Three Myths about Controlled Crying: What the Child Sleep ‘Experts’ Don’t Know
Some of you might have caught my recent blog post whereby I voiced some concerns about Channel 10s new show “Toddlers Behaving (Very) Badly” – a parenting program that draws on traditional behavioural management strategies to address some common parenting challenges. One of my main concerns was the show’s hosts’ (Nanny Amies) recommended use of controlled crying.
In the first episode, Nanny Amies visited with the family of 2 year old, Riley, whose reluctance to go to bed at night was making the bedtime routine a major source of stress for everyone. The family was due to welcome a new baby within weeks and, not surprisingly, Riley’s parents were worried about how they’d manage. Nanny Amie’s immediate advice was controlled crying.
Controlled crying is a behavioural extinction technique whereby a child is left alone at bedtime to cry for gradually longer periods until they eventually fall asleep. Over a number of days, the child learns that their cries for help are futile, and will eventually stop. The crying behaviour is, therefore, extinguished. It’s a controversial technique, and with good reason; it is highly distressing for both parent and child, and has some potentially damaging effects that are not yet fully understood. Unfortunately, however, it remains a staple in the tool kit of many self-proclaimed ‘experts’ who (unknowingly) misguide parents with faulty assumptions and misinformation about child sleep behaviour.
There is a lot I could cover here but, in the interests of keeping this short, I’ve tackled 3 common myths that are perpetuated by child sleep consultants, which parents should be wise to when considering any sleep training method.
These are outlined below:
Myth 1: Children’s’ Bedtime Protests are Just Manipulation
Bedtime battles are largely a westernized issue because it’s common in western culture for parents to expect their children to sleep alone. What many fail to understand is that children just aren’t wired this way. Put simply, children have hard wired into their brains ancient circuits that are evolved from hunter-gatherer times when our means of shelter offered little protection from the environment. Back then, a child left alone would have made an easy meal for night-time predators, or would have fallen victim to extreme weather. In these conditions, a child’s best bet for survival was to stay tucked up close to an adult (or preferably group of adults), particularly at night when most predators are on the hunt. It was these children who survived to pass on their genes from one generation to the next.
Today, although our way of living has changed substantially, our brains have not. Thus, your child’s behaviour is still driven by these same primitive instincts, and this is why they have such a hard time with being left alone at bedtime. Unfortunately, however, many sleep consultants don’t know this, and will often misinterpret the child’s protests as defiance, manipulation, and just generally giving their parents a hard time. However, it’s important to understand that what is actually driving the behaviour is fear, and it is completely outside of the child’s control. On that basis, methods like controlled crying are not terribly empathic, as they require parents to abandon the child rather than attend to their safety needs.
Myth 2: Children Need to Learn to Self-Settle
It’s common for child sleep consultants to argue that controlled crying is necessary because children need to learn to ‘self-settle’ or ‘self-soothe’ in order to fall asleep. To the untrained eye, this is what appears to happen on the first episode of “Toddlers Behaving (Very) Badly” when 2 year old, Riley, gives up and tucks herself into bed after more than 20 minutes of crying for her parents. Nanny Amies appears to interpret this as Riley settling herself or somehow taking care of her own needs. However, what she fails to understand, is that self-soothing is a physiological impossibility for young children.
When we talk about self-soothing, we are actually talking about emotion regulation. This refers to our ability to ‘turn down’ our emotions and stop them from getting out of control. For example, if I’m frightened by a loud noise outside at night, I can dial down this emotion by telling myself that it was probably nothing sinister and most likely just a branch hitting the window in the wind. I can also take action and check outside to see that nothing or no one is there. This will likely also involve assessing whether I should go outside or just look through the window. It’s through this that I am able to reassure myself that everything is fine and, therefore, calm myself down. Easy, right?! Well, it might seem simple enough but, as I go through this process, I’m actually engaging in several sophisticated tasks including rational thought, analysis, planning, and problem solving. All of which are functions of the neocortex – the ‘thinking centre’ of the brain.
In children, the neocortex is very underdeveloped; meaning they are incapable of performing the above tasks because they quite literally don’t have the necessary brain anatomy as yet (nor do they have the necessary knowledge and experience). We cannot say just when children develop these skills as it’s dependent on so many factors but, what we do know, is that the neocortex remains under construction until the mid 20s. On that basis, expecting young children to self-soothe is a bit like expecting them to grasp algebra – they just can’t do it. Thus, what looks like self-settling is most likely something else – namely, what is known as a dorsal ventral state. This is the ‘freeze’ part to the body’s flight, fight, or freeze response, and is a way of shutting down to minimise psychological trauma when flight or fight is not possible. In children, this often manifests as compliance, which is convenient for adults (and possibly why it often gets misinterpreted as self-settling) but, for the child, it’s their last ditch defence against extreme stress. You can read more on this here.
Myth 3: The Research Says Controlled Crying is Safe
In recent years, there has been a lot of talk on the internet about the Flinders study, which supposedly demonstrates that controlled crying is safe. Rather than cover the many problems with this study (which you can read about here), I think it’s better to explain a little bit about how research works. Suppose, for example, that researchers examine the effects of red wine on longevity and find that those who drink red wine tend to live longer. From this, it might appear that drinking red wine increases longevity (and this is often how the link will be portrayed in the media). However, with further investigation, we find that those who drink red wine also tend to have better social connections and higher socio-economic status, and it is actually these variables that are linked to longevity, not the red wine. It’s an over-simplified example, but my point is that the conclusions we can draw from a single study are limited because it takes time and multiple studies for us to fully understand a particular phenomenon.
So, how does this relate to the Flinders study? Well, there are several studies in the psychological literature that appear to contradict the Flinders’ results. For example, studies demonstrate that excessive crying in young children can cause cortisol levels to increase to potentially harmful levels. It can also disrupt hormone levels, damage nerve connections in the developing brain, and can alter a child’s neurotransmitter system in ways that are similar to that seen in depressed adults (a comprehensive list of these studies is provided here). This is just a fraction of the available research, and we are still learning about what it all means, but it clearly casts doubt over the safety of any method that involves prolonged periods of crying. Essentially, the research doesn’t yet tell a coherent story and, until it does, the effects of any crying based sleep training methods remains unclear.
The above is just a fraction of what I would like to cover but I hope this dispels some of the myths that currently misguide attitudes towards children’s night time shenanigans. Contrary to what many would have you believe, your children are not trying to be difficult or manipulate you, they’re just doing the best they can with what Mother Nature has given them… And that’s you.
If you’d like to read more on any of the above, see the links below:
All the very best
Dr Lisa x
https://evolutionaryparenting.com/understanding-and-helping-toddler-sleep-part-i/
https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2016/05/24/the-cry-it-out-debate-is-it-safe-or-not/
