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I was wondering if anyone has any links to a study I recently heard about. My sister said she read about in her local paper but it wasn't referenced and I'd like to read more.
In essence the study found that mothers who were left to cry as a baby had increased anxiety when they heard their own baby cry.
Fingers crossed someone knows more about it! Thanks :)
Just a little bump in case someone who knows this study hasn't seen this yet :)
I haven't heard anything like that. My mother used controlled crying with myself and my siblings, and I certainly don't have anxiety when any of my babies were to cry. I am a very relaxed person. Just thought I'd put my 2 cents worth in there :D
Personally, I felt VERY anxious when my son cried as a young baby. I had to be holding him pretty much 24/7 and I think this was a really healing time for me to overcome my own disrupted attachment as an infant. So I'd love to see this study to find out more about what they studied and found.
As you say though Jodi, not everyone will feel this way. I remember watching that 1950's parenting guru lady, Claire someone, on Bringing up Baby and thinking that her ability to detatch from a baby's cry was possibly related to her own detatchment created from being raised to cry it out herself. So I can see how it could work both ways.
hi there
not sure if i can help you... my mum was the expert at control crying as she had 8 babies... but it didn't work for me... i still woke up at 2am every night up to about 3years old for a bottle LOL.
Even though she used the control crying technique on me, my personality was different and i probably continued to cry as i am an emotional person unlike my siblings. Saying this... I, nor my siblings seemed to have much problems ourselves with using this technique on our kids. I am actually the queen to tuning out a babies crying... it simply doesn't bother me. This however, could be a result of my learnings in areas of personal development and psychology at uni where i've hopefully gained at least a slightly better understanding of people (i'm certainly not judgemental of anything).
If you want to search studies, u should find a friend who is at uni and use their password to search their academic journals.. or try just a google search for academic journals in this area. Studies are published in academic journals normally.
I hope this has helped in some way, if not.. hopefully i have humoured you!
my mother was the queen of not letting a baby cry - I was rocked to sleep every night!!
but I HATED it when my babies even as much made a squeek!
Thanks Ciara.e, I am actually at Uni studying early childhood so I have access to journals- I just don't seem to be able to find the right key words for this study, hence why I was hoping for some more info which I felt a BellyBelly member may have.
It's interesting the effect study has on you- MY study and knowledge of emotional, language and brain development has cntributed to my not wanting to leave my baby cry. I can't imagine what you are studying that makes you feel the opposite. Our Uni's must be sourcing very different material.
Good to hear I'm not the only one on here Roryrory! :)
i guess you take what you want out of inforormation you learn? I'm very aware of overdoing things with young children so as not to create any abandonment type issues... although i'm very conscious of not pulling them in too tight as I believe the consequences of this is just as bad in later life too. That's just one perspective. And you are right, perhaps we learn different material? But i like to think outside the square... some of the greatest theorists developed their theory whilst going against popular belief. My point is, no answer can be wrong in this area. I don't study early childhood, I am studying psychology and criminolgy... some scarey stuff in there and that's probably why we've both developed differring methods and beliefs.
As far as keywords... did the original article have anything about the condition this is supposed to cause in later life? or was it just really basic? I'll access my journal database and see if i can come up with anything.. but again, same problem as you... finding the right keyword. Will see what i come up with though.
As far as parenting is concerned... i just believe that each child is different and they'll react well to the techniques that suit their personality... we're all different after all.. If we take the time to learn to read our babies, well figure it out the right way. Just like me as a baby... i'd just get worse with this method cos i'm too emotional and I needed to be held a bit more... but i'm the only one of my whole family that was in this boat.
Its an interesting subject! Thanks for bringing it up!
im sure my mum let me cry... and i dont have an issue with DD crying.
My mum never let me cry. She rocked me to sleep every night. I was anxious listening to DS cry, but with DD I seem to be able to tune out.
I would love to know more about the study if you find it.
I don't know it my mum used CC on me I would guess she did.
I've never been able to listen to DS crying it makes me feel very anxious. Even babies I don't know.
No offence intended to those posting, but I think that's a total crock.
I don't think any mother enjoys listening to her baby cry and most would feel anxious.
Oh gosh, I hope my post didn't sound like I actually enjoy listening to my babies cry!!! Just to clarify, I don't get anxiety when I hear a baby crying. Certainly doesn't mean I enjoy it either.
yeah i don't 'enjoy' hearing a baby cry.. i just don't get upset and flustered by it. It's like saying every person gets anxious when another human being talks to them... crying is a baby's way to communicate. I'm not going to get anxious over completely normal communication.
