“War babies cry it out shut down’ was a search term on google that landed not just one person on my site, but two this week.
A little odd, but it reminded me of the Channel 4 Show: Bringing Up Baby which attempted to measure the successes and shortcomings of three different parenting methods for babies: Truby King, Dr Spock and the Continuum Concept. Families were set up with a mentor for the style of parenting they had opted to pursue and were guided along the way.
For the blissfully uninitiated, a summary of the parenting methods are:
Benjamin Spock (as detailed by Channel 4)
- Every baby is different so scheduled feeds won’t necessarily suit it
- A baby will sleep through the night when it’s ready
- Babies need plenty of affection
- Babies should start off sleeping in their parent’s room
- Breastfeeding is best – but a mother who decides against it for whatever reason should not feel guilty
- Parents should trust their instincts and not be put off by what anyone else is teling them
- Mothers should get plenty of rest and draft help if necessary
- Mothers should take time out for themselves
- A new mother should remember that her partner was there first and can’t be neglected
- Dads should only get involved with childcare as much as they feel comfortable
Truby King (as described by Channel 4):
- Feeding every four hours
- Night feeds get dropped as soon as possible to minimise length of time parents sleep is disrupted
- Limiting the amount of contact between baby and carer – 10 minutes of cuddling per day
- Baby sleeps in own room from day one
- Baby spends several hours in the garden every day
Continuum Concept (as described by Channel 4):
- Babies should be born at home
- Breastfeeding should start within the first 20 minutes of birth
- Bottle feeding is not an option
- Feeding is on demand
- Babies should be held or carried in a sling for the first 6 months
- Babies shold sleep in bed with their parents
- Babies should be brought up by the whole ‘tribe’ (friends/family) rather than just by parents
Parenting death match! Who will win? In the end the documentary was marvelously inconclusive but did succeed in creating a firestorm over the 1950s Truby King method and its mentor Claire Verity who also advocated limiting eye contact between parents and babies, not holding the baby close to your body while feeding, and leaving babies to cry because they were only going to start crying again once you put them back down.
Possibly the most fascinating part of the Truby King method, was Truby King himself, who was a staunch breastfeeding advocate and was successful in converting mothers to breastfeeding and away from formula which was at the time just cows milk with sugar in it. His theory of babycare seems completely at odds with his breastfeeding advocacy. For starters, the four hourly feeding schedule would be almost impossible to do if exclusively breastfeeding.
The idea behind King’s method was to create a generation of soldiers. To do this he believed that the best way to promote resilience in babies was through lack of contact with parents and mothers were discouraged from cuddling, comforting or even playing with their babies to this end. For detailed information on resilience and historical methods of babycare you can check out this great article here. The fact that Truby King promoted leaving babies alone as a way of building resilience and independence is proof enough of just how outdated his theories are.
But I digress, back to Bringing Up Baby and Claire Verity.
Since the airing of the show, her qualifications have been discredited and for the most part everyone was disgusted with her and the claim of being a nanny for Jerry Hall and Sting didn’t really change that. Alpha Mommy also has a great post about just how terrifying Verity really is.
What struck me most when watching the series was firstly that the King method was obsessed with life returning to normal – even to the point where the parents would say things like – you wouldn’t even know we had just had twins! Well, if that is the goal for your life to be as though you never had any children – why bother in the first place? The other thing that drives me nuts is the idea that because once babies are allowed to cry it out they start sleeping through the night, this fact is used as evidence that the parenting method ‘works’.
Of course it works – if your only aim is sleep. The very fact that it ‘works’ is concerning enough and evidence enough that it should be avoided. What have you just achieved? Dissociation? Alienation? Hopelessness? And of course if you cry it out eventually any baby will learn to not cry and go to sleep. Is that a worthwhile lesson? While we’re on the topic did you know one of the indicators they look for in abused and neglected children is that they don’t cry?
What’s worse is the requirements of the method seemed unnecessarily harsh. For example: babies have to spend hours at a time outside (even in the dead of winter) because it helps them sleep. So why then does the method require that they be outside on their own, instead of on a walk with one or both of their parents?
To watch parents willingly not cuddle or play with their new babies was heartbreaking. To watch them stop their older children from cuddling or interacting with the new baby was equally hideous. And to have them pronounce that ‘they sleep through’ as if that is some kind of parenting trophy was slightly sickening.
And for the record, before any of the King method babies were sleeping through, the families using the continuum concept were already getting at least 6 hours sleep a night because they co-slept.
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