Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
May
30
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Your Baby Can Cry…”
“Your baby can cry and there is no need to pump if you are not going to be gone more than a few hours.” – Lactation consultant to mother.
There are 35 comments to this post.
first time mommy had this to say,
May 30, 2011 @ 10:49 am (Quote)
All right, “LC”. Let’s test that on you. Let’s have you skip lunch and see how you feel. If you start complaining, someone’ll be along to shove a pacifier in your mouth, mmk?
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 11:04 am (Quote)
Let’s make her do the wind sprints on an empty stomach. How about after the twelve hour fast they ask you to do if you’re getting the “advanced” GD glucose test? It’s no less exhausting than being a newborn and trying to grow on an empty stomach.
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first time mommy Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 1:03 pm (Quote)
*Like* but i still vote for shoving the pacifier in her mouth every time she whines/complains 
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Well, call me a deviant, but i keep 2 ounce nursettes of formula for times when I have to leave and she might want to eat during that time. But I always instruct whoever is watching her not to give her more than half if I know I’ll be back soon and I’ll finish feeding her when I get back. So far, this has never happened, lol. But no, I’m not going to let my newborn cry for being hungry! I know crying won’t hurt my baby *if* she’s fed, clean and comfortable, but if she’s hungry, not feeding her is neglectful! Idiot. >_<
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Angelica Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 11:00 am (Quote)
Should add, if I were abhorrent to the idea of formula, I surely would pump before I left, even if I was only going to be gone for 20 minutes. If my daughter woke up hungry one minute after I pulled out of the driveway, that would be 19 minutes too long for her to go without. >_<
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Heather Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 11:43 am (Quote)
Actually, prolonged crying (15+ minutes) DOES hurt babies even if they’re fed, clean and comfortable. Add in being hungry… I feel bad for the babies whose mothers listened to this LC!
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Angelica Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 2:35 pm (Quote)
That’s rather disheartening to those of us with colicky little ones who won’t be consoled, especially if you can’t hold her through all of it. :-\
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Renai Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 4:55 pm (Quote)
That’s rather disheartening to those of us with colicky little ones, even when we CAN hold them through all of it (ok, we took turns, but still).
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Theresa Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 5:05 pm (Quote)
My understanding is that UNATTENDED prolonged crying is what does damage (by releasing cortisol into the brain.) If you have met all the babies needs and are comforting them, then it does not do any damage (so long as you rule out any physical issue, such as GERD or an injury ect.)
Also the mother of a colicky baby, and when I read the studies about this, I FREAKED. I assure you, it is the alone/needs not met part. Sometimes babies just cry 
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Heather Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 7:36 pm (Quote)
Ditto Theresa and Renai. Although because of the Happiest Baby on the Block, I don’t believe in colic without a cause and between it and Hyland’s colic tablets, I managed to FINALLY figure out just the right combination of stuff to finally help mine.
It’s distressing. Very distressing–I totally agree. And I would get so worried about what the buildup of cortisol was doing to her little brain
But it doesn’t happen in undeveloped cultures, so that says something about the condition and made me a firm believer in “babies never cry without a reason.” Sometimes, it’s just freaking HARD to figure out what that reason is (in my baby’s case, it was the pain caused by my overactive letdown that those tablets specifically treated–I can’t express my relief when it all finally worked).
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Renai Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 7:53 pm (Quote)
I’m familiar with HBotB and used it quite faithfully. Sometimes babies will cry unconsolably. My daughter would, after a few adjustments with a chiro, feeding, changing, swaddling, shhhing, bouncing, etc. The first few times worked- after a while, not so much. She spent 41 weeks and 3 days inside me, and just was NOT happy being out, lol! Things finally settled down after a few weeks. I do like HBotB though. We still use the techniques (it’s pretty intuition-like, actually).
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Jenny Islander Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 10:14 pm (Quote)
I firmly believe that my firstborn spent a couple of weeks in mourning for the loss of 24-hour womb service.
The difference between crying it out and crying in arms is the arms. Babies know when nobody is there and they get scared, which has the physical effects noted above. They may not understand that Mommy/Daddy/other intimate caregiver is a separate being, but they do understand when this important part of their world isn’t right there, and they are born needing us.
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Heather Reply:
May 31st, 2011 at 12:53 pm (Quote)
Yeah, it alone wasn’t enough with my second, but it helped us through some major nursing issues (she would scream, arch, refuse to latch, but the second I got the ‘calming reflex’ going, she would stop fighting and start eating). And that really gave me the clue that it was something about eating that was causing the problem
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Angelica Reply:
May 31st, 2011 at 12:57 pm (Quote)
I have a toddler, Sometimes I have no other alternative than to just leave her in the vibrating bouncy chair while I feed him, give him a bath, take him to the potty, clean up something he destroyed, etc. Sometimes it is “prolonged” but what can I do, short of hiring a second mommy? Her jags are during the day when her father isn’t here to help me. My point was that if you are meeting your child’s needs, they’re not going to be caused any serious immediate harm because some babies do cry ridiculously and they usually turn out just fine. If she’s really going to be emotionally damaged because I have to have two hands to tend to her brother, how does reminding me of that help in any way? The only thing I can do is resign myself to paying for her therapy later. (har har.:-\)
Either way, it had nothing to do with the larger point that the LC was encouraging her to *not* meet her child’s needs before accepting that sometimes babies cry.
