Training babies to sleep through the night using the popular “controlled crying” technique can be damaging to their development, according to a leading youth mental health group, directly contradicting information provided by the federal government-funded Raising Children Network website.
Described as “the complete Australian resource for parenting newborns to teens”, the website states babies older than six months could be trained to sleep through the night with no proven adverse effect on their well-being.
But the Australian Association of Infant Mental Health has a position paper dating back to 2004 recommending controlled crying only be used under exceptional circumstances, and after consultation with a medical professional. The controlled crying technique — or controlled comforting, as some call it — involves leaving a baby to cry for short but increasing periods before returning to comfort them, with the aim of teaching them to settle themselves.
AAIMHI National President and Curtin University Senior Psychology Lecturer Dr Lynn Priddis says while she doesn’t seek to criticise other organisation’s approaches, parents should focus on building reassuring relationships with their infants for optimal mental health.
“Self soothing doesn’t happen at all,” she told Crikey. “When children are quiet after being left for a long time, it’s because they’re in despair.”
Dr Priddis say it’s important that children’s needs be met time and again for them to develop a sense of security and self esteem, but she admits no clinical research had been done to support this.
Researcher and paediatrician Dr Harriet Hiscock, from Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital Centre for Community Child Health, says the AAIMHI’s claims are not supported by science.
“If parents are loving and responsive in the day there is no evidence at all that [sleep training] is harmful,” she said.
Dr Hiscock says that by six months a baby has developed object permanence — the ability to understand that when a person moves out of their range of sight they do not cease to exist and are therefore able to understand their caregiver would come back.
She also points to studies that show the use of sleep training techniques had been successful in reducing depressive symptoms in sleep deprived mothers, better enabling them to care for their children.
“[Controlled crying] is only for three to five nights, it’s a very short time in a baby’s life. If parents are warm and appropriate during the day, then it’s fine,” she said.
A spokesperson for Families Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said that the Raising Children Network website was a trusted source of information for Australian families: “All content on the site is quality assured using a strict expert review process and approved by the Raising Children Scientific Advisory Board, which is made up of some of Australia’s pre-eminent experts in child health and development.”
After a horrendous experience at Tresillian, a NSW Government funded family care centre, where controlled crying is forced upon the parents, I’m not surprised these concerns are know being given the Australian Association of Infant Mental Health.
Dr Priddis is absolutely correct when she says that, “when children are quiet after being left for a long time, it’s because they’re in despair.”
In our case, it was because our 9-month old daughter was absolutely exhausted that she couldn’t utter another sound. Or in the case of the following night, vomited because she was so upset from being locked in a cupboard for extended periods.
When my wife warned the nurse at the centre that after an hour of crying that our daughter wasn’t herself, that she wasn’t well, emotional games started and my wife was forced into an embarrassing backdown and was accused of being too weak.
The fact that this is a government funded technique is one thing but that doctors refer young parents to these centres all the time is quite another.
Our traumatic experience is common amongst people we have spoken to and both the Federal and State Government’s need to re-assess the impact of controlled crying on infants and their parents.
It may well be the case that one day we will look at it in the same way as corporal punishment in schools; archaic, harmful and unnecessary.
“It may well be the case that one day we will look at it in the same way as corporal punishment in schools; archaic, harmful and unnecessary.”
I already look at it that way.
At some point in children’s lives, they must learn where they sit in the family pecking order. And it’s not on top. Making sure all members of the family get a good night’s sleep is an important element of teaching them this truth.
Though crying is what a baby does when it is distressed, it is also what it does as it learns the behavioural principle of stimulous and response.
I can’t comment of what government run child care centres do but all this “My child will be psychologically damaged for life if I don’t surrender all in abject servitude” bleeding heart modern psycho-babble is doing today’s childeren no favours but generating more parents to join the pathetic candidates helped by Supernanny.
Maybe the child stops crying not because of “dispair” but because he/she works out that it’s not working.
I thought that we’d had this debate years ago, and the decision was that babies don’t cry for nothing, and that this controlled crying is harsh at best, and could lead to problems later at worst.
I had three babies and I couldn’t stand them crying – unless I was preparing their meal etc and the safest thing was to leave them in their bassinet or cot! If babies are not hungry or need changeing, and are wrapped up nice and firm (wished I’d known this trick with mine) they’ll usually go off to sleep. Crying later usually has a good reason. I couldn’t let them cry. Anyway, I could usually recognise the type of crying as they got older. A nice warm ‘deep’ bath is usually a good action to encourage sleep? There’s several things that can be tried. The most important thing for babies and toddlers is love, love and more love! That’s how we raise healthy and happy kids and adults!
As the father of an 8 month old, the one thing I have worked out is that the best course of action depends on the child. Some respond to controlled crying, others don’t. When two experienced midwives give you two polar opposite sets of advice on how to handle a screaming child, you work out pretty quickly that there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to baby wrangling.
Best to apply some common sense. Take the advice of a person/GP/midwife you trust. If that action isn’t working after a week, don’t perserve with it. Try something else. Don’t compare your kid with your friends kid. Remember that you, as a parent, know what is best for your baby more than any other well meaning family member/friend/crikey intern.