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ThinkGeek Advocate Letting Your Baby Cry

ThinkGeek — "stuff for smart masses" — are selling a baby 'sleep trainer' in their Newborn/Infant category. The promise is to get your baby "sleeping through the night in two weeks". Now, personally, when I signed up (metaphorically) to being a parent, I knew I would be parenting at night as well through the day. I figured sleepless nights and all that malarkey were part of the deal. I certainly didn't sign up for leaving my infant to cry themselves to sleep night after night.

I feel very strongly about 'cry it out' methods, and it's counterpart 'controlled crying'.

For starters, it encourages social pressure to have your baby sleeping through the night from a young age, and this is not normal behaviour. It's not normal for an infant to sleep through, and those that do are an exception, not the rule. Many adults do not sleep through the night (waking to urinate, get a drink, whatever) so why do we expect the same of a baby fresh from the comfort of the womb?

Secondly, there is sound research into the harmful effects of prolonged crying in infants, due to increased cortisol levels. Cortisol is released by the body as a reaction to stress (e.g. when an infant is left alone in his/her cot with nobody there for comfort, not knowing when a caregiver will return); it suppresses the immune system, and destroys nerve connections in critical portions of an infant's developing brain¹.

Controlled crying/cry-it-out causes the baby to shut down. In fact, this is how it 'works': baby gives up, and sleeps deeper/for longer. A promising thought if you're sleep-deprived, but deep sleep — much like when baby sleeps on his/her tummy — prevents the baby from waking as easily if there is a 'problem', e.g. if breathing is interrupted. This is so serious, that the Back to Sleep campaign was created². If preventing deep sleep from sleeping on the tummy caused a big drop in SIDS deaths, surely other causes of deep sleep could be connected to infant death too? I'm not a scientist but it's a logical connection to me.

Anyway, back to ThinkGeek. One of the most worrying things about this is the categorisation and subsequent description of the product. It's in the Newborn/Infant category for starters (who in their right mind would leave a newborn to cry themselves to sleep?). Secondly, this line:

NOT sleeping through the night? You might be teaching your baby that behavior

A claim made with no obvious scientific backing to scare parents into buying this pointless product, and ultimately into leaving their baby to cry. Furthermore, a study on infant sleep behaviour from 1994 shows a wide range in normal infant sleeping behaviour, which is at odds with this claim³.

Lastly, under the product spec, we have:

For ages 4 months and older

This disturbs me on many levels. Dr Ferber, one of the biggest advocates of controlled crying, does not recommend using his methods on children under 18 months. He puts a lower limit at 6 months, but notes that the younger the infant is, the less successful the 'training' will be. Ferber acknowledges that his method doesn’t teach kids HOW to fall asleep on their own, infants are simply denied access to a caregiver, and left to work it out for themselves.⁴

In light of this, I contacted ThinkGeek. I explained that not only had I purchased quite a lot from them, but had referred customers who had spent hundreds of dollars. I then outlined my findings, expressing discomfort at their willingness to back this product. Their response?

Please let me know if you have any other questions. Have a great day!

...and that's it. They blew me off. Not even so much as an acknowledgement that they had read my e-mail. I can only take from this that ThinkGeek advocate leaving babies to cry against the advice of multiple experts. Not a company I can support, and as such have removed all product links to ThinkGeek from my previous posts and pages. I will no longer be making purchases from ThinkGeek, and encourage any of you who feel similar that you make it known.

References

¹Schore, A.N. (1996), “The Experience-Dependent Maturation of a Regulatory System in the Orbital Prefrontal Cortex and the Origen of Developmental Psychopathology,” Development and Psychopathology 8: 59 – 87.
²Helping Baby "Back to Sleep" [pdf]
³Armstrong KL, Quinn RA, Dadds MR. (1994), "The sleep patterns of normal children."
⁴Dr Richard Ferber (2006), "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems"

For more information, please see my delicious bookmarks tagged 'controlled crying'

Update @ 18:55

ThinkGeek have added the following comment to the product page:

This doctor-designed system is for healthy babies 4 months and older. Please consult your pediatrician to see whether this system is right for your geekling. ThinkGeek doesn't advocate letting babies cry (especially when the world is full of hugs & bacon), but the system has helped lots of parents and babies sleep better. Moral of the story: Consult your doc before buying and keep on being the best geek parent you can be.

What a cop out.

My Walking, Talking Little Girl

Well, okay, not quite walking and talking, but it doesn't feel like we're far off that some days!

I last gave a proper update about Isabel in May as she turned 6 months. She had been sitting up for a while and we'd just started introducing her to solids using the "BLW" method (aka give her what you're having). She's now 9 months old and since then she's been chowing down on more foods than I care to remember... from homemade chicken curry and spaghetti bolognese, to raw veggies, fruits, and stir fry. There's not a lot she won't eat, and the nappies will back me up on that ;)

We're "still" breastfeeding (but not hourly any more, heh).

Her coordination and motor skills never fail to amaze me. She's well on target with all the relevant milestones. She claps, points, has her pincer grasp etc. She did her first proper crawl while my Dad was over a while back, and nothing has stopped her since. In fact, we've just had to install a safety gate to stop her getting in the kitchen and stealing the cats food as, although I am always watching her, I like to make my job easier :D

Of course, this does mean that getting dressed and nappy changes are a battle each time. She just doesn't want to keep still, so result in screeches and kicks. I'm thinking of rolling out the duct tape...

