Rather than being excited about the philosophy, i did it because if it's 3am ad the baby is screaming, won't feed, isn't wet, won't go to sleep and screams louder and with more distress if you rock/pat/jiggle there's nothing else TO do. It "worked" - she eventually slept, but probably she would have if i'd successfully forced a nipple in her mouth or left the room too, i did what i could live with. Don't we all?
DD also went through a period between 6 weeks and about 10 or 11 weeks of shrieking for 2-2.5 hours every evening between teatime and bedtime. Nothing helped. She literally SCREAMED and nothing we did made any difference. It was as if we weren't even there when it happened, no matter what we did, she looked past us and screeched. We tried rocking, walking, feeding, dummies, "magic finger" (a clean pinky fingr to suck), patting, singing, just holding, you name it (i once left her for 2 minutes but couldn't hack it and went back in). Eventually she would calm down enough to eat, and then she slept until she next was hungry. Nothing i did made any difference. When i felt able i did something to try to calm her, when i wasn't i sat and held and shhhhh'd her and either way, just before the 8pm feed she began to calm down and look for the boob.
It does make me laugh to read of parents who can't let their baby cry - if yor baby wants to cry for crying's sake you cannot stop it. If your baby stops crying in response to comfort then it was crying FOR comfort.
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