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Fire Dancer had this to say,
May 30, 2011 @ 11:35 am (Quote)
Sorry LC, but I do not believe in letting a young infant cry it out in any circumstance. Now if it is a toddler who has everything he needs and is not getting his own way, then yes, but in very limited spirts, not for 10 to 30 minutes straight.
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liz had this to say,
May 30, 2011 @ 11:58 am (Quote)
my first son would sometimes cry for 4-6 hours and would not be consoled. nice to know that I was hurting him…
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Jane Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 12:11 pm (Quote)
I had one of those too. Dr. Sears in his attachment parenting books says that if you’re trying to comfort the crying baby and can’t console the baby, the baby still knows you’re interacting with him and trying to help. The object is to avoid having the baby feel abandoned. An inconsolable baby is different from a crying-it-out baby.
And I’ll be honest: there were some times when I knew my son was just going to scream no matter what, and I needed a break, so I’d set him safely in his crib and take a five-minute shower and then come back feeling a bit restored.
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Sarah Dorrance-Minch Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 12:52 pm (Quote)
Yes. There is a big difference between five minutes of CIO for a potty or sanity break, and several hours of the same.
There is also a difference between misery and abandonment.
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This is mine. I was heading back to college the next week and was going to be in class4-5 one night a week. This LC scared me enough into formula.
I am now a doula and starting a nonprofit that will hand out true Breastfeeding bags to new moms in the hospital. I am also hoping to become an IBCLC
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This is almost as good as the hospital lactation consultant who told me, “Just let your baby nurse as long as he wants,” when I told her that my baby was nursing for an hour and a half (!) before I popped him off. And then he still cried.
(turned out I had a real nursing problem, that was helped by some real advice from a real lc)
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I’m sorry, I think I just hallucinated. I thought you said it’s okay to leave my baby with someone for a few hours, and scream his brains half out because he’s hungry, and not leave anything for him to eat.
Oh, wait, you DID just say it’s okay to starve my baby.
*Looks around frantically for someone else*
“I need an INTELLIGENT adult!!!”
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Not only is this rotten advice for breastfeeding and parenting. It is rotten advice for keeping a babysitter! If you are BF or FF you don’t leave a babysitter with nothing.
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Alyson Miers Reply:
May 31st, 2011 at 9:11 am (Quote)
Thank you. I’ve babysat a lot of infants and I’m physically incapable of ignoring their cries. If any parent had ever left me with nothing to feed a baby, I would not have sat for that family again.
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Sorry, not a damn thing wrong with the statement! It is freeing to know there DOES NOT have to be a bottle before a mother can leave her infant for a little bit in the hands of a caregiver. Like when she is having her 6 week postpartum check, or some sort of care. This is freedom not a bad remark at all, crying is not deadly – as mothers of colicky babies know (yup, some babies cry without a reason and you being there doesn’t make a bit of difference in how hard it will be for them).
Damn y’all!
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Renai Reply:
May 31st, 2011 at 4:39 pm (Quote)
But, this nurse didn’t say for “a little bit”, she said not more than a few HOURS. Maybe it’s a matter of semantics, but for me, a little bit is a couple of hours (2 tops). Mom has fed the baby, and leaves for less than 2 hours. Since this nurse said not more than a “few” hours, it sounds like she’s talking way more than two.
And, there’s a difference between a colicky baby who has had his needs taken care of and still cries, and a baby that is crying because his needs have not been taken care of, ie., feeding.
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Ellen Reply:
June 1st, 2011 at 3:00 pm (Quote)
Two hours would have been far too long for my firstborn, who nursed every 90 minutes around teh clock for his first eight months. I did finally leave him with his father to go out to evening meetings and classes at six months, but you’d better believe I left them with breastmilk!
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Renai Reply:
June 1st, 2011 at 3:40 pm (Quote)
My baby was the same way. Every 90 minutes. Sometimes, she still gets like that (ooh, look at that thing over there! Well, guess that 5 minute session will have to do…until an hour later…) and she’s almost 5 months. But, she can sometimes go a couple of hours NOW. Before…not so much. I guess she does that during the day, cuz she sleeps pretty well at night.
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This is mine. I was heading back to college the next week and was going to be in class4-5 one night a week. This LC scared me enough into formula.I am now a doula and starting a nonprofit that will hand out true Breastfeeding bags to new moms in the hospital. I am also hoping to become an IBCLC
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Add Your Comment.
Your belief in “healthy” crying-it-out is not part of your job description. Go exercise your lungs in a way that does not involve offering advice. A few hundred wind sprints might do the trick.
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