Kate Silverton Instagram – The ‘debate’ over the practice of ‘controlled crying’ or the ‘cry it out’ method is once again in the news.
I understand that ‘structured timetables’ of feeding / sleeping are proffered with the best intentions, to help exhausted parents and their babies achieve much needed sleep and get into a ‘routine’ (and I understand this having been a time-poor, frazzled parent myself), but it can be helpful to reflect that, in our time pressured lives, we are often trying to fit our babies and children into OUR schedules, forcing them to adapt to our needs rather than necessarily serving theirs.
Crying is an infant’s only form of communication and we now know from the latest developments in neurobiology that the infant brain can experience significant stress if a child is left to cry for prolonged periods, without being soothed, and without their needs being met.
Babies cannot ‘self-regulate’, they need us for that. As a child therapist, and as someone who has done extensive research in this field, it troubles me that the science we now have, that supports healthy brain development ( and future mental health ) is not being discussed in this debate.
It’s critical that we include the science, because it reveals that in the first crucial years of life, a child’s brain is hugely vulnerable to stress. Babies experience significant stress when their needs are not attended to. It’s important for us to know that it is in responding to our children when they cry that builds all important connections in their brain, strengthening the bond we share and the ‘secure attachment’ we want our children to go on to enjoy.
The science supports what our ancestors instinctively knew.
I share some of the thoughts and research from my book ‘there’s no such thing as naughty’, in this post, in the hope it may support parents to trust their natural intuition and instincts, to hold their babies close and trust in the higher human wisdom that we share.
I would love to hear your comments and thoughts – especially having read the pages I share from my book. Sending all love and strength ♥️
#crying #mentalhealth #parenting #cryitout | Posted on 24/Apr/2024 00:20:32
