Comments on: Cry-It-Out: "Toxic" For Babies' Brains

By: Cian

Cian — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:09:29 +0000

Cate

It’s stressful being a baby. No way to communicate well, under developed comprehension, no way to control your own environment.

We also know cortisol is released in tears.

So if we know it’s stressful being a baby, and tears help get rid of the stress, why do you appear anti letting the baby cry?

The tone in your comments back to others was deplorable, acidic, and defensive. I hope your do not unleash the same on my question to you.

By: Cate

Cate — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:14:33 +0000

Yeah, I think that level of anger will do wonderfully with parenting, especially once her child makes up her own mind and decides “no” is always the proper answer.

By: lily

lily — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 23:54:22 +0000

spoken like truly unhappy person. very arrogant and very rude.
thanks

By: Jenny Bean

Jenny Bean — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 01:02:58 +0000

@ Cate: I mentioned how hard we had it in order to prove a point. My point was that we tried EVERYTHING before CIO–even co-sleeping! My son was too light of a sleeper for that once he hit 4 months. If I sneezed, my husband snored, the cat walked on him, or I turned over to the other side, my son would wake up CRYING! He actually sleeps better in his crib alone. Before I experienced my baby I had so many pre-conceived notions about what kind of parent I would be. I would practice AP, never let him cry, and my poor baby would never sleep alone in a prison-like crib! Then reality kicked in. I gave birth to a baby who slept better alone. Believe me–it threw me for a loop. Just because co-sleeping worked for your babies does not mean it works for every baby.

As for your village analogy, well, guess what they do in villages? They all pitch in and help the new mom! CIO is done in our society because we don’t have a village to help raise our children!

I wasn’t calling you “mom of the year” in particular…just judgmental moms in general. It’s not right to assume that you know what is best for MY baby or anyone else’s, but thanks for caring so much about him. I could see if I starved him or beat him or neglected him, that would be everyone’s business. But in order to teach him to sleep? That is NO ONE’s business.

When he was crying during his sleep training it wasn’t because he needed me–it was because he wanted me to help him fall asleep. He had to learn it on his own and we waited until he was old enough. When I would check on him if he had a dirty diaper I would change it, or if he was hungry I would feed him. His needs were always met–I just wasn’t going to nurse him every hour on the hour or bounce my 20 pounder back to sleep any more. We were periodically there during his crying spells with loving touches, kisses, and words and to put his pacifier back in, but he had to figure out how to fall asleep on his own.

Finally, you say you only care about what my baby needs…period. Don’t you care that he is well-rested? Why would you want him to be crabby and sleep-deprived all day? You think that is best for him?

I’m with you on this: I can’t believe we have to have this debate either. Better energy would be spent on trying to prevent REAL child abuse instead of going after loving moms who sleep-train.

By: Cate

Cate — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 19:36:01 +0000

@Jenny: If you read the comments, I’m not being “Mom of the Year.” While you took the time to type out how hard you had it, I’m not going to waste everyone’s time doing that. Suffice to say that I was a single mom to my first child, and it wasn’t easy. But I didn’t let him cry, and I still found ways to function.
This isn’t about you. I’m not even calling you a bad parent. But it is about your baby and his/her needs: as a collective whole, all babies. Babies need us as parents. That’s it. That’s all. I can’t believe we even have to have this debate, with parents putting their guilt for their parental choices on me or others who agree with me.
Let’s say we lived in a village long ago. And your job once your baby was born was to take care of her, period. No cell phone. No movies. No internet. No other priorities. You wouldn’t find that crying was the solution to soothe your baby to sleep. It certainly wouldn’t be the socially acceptable one back then: why is it kosher now?
So yes, in the real world, we do have those other priorities. But notice what takes precedent when you’re trying to get baby to sleep. I found that if I pulled my boys into bed with me and breastfed, we both slept better. Then I could work full-time and support them. And focus on those other priorities with a clear head instead of arguing online with people I don’t know about how I was made to feel about what a researcher said. Put your energy in the proper place, and it may help.

By: Jenny Bean

Jenny Bean — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 08:28:45 +0000

I am SO weary of judgmental moms who act like they are up for the Mom of the Year award and put down us desperate moms who have had no choice but to do CIO in one form or another. A note to all of you (and you too, Dr. Sears!): Thanks a lot for making me feel so guilty that I endured over 6 months of sleepless nights and my son turned into an unlikable miserable little devil due to lack of sleep! You wanna talk about high cortisol levels??? Be my guest. Have you stopped for one moment to think about how high my son’s cortisol levels became from being severely sleep deprived??? He was a wreck and would even get angry at his toys! I went around telling everyone he was a “high needs baby” and had a “difficult temperament”. Well guess what? Once I did 2 nights of controlled crying (yes, it was pure hell) he got it. What a beautiful gift I gave him!!!! He started sleeping for 4-5 hours at a time at night (up from 1-2 hours!) and taking 1 and a 1/2 hour – 2 and a 1/2 hour naps (up from 30-45 minutes)! The teacher at Mommy and Me noticed his personality change IMMEDIATELY!!! She kept saying, “Wow!!! Liam is so happy today!” He was BEAMING!!! She wanted to know what happened. I replied proudly, “He’s been sleeping!!!” You have no idea how challenging it was to get him to smile and laugh before! Now it’s a breeze!!! Dr. Sears was right: he IS a high-needs baby. He NEEDS sleep and LOTS of it. Thanks for nothing but bad advice and guilt, Doctor.

