Hearing your baby cry is not nice for sure, but the process doesn't end with them stopping crying because no-one comes when they call. If you do CIO and literally just leave them then that does happen.

With CC the process goes:

"I'm scared, where are you?"
"Oh, here you are, where did you go? I feel safe now"
"Where are you going?"
"Oh, you came back, guess you weren't far then"
"I'm still scared"
"Hmmm, here you are again, maybe it's not so bad after all"
"Ok, I can tell you aren't far, there's no need to be scared"

or something like that.

i think it is a type of training/ conditioning, like training a dog to salivate to a bell.

The baby learns that no one is coming, so there is no point in crying.
Babies can't comphrend coming and goign from a young age, they just want comfort/warmth/food.
You go in comfort them then take that away so they start screaming again.

Ewan settles him self to sleep fine, and has never had to cio or cc, he still woke for a feed till he was 3yr, but he is a big lad and needed a drink, he no longer wakes for a drink and sleeps through. yes it was hard but i enjoyed our quiet night times.

Fair play to you if you can do it, i can;t its not natural to me.

Maybe that would be the case if one would leave them to cry for a minute or so, but 10 minutes is a long time for a baby, in my opinion.

Yes me too, CIO is bad full stop.

Absolutely, but CC doesn't surpress it at all, thats a misconception, in fact it refines it. When Daisy was left by herself she cried because she was scared, she has learnt that it's ok to be in her cot and there's nothing to be scared of. So now if she cries we know there is something wrong and can act accordingly

CC doesn't "condition" a baby into thinking crying is bad, thats also a misconception, for that you would have to shout or tell them off each time they cry. It's about helping them feel comfortable in an environment and not needing to offer support at all times, they develop the skills to feel comfortable and safe.

You make it sound like self settling is a negative thing, if you could click your fingers and your baby could magically sleep by themselves happily without having to do any technique I'm sure you would choose that over them always needing comforting ... wouldn't you? If not then essentially you are saying you would rather them need comforting than be able to do it by themselves.

Before we did CC a week ago Daisy would only ever nap for 30 minutes and would be grumpy during the day because she didn't have enough sleep. She would also take 20 minutes to get to sleep with all the "props" we used (rocking, singing, dummy, stroking face etc) and then would usually wake 4 or 5 times very upset before she properly fell asleep.

1 week later and she now naps for 2 hours in the afternoon, as a result of this she's happier and more content during the day. Last night it too her 3 minutes to get to sleep, no crying at all. She slept in till 7.40am, fist time she's ever done that. I just put her down for her morning nap and she actually smiled at me as I left the room.

I don't think anyone can argue that for us CC has had the most positive effect I could ask for. Thats just the way it was for us though, others would have completely different experiences I'm sure.

Yeah, definitely some babys 10 minutes is too long, 8 minutes worked for us, lots of people use 5. My sister did use 1 minute and for my niece it was the right amount of time. All babies are different and it's up to the parent to pick the time limit thats right for them. But you have to give them the chance to realise it's ok. My sister started with 1 minute and then increased it by a minute every time, by the 4th time when she was on 4 minutes it would work.

Now my niece is 3 and she is the happiest baby I know, she actually tells her mum when she's ready to sleep for her nap, and she gets ready for it by herself, she looks FORWARD to her nap and sleep time

I think people think that you have to be very strict with the 5, 10, 15 minutes thing, but its not the case. you can do 5, 7, 8 or less. Just whatever works for you. I think the key is consistancy. We do 5, 5 and then she's usually asleep.

A nice read http://attachmentparenting.org/blog/...ks-for-itself/

I'm not sure if thihttp://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/handout2.asps has been posted already, but here's some research

Blimey!!!!!!!!

Well anyway only a quick post as I have to go and do some housework after spending so much time reading through all of these!

I cant leave Rose to cry, At certain points when things get tricky and I am tired I give cc some thought and then she cries and I just cant leave her! She is still so little (10 weeks corrected age) and needs a bit more reassurance etc and will do for some time yet in my eyes. Plus there were plenty of times I could not hold her at all when she was in hospital and that felt utterly terrible, cant of been too nice for her either so am not going to do it by choice now.

May do it when shes older though (a fair bit older), who knows

I never wrote that! How dare you change something I've said!!


Edit - re-read a few pages and that is you misquoting people. Purple_socks wrote that, not me, but you didn't edit her quote properly. I'd appreciate if you could correct it as I didn't say that.