New study says CIO is okay

[twentysixcats]

I couldn't even finish reading the article... hurt my mama heart.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/...scientists-say

The study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics on Tuesday, found that babies who were left to "cry it out" in order to fall asleep were dozing off almost 15 minutes faster than the control group of babies whose parents were given no instructions on how to help their child fall asleep.

Further, the babies who were left to cry had lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.

In addition, when researchers studied the babies one year later, parents of the babies left to cry themselves to sleep did not report more behavioral problems than those in the control group.

I feel like this study is very small to be taken as fact. I wonder how this compares to other studies that show just the opposite. (Specifically, the cortisol levels.)

[ArmsOfLove]

John Oliver did a report on "studies" that i won't link to because of language, but if you look for it you shouldn't have a hard time finding it. I'm thinking this is a brilliant example of the issue he was talking about

Narrow parameters
A goal for the study
Narrow reported information
No peer review . . .

---------- Post added at 01:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:13 PM ----------

Yep -- okay -- here is the link to the report of the study

This is the Objective

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effects of behavioral interventions on the sleep/wakefulness of infants, parent and infant stress, and later child emotional/behavioral problems, and parent-child attachment.

So this one study was not very scientific if it as seeking to evaluate 4 things --not much control going on

1) what did the 3 evaluated methods do with regards to how well infants slept?
2) how did they impact parent and infant stress?
3) what effect, if any, did they have on emotional/behavioral problems in the child?
4) how did they affect parent-child attachment.

To get the findings of these 4 huge questions there was a whopping 43 infants in the study And the overview doesn't bother to tell us what the "sleep education control" group was actually doing for sleep. Without paying $25 for access to the study we don't know what the control group was doing. Were they attachment parents or were they parents who just laid their babies in a room and left and didn't check on them until the morning?

Thing is -- this is REALLY important! The other two groups were using graduated extinction - Ferberizing - and bedtime fading. What you are comparing them both to is really important

What strict scientific methods were used in this study?

Sleep measures included parent-reported sleep diaries and infant actigraphy. Infant stress was measured via morning and afternoon salivary cortisol sampling, and mothers’ self-reported mood and stress. Twelve months after intervention, mothers completed assessments of children’s emotional and behavioral problems, and mother-child dyads underwent the strange situation procedure to evaluate parent-child attachment.

So they measured cortisol levels twice a day and otherwise it was a lot of self reported journaling by the mothers.

Oh, and the strange situation procedure to evaluate the parent-child attachment. If you don't know what that is you might find this interesting

Her conclusion:

Ainsworth (1978) suggested the ‘caregiver sensitivity hypothesis’ as an explanation for different attachment types. Ainsowrth's maternal sensitivity hypothesis argues that a child’s attachment style is dependent on the behaviour their mother shows towards them.

‘Sensitive’ mothers are responsive to the childs needs and respond to their moods and feelings correctly. Sensitive mothers are more likely to have securely attached children.
In contrast, mothers who are less sensitive towards their child, for example those who respond to the child’s needs incorrectly or who are impatient or ignore the child, are likely to have insecurely attached children.

So the first challenge I see here is that we are given no other information about how the parent and child interact at times other than the method of sleep-management. I don't think anyone has ever suggested that how you put your baby to sleep is the ONLY sole determining factor in attachment -- though it is definitely an important one. Without any kind of control group -- or even a way to have a control group in this kind go study -- I'm not sure what we're actually learning here

If you're also curious about "infant actigraphy" you can search it but there are basically studies questioning the reliability of the data it would collect without extremely careful journaling -- and that handling of the child and provision of external stimulation decreases the ability to collect accurate data. IOW the very nature of this particular study would mean that parents responding to their babies with any external stimulation wouldn't result in less sleep being recorded but in INACCURATE measurements.

And the results? Not really anything to be found unless we see the actual numbers (which are still on a very small group and I can't find any information on what other factors were involved in the parent/child dynamics -- so many factors play a role in what's going on so were these studies conducted across socio-economic lines? in various cultural contexts? What was really being tested here?). And big news for this report . . . . moms showed a little less stress when they were sleep training

and knowing what I know of my own 24 hour cortisol test I have to wonder how much attention was invested in finding mothers who had the same cortisol patterns to begin with

and . . . here's the biggie!

At the 12-month follow-up, no significant differences were found in emotional and behavioral problems, and no significant differences in secure-insecure attachment styles between groups.

The big news is we found nothing significant

And, yes, I get that they are saying babies sleep trained with Ferber or bedtime fading didn't have a measurable difference they found worth noting when it came to MOTHER REPORTED emotional/behavioral problems (remember, all babies are under 3 at the end of this study but not all the same age -- they ranged between 6 and 16 months to start . . . anyone wanna guess how they are going to measure the differences as they related to the sleep study vs normal childhood development????)

