The Attached Mother

Yesterday I read a great post called The Damage of Cry it out and Controlled Crying. Cry it out, or CIO, is one of the hot topic issues surrounding attachment parenting. Most are generally against it, feeling that leaving an infant to cry interferes with the bond and attachment between parent and child. Rather than teaching a child to sleep on their own, many opposed to CIO feel that this teaches the child that crying is useless and that their needs will not be met by their care givers. Some feel that the babies do not learn to fall asleep, but rather give up hope and surrender to being left alone at night.

This article looks at what happens long after CIO is used, on whether or not it affects the child well into childhood and the adult years. It is an interesting thing to look at. Of course most people step in with the “I was/did and I’m just fine.” However “just fine” is difficult to measure as it varies from person to person. One person’s “just fine” may be another’s miserable. I have also noticed that many people, when they feel on the defensive, will exaggerate to which ever degree they need. For example a person complaining about being unhealthy, when confronted with the possibility that their diet plays a part in that, will suddenly be “just fine”.

Of course some research has shown that leaving a young infant to cry causes distress which can disrupt normal brain development.

Some experts warn that allowing a baby to “cry it out” causes extreme distress to the baby. And such extreme distress in a newborn has been found to block the full development of certain areas of the brain and causes the brain to produce extra amounts of cortisol, which can be harmful. [link]

It would stand to reason that the initial damage could cause lasting effects well into adulthood. A person may feel that they are “just fine” simple because they have never known a time without the changes in their brain. Much as person who became blind shortly after birth would have a different perception than someone who became blind much later in life. The change is still present, but one has had longer to adapt to it.

The effect cortisol has on the brain during periods of stress are clear. From The Con of Controlled Crying:

English psychotherapist, Sue Gerhardt, author of Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain, explains that when a baby is upset, the hypothalamus produces cortisol. In normal amounts cortisol is fine, but if a baby is exposed for too long or too often to stressful situations (such as being left to cry) its brain becomes flooded with cortisol and it will then either over- or under-produce cortisol whenever the child is exposed to stress. Too much cortisol is linked to depression and fearfulness; too little to emotional detachment and aggression.

Psychiatrist Jan Hunt in her article on the Hidden Messages we sent to children by our parenting actions shows what message we may be sending with CIO.

What we say: “You can cry all you want, I’m not going to pick you up again!”

What we think: “This is breaking my heart but all those experts can’t be wrong.”

What the child thinks: “They don’t love me. They don’t care about my suffering. Mommy Is perfect, so there must be something wrong with me. l must not be worthy of anybody’s love.”

What we say twenty years later: “What on earth do you see in Tom? How can you let him treat you like that? Don’t you know you deserve better than that?”

Many attached parents are opposed to cry it out methods because of the emotional response it brings. As more research is done it may become clear that CIO is more damaging that we believed.

parenting, attachment parenting, cry it out, cio, sleep, sleep training