Come to think of it–maybe my baby IS brain damaged from the sleep training! It’s definitely damaged for the better, though.

And yes, before I did controlled crying I tried EVERYTHING (and I mean EVERYTHING) else. The “No-Cry Sleep Solution” is great in theory but just made matters worse for my little one. I know it works for some personalities–but not for his.

And to think I was one of those judgmental moms who though CIO was something mean and lazy parents did. Of course I’m sure some are mean and lazy, but for the vast majority, I think most CIO moms are loving, devoted, and attached–they are just at the end of their ropes and want what’s best for their babies.

If you and your baby are severely sleep deprived and you’ve tried other gentler methods to no avail, PLEASE do yourself and your baby a favor and don’t succumb to the guilt. These people are simple-minded and have a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting.

By: Courtney

Courtney — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:24:13 +0000

I’m a first time mom, my son will be 5 months old next week. Before I had him, we (my husband and I) decided we would not be sharing our bed, our room would be his room only until he would sleep through the night, or a reasonable time if the former seemed to be delayed. We had MANY ‘ideas’ of the kind of parents we would be. I bought and read book after book and prepared myself for the fact that CIO may be inevitable. In June, when I brought this little miracle home that I had tried to conceive for 5 years, my whole ‘idea system’ flew out the window. One of my best friends had a baby 10 days before me. He son sleeps in his own crib, in his room and doesn’t protest. Til 4 months he was in their room, but still in his own bed. He was never brought to their bed. She also only nursed for about 6 weeks. My son, came to bed with me from day 1. (I had a c-section and the up and downs were difficult and painful, doable if I had made up my mind to, but having him close was easier-and thus-for me) I looked at lots of avenues for parenting and have concluded that likely the best way is for us to arrive at our own style of parenting rather thab jump on a bandwagon of any sort. We are all incredibly unique and that’s wonderful, its why not one thing works for us all. Kim, I find your wit incredibly humoring, I rather enjoyed reading the banter here, but at times found myself a little offended. Then I remembered it doesn’t matter, I get that you’re not attacking me personally, and that maybe in general the baby wearing, co-sleeping group may seem extreme but for some people it simply fits….best. My son does not CIO. I feel physically ill when he cries because I feel badly for him. Therefore I do wear him/hold him/soothe him. But that works at our house I get the best sleep having him next to me and have never rolled on him, ever. He sleeps great, I sleep great. We all wake refreshed and happy. That’s what’s important to me. I do not agree with CIO, for sure not at a young age. I read something in a Spock book about ‘making yourself busy’ for the better part of the day. It also referred to the babies cries as “tyrannical”, something I hardly stomached. It said moms and babies have mean thoughts toward each other….Really? I certainly don’t have all the answers, (like I said-1st time mom), but I do know what works for me and my baby. Co-sleeping, nursing-on demand, baby wearing, TONS of snuggles and cuddles and the least amount of crying possible. At 5 months, when he is playing on the floor and fusses lightly, I walk in to remind him I haven’t left and try to soothe him vocally because I am able to realize that he doesn’t need me to respond to his tiny whims. If he needs me, I expect he will cry, and I will respond. Just as I always do. I certainly don’t see his cries or the fact that he needs me as any form of tyranny. He is a baby who needs his mother. As he gets older I may allow for some whine time for him and I also do plan to sleep train him, with no tears though. I suppose that because I simply cannot find the will to allow my son to cry, that I have chosen the right path for us. It won’t work for everyone, but it does for us.

My son rolls, laughs, and plays independently as well. He is not lacking developmentally in ANY way. AP is a guide for me, not a rule. Its just what works for me.

I will add here that I also am pro-life and Kims comment was a good one for that because as I’m new to all of this I have wondered what the “peaceful” factions views are on that, because I will not be associated with anything to the other direction, not even a mild advocate, so thanks for bringing that up Kim, I am going to be doing some research.

By: Kim

Kim — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:59:14 +0000

@ Michael: Agreed.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:18:32 +0000

Whether CIO works or not, this article is severely lacking in information and should not be considered a valid proponent for their point.

By: Syllozakur

Syllozakur — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:13:51 +0000

http://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/cosleeping.pdf