My mom (who had children starting in 1982) said that doctors were telling her (IIRC) that, when a baby was crying in certain circumstances (I think when it was in a crib and there was nothing obviously wrong), it just wanted attention, and if you gave it attention, then you were teaching the baby to manipulate you, and instead you should let it cry until it gives up.
She thought this was abominable; that if a baby is crying, that means something is wrong, and crying for help is the only means it has, and it’s the parent’s job to figure out how to help the baby. Furthermore, that if the parent’s response was to not help the baby, that would be teaching the baby something extremely bad about the parents’ relationship to it. And generally she was in favor of mothers listening to their instincts.
I believe she said that, as time went on, some actual research was done, which generally favored her views.
In April 1971, Sylvia Bell and Mary Ainsworth presented a paper at the Society for Research in Child Development. Using data from Ainsworth’s now famous ‘Baltimore Study’ of 26 mothers and their infants, they reported that infants whose mothers responded more quickly to their cries in the first 3 months of life were less likely to cry at 9–12 months of age than mothers who responded more slowly. The following year, a paper including these data was published in Child Development and in the nearly 50 years since it has been cited more than 1,500 times. The paper challenged then the dominant view of behavioral theory, which held that responding to crying reinforced the behavior and fostered dependence.
I guess the “behavioral theory” was what my mom found abominable (and what the doctors she complained about subscribed to), and the Ainsworth study favors her views.
The linked study seems to say that further evidence looks ambiguous. Not gonna dig into it now, but I would lean towards trusting my mom’s opinion.
My mom (who had children starting in 1982) said that doctors were telling her (IIRC) that, when a baby was crying in certain circumstances (I think when it was in a crib and there was nothing obviously wrong), it just wanted attention, and if you gave it attention, then you were teaching the baby to manipulate you, and instead you should let it cry until it gives up.
She thought this was abominable; that if a baby is crying, that means something is wrong, and crying for help is the only means it has, and it’s the parent’s job to figure out how to help the baby. Furthermore, that if the parent’s response was to not help the baby, that would be teaching the baby something extremely bad about the parents’ relationship to it. And generally she was in favor of mothers listening to their instincts.
I believe she said that, as time went on, some actual research was done, which generally favored her views.
A quick google turns up a study: https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpp.13338 , which says this:
I guess the “behavioral theory” was what my mom found abominable (and what the doctors she complained about subscribed to), and the Ainsworth study favors her views.
The linked study seems to say that further evidence looks ambiguous. Not gonna dig into it now, but I would lean towards trusting my mom’s opinion.