no.email@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote in message
news:<3f96f9cd.7733906@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>...
> I am a new SAH mom and need advice. I finally have a baby after many
> years of miscarriage. This baby is the love of my life. In the eyes
> of my mom and friends, I have 'spoiled' the baby because I never let
> him cry. ...
>
> Due to a family crisis - I can no longer lavish my baby with as much
> time and attention as he is accustomed.
>
> He is almost 5 months old and on some occassions, as soon as I put
> him down, and he sees me walk away (still within his vision at all
> times) he crys.
> My friend suggested the Ferber method, but altering it to fit a
> daytime situation.
I've never used the Ferber method, but I do have these thoughts:
1. If you are going to use the Ferber method, then read and use it,
not whatever your friend thinks is the Ferber method. Ferber has
published books and written magazine articles, so there is no need
to rely on third hand descriptions. Most im****tantly, Ferber is very
clear that there is a minimum age for his stuff to work, and I don't
think your baby has reached it. Secondly, Ferber is very clear
that his technique should only be used after other things have failed.
Since you haven't tried other things, I'd definately do that first.
Attachment parenting is extreme in one direction; Ferber is extreme in
the other direction. Personally, I'm a more middle of the road kind
of guy, and I would suggest trying middle of the road type solutions,
before trying exteme solutions. (If you had done that before, your
child may not have been so attached to you now, and you may have
avoided this situation.)
In particular, I would not think of your child as "spoiled" but as
"attached". Your child has learned that being picked up whenever he
wants is the natural state of things. Not being picked up is bad,
because it is different from the way things have always worked until
now. It's not that your baby is afraid of being left, it's that
the baby expects to be carried.
So the solution is to get her to expect different things, which you
can do little by little. For example, you could put your baby down
and if she cries, come back to her in a minute or two, and then hold
her. The next day come back after two or three minutes. The third
day come back after five minutes, etc. (This is sort of the opposite
of what you have tried so far.) Or you could pick up the crying baby
after a minute, but then put her down again. If she crys again, then
pick her up and hold her. The next day pick her up and put her down
twice before holding on to her, and so on.
The key thing is to slowly get your child used to not being held, in
the same way she is currently used to being held.
> If I continue to pick my baby up, and not teach him how to 'cry it
> out' & comfort himself during the day - am I setting myself up later
> for a lot of problems, IE: clingy child with social problems? If I
> somehow find it in my heart to let him cry for longer duratons, can
> that make him distrust me? I'm really confused.
Two quick comments on this last paragraph:
Your kid is already a "clingy child", that is why you posted your message!
As to the question of future social problems, I don't think anyone can
say, since all kids are different. But the "clingy child" has already
happened. As to your child distrusting you, that simply can't happen
because your child's brain hasn't developed enough to understand the
idea of 'trust'. At five months, I don't even think the baby can fulling
understand the concept that different people want different things.
Indeed, the whole idea of different people (ie. people not the baby) is
pretty new at this point.
I think the baby is crying because the baby expects to be held
whenever the baby cries, but that is not what is happening. The key
is to change what your child expects; the child will be just as happy
expecting something else, as long as it happens.
Joshua Levy
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