By kim ( April 25, 2010 at 12:12 am) · Filed under Uncategorized, attachment parenting, babies, crying, sleep
As the mommy wars wage on, a new article by the BBC points to science, yet again, to prove that cry-it-out is bad for babies. A quote from the author and mother of two, Dr. Penelope Leach states:
If you do not respond and if you refuse to respond, the baby knows no response is coming … The reason that a baby gives up after half an hour, three-quarters of an hour or an hour is that it has given up and that its expectations have been altered … I’ve heard it said that babies stop crying because they have learned that mummy wants them to go back to sleep. Babies are not capable of that sort of learning.
Now it remains to be seen. Will the proponents of cry-it-out ignore yet more scientific evidence that this method of ’sleep training’ is harmful for babies?
I hope not.
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By kim ( September 16, 2009 at 10:28 am) · Filed under Uncategorized, babies and kids, co-sleeping, crying, links, night waking, north american way of life, sleep
I’ve been doing some reading on co-sleeping and found a great article called “The Con of Controlled Crying”. Here’s an excerpt:
Controlled crying and other similar regimes may indeed work to produce a self-soothing, solitary sleeping infant. However, the trade-off could be an anxious, clingy or hyper-vigilant child or even worse, a child whose trust is broken. Unfortunately, we can’t measure attributes such as trust and empathy which are the basic skills for forming all relationships. We can’t, for instance, give a child a trust quotient like we can give him an intelligence quotient. One of the saddest emails I have received was from a mother who did controlled crying with her one-year-old toddler.
After a week of controlled crying he slept, but he stopped talking (he was saying single words). For the past year, he has refused all physical contact from me. If he hurts himself, he goes to his older brother (a preschooler) for comfort. I feel devastated that I have betrayed my child. - Sonia
Can you imagine? I can’t. I’m so glad that I read this article - on the nights when it’s the hardest, I’ll be able to remember that quote.
For more articles on baby sleep, co-sleeping, baby training, etc. check out this page. Enjoy!
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