Can anyone help? child behaviour

[Art_Addict]

Hi all ,

Don't know if anyone can help me with this but i'll give it a shot :)
A friend of mine is doing a psychology paper on child behaviour, specifically on the subject of a crying baby when its asleep. I've allready googled a bit on the subject but didn't come up with any specific info. ( i'll keep trying tho' )
Dr. Benjamin Spock, a well known pediatrician, reffers to the problem as follows :
( in a nutshell ) : If you let a baby cry and not give in to his request of attention , eventually he will stop crying . In the beginning it may take a while but eventually the baby will stop crying and fall asleep ultimately ending in a baby that doesn't cry anymore during the night because he notices that crying doesn't resolve anything. ( pfff, pardon me my bad english but i can't really explain it in other ways than this :) )
Now the question is : Can this approach have bad side effects specifically : concerning the emotional independence of the baby, child or adult in a further life?
So i need info regarding the question. I know its a long shot but.....
If anyone can help me out here a bit that would be much appreciated

Thanx ,
Tom

[Nudnik]

I saw a TV program once, "Super Nanny" I think, and the Nanny said that it was best to let the baby cry until it got bored and fell asleep. But only under certain circumstances:

Apparently, you can tell if the baby is crying for attention by the tone of its cry. If it is in distress, the tone is different. The nanny said that you shouldn't yield to its cries for attention.

I don't personally think this would have any serious effects on the child's emotional development, but hey, I'm no expert.

[AmericanEskimo]

well we had this exact same problem about 2 months ago, my nephew just started sleeping by himself (8 moths old) and he did not want to sleep by himself. the problem was that my sister was catering to his very whim, and so he was triand to think that the more (and loder) that you cried youd eventually get your way. so we suggested that you let the baby cry for 20 min, and by that time the baby had stoped crying, sometimes befor the 20 min were up.and it eventually got it through its mind that crying is not the way to get what you want and eventually gave up. but if you can stand this for about a week then you will have it easier in the long run ;)

[Storyboard Dave]

I like Eskimo's approach to it. You give them a time in which they have to stop crying. Anything beyond is possibly a warning sign.

I've actually heard that parents that give into a crying baby immediately are actually spoiling the baby; if baby wants ANYthing a squeal will get immediate satisfaction from the parents. Talk about the tail wagging the dog!

[Crawley]

we chose the "let em cry" thing when it became difficult to rock the baby to sleep (a task which i did enjoy). it helps to mark the time when you put them down so you can know how long they have been crying. what seems like forever might only have been 3 mins. if he doesn't stop crying after about 15mins we usually check on him. sometimes he just wasn't ready to go to bed, or maybe something interupted his routine like being put to bed somewhere new, maybe he pooped right after you laid him down, could be lots of reasons. after a few weeks he got the hang of the new bedtime routine. soon it got to the point where he usually doesn't cry at all and if he does it's only a minute or so. i don't see anything tramatic about this. in my opinion it's more damaging to the parents who cater to their children's every cry. those kids get insecure, they have to be rescued from EVERYTHING. we do always sneek in and check on him after we are pretty sure he is asleep.

[Art_Addict]

Thanks for all the input guys !

[BadMange]

I'm a new dad with a 1 month old, and my wife and I have done a TON of research on development, nutrition, etc. We've read the books "What to expect when you're expecting" and "What to expect the first year," talked to the OB/GYN as well as our pediatrician, my wife's sister (who's a pediatrician herself) and visited tons of websites about babies. Everyone says different things, from "It's good to let babies cry to clear the lungs of mucus from when they were in the womb," to "it's impossible to spoil a baby within the first year." My sister-in-law didn't put her first child in her own room until about 6 months old. Their second child went into her own room at about 6 weeks. I think you should learn to recognize your child's different cries and base your decision to either leave them to cry or to comfort them based on the sound. If your baby is in pain, it's cruel to let them wail for 20 minutes and suffer. They may remember it later in life and never move out of the house!!

[Dougbot]

It depends on the kid and the parents. My wife and I follow the Dr. Sears method, which is attachment parenting. Basically do your best to not let them cry. A lot of people roll their eyes at us, but now our almost eight month old never cries. We constantly get compliments about our happy baby where ever we go. We can easily eat at restaurants, she just smiles at us and plays (folowed by other patrons saying "oh what a happy baby, she's so well behaved, etc.").

My kid is amazingly secure, and we never let her cry it out. In fact she's afraid of very little, bedtime, falling over, loud noises, even crowds. She's amazingly happy. To be honest our friends with the 'cry it out' babies still have crying babies, and they usually scare easily and reach for mommy.

Not to mention a baby that feels secure learns more. Already my daughter is saying words associated to things (although she needs to work on her c's, our cat is a "tat" :)). Not to mention rolling across the house, begining to crawl and great eye hand coordination. She's not even 8 months yet.

Even Dr. Richard Ferber disagrees with the 'cry it out' method, and he came up with it. Unfortunately he doesn't own the rights to his books, so they still use his name, even though he doesn't believe it.

You have to have a kid to actually judge what's best for them. Most all doctors, child psychologist, midwives, etc. believe that you can't spoil infants. In the end, you have to decide what's best for your child and you. All I know is we have a child that seems to learn quicker than most and is incredibly happy.

In the end every kid is different, but I know what works for us. It's harder work and that's why most people don't do it, but already it's paying off.

[BadMange]

I'll have to read up on "attachment parenting". Dougbot, can you recommend any books?

Regarding Dr. Spock, that guy is a fuck. When I was a child, my stepfather beat me with his leather belt because that's what Dr. Spock recommending in his books. Then, many years later he recanted that and now recommends against that. I was mouthy when I was growing up, but no kid deserves getting slapped across the back of their thighs with a leather strap. He finally stopped when I laughed in his face but, man, did it hurt! If I EVER see that guy in public, I'm gonna confront him and see how he likes my belt. BASTARD! :uzi2:

[Dougbot]

Absolutely. Again, it's just what we use, and might not be for everybody. Here's Dr. Sears main site: http://www.askdrsears.com/ . You can find all of Sears' books on it. Here's his basic seven tools: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/t130300.asp

There's more out there, I'll ask my wife later today some of the other docter names who support this.

Just remember all kids are different (as I'm sure you know), so all parenting styles will be different. This one just works for us.

[Art_Addict]

Hey ,

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for all the responses and efforts guys, i didn't expect that :)
Altough you didn't provide me with the kinda scientific info i needed it was fun to read how some of you handle those situations. Nice to know there are young fathers among us artists too :)

Thanks
Tom