Cry-it-out “harms babies” – expert

I came across this article on the BBC via Kim’s blog (which is weird, considering she’s in the US!) and just wanted to share. Basically, parenting expert Dr Penelope Leach has claimed that the much-publicised ‘cry-it-out’ techniques recommended by parenting gurus such as Gina Ford and Supernanny can be scientifically proven to raise the levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, in an infant’s brain.

When Bubs was born I read numerous books, all promising to unlock the secret to successful routines and getting him to sleep through the night, and many suggesting that in order to do this, we would have to ‘teach’ Bubs that we would not come running to pick him up every time he cried.  Now before I go any further I have to say this; I am not one of these crunchy attachment parenting people.  From the moment Bubs was born I craved some sort of routine that would allow me some ‘me’ time, and to know where the baby stopped and I began.  Yes, we co-slept when nothing else would soothe him and yes, I breastfed on demand, but always with a view to gently nudging Bubs towards independence in the sense that he could fall asleep, alone, in his own bed – and stay there all night.

That took us nine long months to achieve and during that time, I tried and failed to let him ‘cry-it-out’ on numerous occasions.  Having read the aforementioned article I am ashamed to recall the times I sat on the floor outside the nursery door listening to his cries while my head fought against the urges of my maternal instinct which screamed at me to get up and go to my baby.  And when I eventually gave in – which I always did – I was assailed by guilt at what I’d put him through (for nothing) and feelings of failure because I’d cracked under the pressure.  Those women in the Gina Ford book were much tougher, much better mummies than me, I thought.

With a couple of years’ mummy experience under my belt, I now know that answering my child’s cries was always the right thing to do, and that listening to my maternal instinct is never the wrong thing to do.  Contrary to what some so-called parenting experts would have you believe, it is possible to teach your child to self-soothe and give them the confidence to fall asleep alone – both of which are, I believe, crucial foundation stones for good sleep habits – without ‘cry-it-out’.  That doesn’t mean we rush in at the first whimper – it took a long while to learn which cries needed answering and which were part of the falling asleep process.  Nor does it mean I don’t indulge his need to be close to me at times – many a night I rocked Bubs to sleep until my arms went dead – in fact I did it just a couple of weeks ago.  But 99.9% of the time he goes to bed without a fuss, settles himself to sleep and stays that way for 12 hours or more.

The idea that leaving my baby to cry could have ‘altered his expectations’ to the point where he wouldn’t cry because he knew there was simply no point makes me feel sick, and even though I already knew ‘cry-it-out’ was bad for both of us, having read this article I can categorically say that I will never let a child of mine cry it out again.