Should we leave our babies to cry?

Updated September 29, 2010 12:05:06

One of the most popular fashions of the moment for training a baby to sleep is controlled crying where you leave your baby to cry for long periods with the hope that in the end they will stop crying and eventually learn to put themselves to sleep.

Two things bother me about this concept.

The first is I loathe the word training in the context of babies. Babies shouldn't be trained. Before being developmentally ready a baby can't be trained. Once a baby is developmentally ready he or she doesn't need training.

The second is that I shrink from leaving a baby to cry for long periods.

Stress in infancy, caused by leaving a young baby to cry, is particularly painful because if ignored it results in high levels of stress hormones that dampen the formation of a healthy brain.

A baby is born expecting to have stress managed for her - by her parents. The prefrontal cortex (the frontal lobes), the parts of the brain which exert control over emotions, is virtually non-existent at birth.

Stress hormones will remain low if you or your partner or another caring adult teach your baby to trust by holding, stroking, feeding, nuzzling, reassuring, whispering and laughing.

However, as her emotions are unstable, those stress hormones can shoot up if there's no caring adult alert to her emotional needs and prepared to calm her when she's upset.

To put it as bluntly as Sue Gerhardt in her marvellous book Why Love Matters, your baby can't tune out her stress hormones, she needs you to switch them off for her.

The simple truth is that your baby doesn't have the equipment, anatomical or physiological, to deal with distress because that part of the brain which would help her cope doesn't come on stream for another four to six months.

Your baby's whole system is moulded by how much early stress she has to contend with and how well you help her deal with it.

I believe what a baby needs is the kind of parents who help her to recover her equilibrium. If you do this you'll be rewarded with a baby who learns to regulate her own stress hormones and her own emotions with them.

On the other hand if she's left to contend with stress and no-one helps her she'll push out stress hormones at the least thing. She'll be a baby who cries easily, remains upset despite comforting, and is inconsolable.

It follows that the best kind of mother is one who hugs her child when she feels the child needs a hug, who lifts her child when she thinks that her child wants to be picked up and who puts her down when she thinks her baby is ready for sleep. The same mother will feed her baby when he's hungry (and not clock watch) and let him sleep when she senses he's tired.

The admirable developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth showed that every time you act on your natural instincts you're encouraging a happy and secure child. Every time you touch and caress your baby your touch activates growth hormones which encourage healthy development.

Not the least of the baby's organs to be affected is your baby's brain. In their fine book A General Theory of Love three American psychiatrists professors Lewis, Amini and Lannon suggest that the bond of love or lack of it changes a baby's brain forever.

This is because insecurity in early life leads to lifelong changes in a baby's brain chemistry. The levels of mood lifting chemicals like serotonin and dopamine are lowered and blueprinted into a baby's brain in the first months of life.

The professors believe with the wrong kind of parenting - letting a baby cry for long periods - this alteration of brain chemistry becomes hardwired, unchangeable and permanent leading to timid, clingy children; neurotic, withdrawn teenagers and adults vulnerable to anxiety and depression.

In stressful situations the hardwiring floods the brain with the stress hormone cortisol rather than the calming hormones serotonin and dopamine. The body and brain are on alert ready for fight or flight.

A responsive parent helps a baby to balance her emotions. A baby who's upset depends on her mother to be a reliable source of soothing comfort because she can't soothe herself. After being soothed many times a baby remembers the feeling of consolation, is able to tap into it herself and so learns to quieten herself. She knows she's secure and eventually she comes to know implicitly what security feels like.

Access to good experiences early on in life produce brains with more neural connections - more richly networked brains. With more connections there's better brain performance and more flexibility to use particular areas of the brain.

Between 6 and 12 months, in the tender care of a loving parent, there's a massive growth spurt in these connections in your baby's brain, just the time when the pleasurable relationship with your baby is most intense.

A baby remembers and stores negative incidents, looks and memories. A negative experience can trigger a chemical response just as a positive one can. Once stress hormones are set off they stop the flow of endorphins and dopamine and kill pleasurable feelings. Another researcher Allan Schore believes that looks and smiles and positive, comforting experiences actually help a baby's brain to grow.

Schore suggests that it's early positive and loving experiences which are the most vital stimulus for the growth of the social, emotionally intelligent brain.

When a baby feels pleasure a chemical cascade of happiness flows through her. First a pleasure hormone called beta-endorphin is released into the circulation and specifically into the prefrontal region of the brain. These natural opioids help brain cells to grow by controlling glucose and insulin. They also make your baby feel good.

At the same time another hormone, dopamine, is released from the prefrontal cortex. This too enhances the use of glucose helping new brain cells to grow. If you want to know what this energising and stimulating effect feels like just imagine being rewarded for a job well done.

All those cuddles, gentle words and doting looks fire off the pleasure chemicals that help the social brain to grow. Which parent can resist that promise and not go to their crying baby?

Topics: community-and-society, education, health, human-interest

First posted June 23, 2009 15:30:00