AND using the strange situation procedure to test it there wasn't much difference in how attached the mother and child seemed to be.

So if you want to know if your approach to sleep will make your child afraid of strangers or more willing to go with them -- probably not

If you want to know if it will impact normal childhood developmental stages and behavior -- not much.

If your goal is to get slightly more sleep and feel slightly less stressed and you're willing to do it at the expense of your child's nighttime attachment needs, it's not going to kill them. But no one was suggesting it would kill them in the first place.

AND if the "control" group was actually parents who laid their kids down and walked out of the room, then this says NOTHING about how these methods would compare with attachment parenting.

If anyone with a medical degree would like to open that article and share additional information I would love it!

[MegMarch]

I don't care Even if babies are just fine with CIO, I think encouraging it really messes with connection on the parents' side. I think encouraging CIO encourages parents to disconnect from their instincts and from the connection they share with their babies, from their intuition, from their need to be close to their babies (which will likely mean more nursing which can be so beneficial for mothers' health in various ways.) And honestly, I don't buy that babies are perfectly fine after CIO. Many are fine, I'm sure. But as so many have said before, I don't want just fine for my child, for the future generations filling our world.

[sprout]

yeah, I don't care either.

when my little one cries...no matter why, someone in my home always immediately comes to her need.

not because they were trained to, but because it is their own natural instinct.

I think that says it all...natural instinct is not to let another living thing "hurt" if you can help fix it.

[Aerynne]

I was going to start a thread on this same topic.

I agree with what AOL said.

Also I think whether a child shows misbehavior a year later doesn't show nearly enough about whether they were harmed by CIO or not. Maybe there isn't any long-term emotional harm, at least not in every baby. My sil remembers being left to CIO and it is still painful for her (I think she was about 2 years old, which is not exactly what they are talking about with babies but still not okay). But one thing I DO know is that not doing CIO doesn't harm them. So I'm going to stick with what I know doesn't harm.

I don't know what this "fading" method is. If people put their babies to sleep drowsy and they fall asleep on their own and don't get upset I don't see a problem with that but my babies have not been of that variety, if that variety even exists.

[rjy9343]

It doesn't change anything one way or the other for me. I am sticking with what I know works and has worked for thousands of years. If you can show me that co sleeping absolutely hurts babies, then we'll talk. But until then, I'm nursing my baby to sleep, coming to him when he cries and sleeping next to him.
I will also allow my little girl in my bed when she hurts, feels bad (physically or emotionally) or just wants some time with her parents. I am building a relationship with her that I hope is secure enough for her to know she can come to me with anything and call me anytime no matter what.

[bliss]

I've already had one "see? I was right for letting my baby CIO" post on my fb .

[MaySunflowers]

How does it even make sense? It flies in the face of several studies done by different countries who all came to the same conclusions.

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[greengirl19]

Originally Posted by bliss

I've already had one "see? I was right for letting my baby CIO" post on my fb .

This is what bothers me the most about the article. I've seen several.

The Modern Alternative Mama blog has already done a rebuttal post. My browsers not cooperating enough to load it.

I strongly dislike the promotion the topic is getting.

[Wonder Woman]

All that's missing is the little
*paid for by Ezzo
line at the bottom

Seriously, it's like spanking. Many children whose parents administer 3 or 4 swats on the bum, a handful of times throughout their childhood, and whose parents are otherwise nurturing and compassionate, will grow up attached to and loving their parents.

But not all children are ok with it...and all children are inarguably better off if they are never hit, no matter how seldom.

[rjy9343]

Originally Posted by bliss

I've already had one "see? I was right for letting my baby CIO" post on my fb .

I think we are only going to see more of those because so many studies have shown hard evidence of harm done to babies. A lot of people are going to feel attacked by those studies and as soon as they see anything that validates their choice, they are going to latch onto it like a life line.
I guess without having all the studies in front of me, it'll be hard to be certain, but I wonder how this study was able to find what other studies couldn't.

[HuggaBuggaMommy]

Originally Posted by greengirl19

This is what bothers me the most about the article. I've seen several.

The Modern Alternative Mama blog has already done a rebuttal post. My browsers not cooperating enough to load it.

I strongly dislike the promotion the topic is getting.

Originally Posted by rjy9343

I think we are only going to see more of those because so many studies have shown hard evidence of harm done to babies. A lot of people are going to feel attacked by those studies and as soon as they see anything that validates their choice, they are going to latch onto it like a life line.
I guess without having all the studies in front of me, it'll be hard to be certain, but I wonder how this study was able to find what other studies couldn't.

Here's the Modern Alternative Mama post, which also links to the study: http://www.modernalternativemama.com...sses-the-mark/ It sounds quite flawed.

[Hermana Linda]

Psychology Today also refuted it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...aining-reports

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