. My midwife told me that the quicker you tend to a baby in the early months the more loved and secure it will feel and will then need you less. I went to my little boy every time he needed me when he was little. I got a lot of people telling me that I should leave him to cry it out and practice controlled crying (I was getting this advice from 3 weeks old!) but I ignored them, Most of the time it turned out he was hungry. At about six months old he started getting really unsettled when I went to bed and getting up a lot in the night for cuddles, so I moved him into his own room. He instantly started sleeping better. Shortly after that he started pushing me away when I tried to cuddle him to sleep, so I put him in his cot and he got himself to sleep. Now I just do his bed time routine (bath, milk, story), then pop him in the cot and go downstairs. He spends about twenty minutes to half an hour playing with his teddies and chatting to himself then lies down and sleeps. Maybe I was just lucky, but I firmly believe he does that because he knows if he needs me I’ll be there. He is now such a happy secure little boy who hardly cries. The nursery are always suprised that when he falls over he just gets back up without a whimper. Babies are only babies for such a short time. People need to treat them like babies and mother them, not expect them to behave like adults. I was actually told when he was three weeks old “you wouldn’t cuddle a five year old to sleep, so you shouldn’t cuddle him to sleep or it will never end”. What complete rubbish. You also wouldn’t change a nappy on a five year old because you toilet train them, that doesn’t mean a new born should be using a potty does it?
I totally disagree with controlled crying, and do agree with Emily, that a routine of bath, milk, story, bed is the best thing to get babies to sleep. Controlled crying is like breaking a horse – it only teaches the child that no matter how much it cries mum/dad will not come and in their mind that means they do not love them. That is cruel and abusive. I have always gone to my children when they cried – not immediately, but I would never leave them for more than a few minutes. Whenever I had to leave them for longer they simply worked themselves up and made themselves sick. Not to mention how it made made me feel hearing them scream their little lungs out! Both my children went straight to sleep at night and both slept through from a young age – my eldest from 1 month, and my youngest from about 6 weeks due to having coughs and colds (autumn baby). I cuddled both my children as much as I could and in the early weeks/months they slept on me a lot of the time. I believe this helps build their sense of safety and lets them feel secure all the time, they are not often alone and know that Mum is always there for them – this results in them being confident and strong as they grow up. My eldest is happy secure and the most confident child I know, my youngest is only 8 months old so only time will show what she is like.
I have read lots of articles around sleep training and most support controlled crying or some variation on the theme. I have a particularly high-activity baby who is difficult to settle and have also been told by a number of friends/family members to let her ‘cry it out’. However, this is not something i am comfortable with. I have attempted it once or twice but haven’t really committed to the process as I don’t really feel it is right.