Control Crying??? Is there a middle ground?

New research was released this week regarding control crying with Murdoch Research Institute suggesting that control crying may not be as detrimental as it is sometimes perceived.

As always, research is only credible until someone with more money comes along who wants to prove otherwise (or as we see more often,  a drug company who can afford to pay – to prove the validity of their product). With this particular research though, it would seem that pharmaceutical companies were not at play and perhaps the intentions of the research were indeed noble. Important research  - as a lack of sleep for both parents and infants can perpetuate  a whole host of health issues, including post natal depression.

When I consider the ‘control crying debate’ this topic feels a lot less black and white for me than the “dummy” issue discussed in recent blogs. As stated, I am not really a fan of dummies, not only because of their detrimental health effects but because I would find it too much like saying “sweetheart, here suck on this, self soothe for a little while and I’ll will meet your needs in a minute.” This may sound harsh so I ask you to please read the blogs relating to the topic where I elaborate on my rationale and other concerns for chronic dummy use.

So where does this leave me with control crying??

Well I am not really a fan of control crying (in its strictest sense) either,  BUT  I  AM  A  FAN  OF  QUALITY  SLEEP!!!!!!!

Well what does that mean??

It means I have great concerns about the number of beautiful mums, dads, babies and children in the world who are not getting enough quality sleep and how a lack of quality sleep can have a devastating spiral effect. Couples are exhausted, distressed, feeling isolated, becoming depressed and walking away from their relationships because they feel completely overwhelmed. I believe a lack of quality sleep ( at least 4-5 hours of UNBROKEN sleep a night) deeply effects the core fabric of families.

In my opinion happy parents create happy children, not parents who have no time to rest or sleep because their babies are also confused and delerious themselves!!

Now, I do not mean that as parents of small babies and children that we should live with the fantasy that we should have 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I am talking about working towards having a 4- 5 hour stint of sleep a night, as many nights as you can even from an early point with babies.

Let me state that I have demand breastfed all our boys and have found that of an evening, if I got to bed when I put them down about 9pm ( having fed them up over the last few hours), then most nights we would both sleep at least 4-5 hours, sometimes 6. Then they would wake for a feed and they would go back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. Of course any other of our children might wake at any time in between but it helped my sanity to know this was what Simon and I held as ideal. Of course that initial stretch of sleep for a newborn may have varied if they were having a growth spurt, teething or unwell and we’d roll with that, working our way back to trying to have a longer stretch of sleep.

Having worked with hundreds of mums, without a shadow of a doubt, formula fed babies sleep for much longer periods than breastfed babies and I won’t go into why this is so now but what I would like to discuss is ‘duration of sleep’ before we go back to the topic of control crying. When a baby wakes every couple of hours this most often indicates there is a problem. The first question I would ask is – “Is there a reason for the baby not sleeping for an extended period?  Could they have nerve distress?”

Spine and nerve irritation is an unpublicized problem that effects many, many, babies.  Often babies experience birth trauma (even with straight forward vaginal births) or constraint within the uterus during pregnancy and these babies develop spinal cord tension or nerve irritation that deeply effects their capacity to sleep, their digestion and ability to feed.

If a baby is not sleeping or feeding with ease, then parents would do well to look for the reason as to why their child is not happy and settled. Having a baby who cries incessantly, is generally speaking, not related to anything the parent/parents may or may not be doing. Please do not feel that you are doing anything wrong. I would encourage you however, for the sake of your child’s future health – TO ASK FOR HELP. Seek out a chiropractor who is skilled with working with babies and children and watch how all of your lives turn around for the better. Chiropractic has helped hundreds of babies and parents sleep better.

A good chiropractor is a great starting point for assessing your infant. Should any other health issue need addressing then your chiropractor will refer you for a second opinion.

So now that we have addressed the fundamental issue of whether your baby will not sleep because there is health problem at hand we can get back to control crying…

What are ‘controlled crying’ techniques? The idea with these techniques is to train babies to fall asleep by themselves. This is achieved by leaving the baby in its cot to cry for increasingly longer periods before the parents respond. These recommended time periods vary, but can be anything from fifteen minutes up to an hour. Originally, controlled crying was not recommended for babies under six months of age, but it seems to be suggested for younger and younger babies these days, right down to newborns.

While we have not used controlled crying techniques with the methodology described above for our boys, some parents have used them and these techniques have saved their sanity. If you are at a loss as to what to do with your infant who may not be sleeping there are three points to bear in mind

1. each baby is an individual, what works for one child may not work for a sibling
2. what works for one family may not for another
3. if you are becomes increasing distressed through a lack of sleep then seeking advice on various approaches to encouraging sleep is a smart move – do it now! There are lots of sleep techniques- control crying is ONLY ONE  

If you are confident that your child:

• is well fed and hydrated,
• they do not have a digestive issue such as colic, causing them significant pain, or that they do not have spinal cord tension that manifests as a headache when you lie them down- issues addressed because you’ve seen a chiropractor.
• is dry, comfortable and safe.
• you have gone through a bedtime ritual of cues which let them know it is bed time eg wrapping/swaddling them etc
• ready to sleep

then in our experience, baby’s in general, are fairly happy to lie there and fall off to sleep.

If parents have a habit of breastfeeding their baby off to sleep, at some point, this may pose a problem should want to leave your bubba with anyone else, perhaps creating much anxiety for all involved. It can also be extremely taxing on the mother.

If you have to rock your baby to get them to fall off to sleep, from a practitioner perspective, this may in fact indicate there is nerve irritation present. As discussed above, these infants may in turn not sleep for long periods.

For our family it has worked well to have the bedroom door slightly ajar so our babies could hear familiar noises. At times if they would call out, I would let them know that I was close by, “Mummy’s here sweetheart, it’s time for sleep.” This is a line and a cue we would also use from our bed if they would wake at night and it wasn’t feed time and we’d already checked that they weren’t wet or cold etc. Sometimes this would work, other times it wouldn’t and some evenings we’d find ourselves cuddling them off to sleep in our beds, we were conscious not to create a pattern of this though. Neither Simon and I were fans of letting our boys scream for long periods, so irrespective of age, we  focused on letting them know we were always close by and that sleep was important.

After helping four children with sleep, Simon and I have come to realise if we started consistant sleep rituals from around 6 months, by this I do not mean strict control crying but somewhere in between that suits your family, RATHER than waiting until you are all so exhausted (often around 12mths – which we did with our first two boys!!!!) then sleep patterns seem to develop more easily.

Children are a gift and so is quality sleep. Somehow if let go of trying to force a routine and we listened to each others needs then we found a happy balance seemed to fall into place.

I wish all my sleep deprived readers every success. Take care of yourselves, your beautiful children and ask for help should you need it.

Respectively yours,

Jennifer