:yeahthat::
Sorry guys, 'enjoy' was a stupid choice of word.
Don't mind me, not in a good head space today and not being very eloquent!
Mmmm well I know my mother believed that babies were naughty when they cried & I was left to cry all the time.
I had a completley different philosophy in parenting my own babies.
It is known that a babies cry does a little trip on the mamas - that's what it is for. So that the child can be attended to... I got incredibly anxious when DD14 cried & I held her for most of her first 2 years of life!
I also felt agitated & compelled to attend to my other children when they cried. However I didn't feel anxious.
I reckon it's a fairly normal reaction for Mamas to feel agitated, anxious wanting to respond to their crying baby...
Thank you Inanna, as usual you have said beautifully what I was trying to say.
I am more inclined to think the way that a mother reacts to her crying baby, depends on how well she knows her baby ie their bond with each other and perhaps the Mothers' personality also..... ?? Just a thought. :dunno:
The cry of a baby evokes feelings in most mothers to make them want to respond I would think.
:yeahthat: I agree with Shanti. I think you can definitely pick how someone will react to their crying babies based on their personalities - well from Mothers Group experience I think so.:
The only time I ever get anxious is when DD is crying & I can't pick her up ie driving in the car. Heart rate goes up, blood pressure through the roof, anxiety skyrockets. Its the only time I ever want to scream at DH & blame him that we're not already home!! :redface: If she's crying & I can hold her, then I find that the crying doesn't worry me.
Actually, a baby cries to 'communicate' when it's got no other forms of communication left - body language signals have been missed and vocalisation is the last form left to them. Relying on crying is not the ideal way to respond to a child's needs. That's a good way to teach children to scream for attention later in life!
My mum responded to me instinctually (one of the few things about parenting that Westernisation couldn't extinguish from her!) and I do the same with my kids. Turns out a lot of the things my grandmother did with my mum that she never used I am doing now - what would now be called 'continuum' parenting, but it's just stuff my abuelita did for all her 9 kids.
Anyhoo, I trust my babies' signals and when they're crying I know in myself that I missed a couple of steps and I get a bit anxious because I'm beating myself up about missing the earlier communications (for being 'too busy' or just blind to them).
Don't know where you'd find the research on that, but I'd be interested in finding out, myself!
My own hypothesis would be that mothers who were controlled parented themselves are more likely to feel anxious about baby crying because instinctually they want to respond, but their conditioning is that you ignore it - a cognitive dissonance occurs causing anxiety. Whereas a mother who was responded to on a needs basis is likely to replicate that with her own children, as modelled by her mother, unless something else occurred in the sensitive period or an abuse later in life interrupted the parenting 'blueprint'.
My mother responded to my needs but her parenting in my early childhood (beyond babyhood) was angry and punitive - reflecting her treatment at the hands of her father. Interesting that her trust in her baby-parenting remained, but how to raise a child suffered because of the abuse.
So many variables!!
:dunno: there could be some merit in it.
I tried to CC my eldest and couldn't and haven't CC's my others. I was CC'd as a baby :(
Who knows? I know I was left to CIO as a baby when Mum was told "she doesn't need a feed anymore during the night" when I was about 8 weeks old. When DS was a baby and he cried I felt so anxious I actually felt physically sick.
Curly - that's the WORST advice given to new Mum's isn't it?? I was also told "by 8wks your baby should not need a feed and should be sleeping 8hrs at a time" and it's just so unrealistic and WRONG to tell mothers that.....
My little girl is 10.5mths old and still not sleeping all night and wakes regularly throughout the night (and that's normal) but she always gets cuddled or fed back to sleep, never to be left to cry alone because we think it's wrong and also we can't fall back asleep listening to her cry! We co-sleep now anyway! How anyone can... is beyond me.
I dunno, Mayaness - DS just didn't "do" body language. Trust me, I'd read up on it, seen other babies do it, watched him. He went straight for talking. And I mean talking; he didn't cry, he vocalised. 1 day old and he was making vowel sounds. He has ALWAYS used his voice to ask for things.
His initial response today isn't to cry. It's to walk up to me and say "elephant biscuit now please" or "I need a nappy change Mammy". No non-verbal cues at all.
I never got upset with DS's noises (because he rarely got to the distress crying stage) - they were him telling me what he wanted. He didn't do non-verbal. Not all babies do: even some of the baby-centred parenting books acknowledge that one now!
I think I remember hearing about a study where adults were exposed to the sound of a crying baby and results showed that it raised their heart rate or blood pressure or something? I think the take home message was that we're hard wired to feel like we need to 'do' something about a crying baby.