More recently she's learned to pull herself up on furniture, and likes to push herself up onto all fours on the ground. I don't think it'll be long before she's cruising along the front of the sofa, and from there... eek, walking!

She said her first word on the 8th August — "Daddy" — and I'm hoping the mamamama babbles will develop into Mummy soon too. She's very spirited with her 'talking', giving us streams of doo, goo, ee, gee, shoo, etc. She has a range of funny noises that we've nicknamed; from "dying baby" (sharp intake of breath) to coffee machine (shh-eeee-ooo-sshhh).

As I'm back to work in November, we're doing the rounds of the nearby nurseries (daycare). It's incredibly difficult having to come to terms with the fact that I won't be at home with my baby all day every day, but at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, it's for the best (certainly financially). It will give me chance to boost my savings and for us to finally start the process of buying a house, at which point I can look more seriously about my future. Unfortunately though, the nursery we saw yesterday was a bit of a dump and certainly doesn't make this any easier. Let's hope the one we're seeing on Thursday is more in tune with what I want for my daughter :)

Extended Rear-Facing Car Seats and Volvo

Motherhood is full of decisions. How to feed your baby, how to dress your baby (apparently if it wears sleepsuits during the day, you're a neglectful mother; who knew?), how to wean your baby, how to transport your baby. The last has been something of a discussion in our house over the past few weeks, as Isabel is outgrowing her first car seat (she's still within the weight range but is quite tall).

In the UK, when a baby outgrows their first car seat it's fairly normal to buy a forward facing seat and flip them 'round. However, what most car seat retailers won't tell you is that if the worst should happen and you are involved in a typical car smash, in a forward facing seat the neck is subjected to a force equivalent to 300-320kg. However, in a rear facing seat, the force on the neck is equivalent to only 50kg (source)

It doesn't take a genius to work out that less force == less chance of injury. And so for us, the search was on to find a rear-facing car seat. Unfortunately this is where most people come across a stumbling block; most mainstream retailers (Mothercare, Halfords etc) will inform you that rear-facing is unnecessary, or that there are no rear-facing seats available in the UK. Those with supposed up-to-date training aren't generally aware of the statistics concerning forward-facing deaths and are more interested in selling you the most expensive car seat in store. We in the UK don't know about extended rear-facing, so shops don't stock those car seats, so less people then know the options are there — it's a vicious cycle!

Thanks to a tip off from a friend online, we discovered that Volvo sell rear-facing car seats. It makes sense; they're a Swedish car manufacturer and in Sweden, infants are normally rear-facing until around the age of 6. The Volvo car seats are re-badged Britax, but with the handy benefit of being about £100 cheaper than we could find anywhere else.

We went to our local Volvo dealership, in Shrewsbury, and a really helpful chap called Colin gave us an estimate for 'parts' and ordered the car seat in for us to look at. In less than 24 hours the car seat was in, approved, bought and home. Fantastic, friendly service and an excellent price at around £160 inc. VAT.

The car seat itself is rock-solid sturdy and well padded; you can easily see why Volvo stock this brand, it looks as indestructible as their cars. The support leg has a handy pressure-sensitive part on the bottom which allows you to see if it's properly placed, and the tether straps to keep it tied to the front seat are included too (they're not in some online shops). Of course, the acid test... does Isabel like it? Well, she fell asleep within 10 minutes of being in it, so it's got to be good!

Cloth Nappies: Day Three

The last day of my experiment (yesterday) was a resounding success. Isabel was in cloth (just ordinary terries) all day until bedtime; we went out to the park for a bit, went to the shop and no leakages. I'm really impressed with how well they seem to hold pee actually, because I've always considered Izz quite a heavy wetter (it's because she's never off the bloomin' boob! ;) )

A secondhand wrap has arrived today so we can do away with the plastic pants for at least some of the time until the other nappies arrive (hopefully Monday). When we have the whole stash, I'll be trying a night nappy to see how they hold up then... although am slightly dreading that, given that we share a bed!

Normal non-nappy services will resume shortly...

Cloth Nappies: Day Two

Non-parenting readers will have to bear with me while I complete my experiment ;)

Yesterday Izz spent most of the day in cloth, with no leakages! My mum picked me up late morning and we went to Boots to get some terries/pins/waterproof pants (until I can afford some nice wraps) and she showed me various folding methods (we're using the kite, as it seems give the best fit around her bum). This nappy was on for about 3 hours before I remembered to change her(!) and although it was wet, she'd not made a peep about it. The pee had soaked towards the outer of the nappy so wasn't rubbing wet nappy against her skin.

When we got home we used a Onelife nappy for onesize-fits-all nappy and she had this on for a couple of hours or so before bath and bed (still 'cheating' with a disposable overnight ;))

I've ordered a few Bumgenius (despite the leakage on day one, because I think I'd not adjusted it enough), a few FuzziBunz and some second hand Onelife nappies to go alongside the terries. If we find that one works better than the rest I'll probably sell or swap the others (and that's the other beauty of cloth: they retain their value REALLY well!) All in this has cost about £90, which is a lot up front but will save us money in the long run (especially versus the £150 estimate for the rest of the year in 'sposies.)

We've started the day in cloth today, and will aim to go all day (including a trip out to the park later). Today will be the deciding day. If we have no problems, then that's it... cloth all the way!