A new book puts more pressure on parents to pick up that crying baby, calling the cry-it-out method (CIO) “toxic” and “very bad for brain development,” the BBC reports.
Many of you consider yourself natural or attachment parents, so chances are, you would never consider “Ferberizing” your baby. That’s where you lay baby down awake and occasionally soothe the child, but do not pick her up, even if she cries. This sleep training was popular in our moms’ and grandmothers’ times so as not to “spoil” the child.
But in a new book Dr. Penelope Leach (The Essential First Year – What Babies Need Parents to Know) claims that there is no scientific evidence that cry-it-out works, and is in fact detrimental to babies.
Still, we hear it a lot today: variations of excuses for employing the CIO method to get your baby to sleep. If parents sleep better, we’ll be better parents during the day. Or comments like this, from a Babycenter discussion:
Crying it out will make everyone happier!
Or,
I’m a first time parent that has begun the worrisome task of sleep training my 5 month old. I’m letting him “CIO” with minimal intervention and no it’s not easy. I would love to rock, feed, and hold him forever, but I must look at the long term health benefits of my son being able to self sooth and fall asleep without my involvement, which is more disruptive then [sic] productive.
Or this skeptical response on an IVillage board:
Define brain damage and to what extent CIO causes it. What KIND of brain damage? I dont think this article answered any of that. I am a big proponent of CIO but only when used correctly.
Ohh. I see. “Proper” daily dosage of crying for a baby. Huh. My sons’ pediatrician never mentioned that necessity.
If you’ve tried CIO and it’s made you uncomfortable, that’s because it’s supposed to. Instinctively, as a parent, you are supposed to respond to a baby’s cries. That’s why babies cry. That’s why my breasts swell when I hear an infant cry, even months after my toddler and I finished breastfeeding.
Dr. Leach said that letting a baby cry for over a half hour is very harmful,
We are talking about the release of stress chemicals. The best known of them is cortisol, which is produced under extreme stress…
The reason that a baby gives up after half an hour, three-quarters of an hour or an hour is that it has given up and that its expectations have been altered.
I’ve heard it said that babies stop crying because they have learned that mummy wants them to go back to sleep. Babies are not capable of that sort of learning.
So really, parents, what you’re witnessing is not “self-soothing,” you’re witnessing emotional defeat. Doesn’t that break your heart?
I speak as a single mom who did not let her babies cry-it-out. I for sure know it’s hard. And I know that people are quite passionate about needing their sleep. So babywear until bedtime. Cosleep. Breastfeed until your gurgler is nodding off. I found that putting an infant Baby E on a blanket under a tree, so he could watch the branches move, soothed him just before bed.
Find your trick. But don’t trick or exhaust your infant into sleeping when it’s convenient for you. Because let’s face it: As parents, not much is going to convenient to you.
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My nephew, whom I wrote about on my blog, was left to cry. He eventually stopped crying altogether because she never responded to any of his cries. Not even to eat. He was fed when convenient for her. Now, this is extreme, but it shows that babies will give up and it’s so sad. She had him fir only 2 months.
My parents got him and he relearned how to cry. In fact, he cried a lot. Mote than other babies my mom had (she did inhone daycare before). Now I know he cried so much because he was probably happy someone responded. He had th saddest start in life. 🙁
Your sister or sister-in-law should have bought a doll. The best thing she did for her son was give him to his grandmother.
As my friend, a psychologist says, ” Its kind of hard to self soothe when you have no concept of self”
I’ve never understood how folks can’t see that the baby just learns that no one will meet their needs. It is all so very sad.
Isn’t it great when the research backs us up?!
I am wondering, however, if anyone has any ideas as to how this relates to Dr. Jay Gordon’s night weaning technique. On his website, he says that a baby over one year old who has received quality night parenting up to that point may cry if not fed on cue, but will be more angry than truly distraught. I’ve been considering night weaning for my daughter, but the thought of her crying when I could just nurse and make her happy has so far deterred me.
Hunny, that totally makes sense!
I still go and check on my son when he cries or yelles for me and he his 2 years old now. If he doesn´t need me he just plays in his bed or looks out of the window until he´s tired enough to fall asleep. But if he cries there is something wrong. There was not one time when he just cried to make me come back him. I will continue to check on him at night when he needs me until he stops on his own and not until I want him.
My husband still blames me for not toughing it out, letting our son cry it out. Yet I feel guilty for even having tried it. It was two nights of misery. The first night he cried for two hours until he threw up. The second night I was totally beside myself as my husband assured me that we have to stick to it. Our son screamed for six hours and then passed out. A few weeks later my pediatrician told me that was a good start.
I feel terribly guilty about how I muddled through my son’s “sleep training”. We also tried the no-cry-sleep-solution with no success (in fact he became so sensitive to me leaving the room that I ended up staying longer and longer).
I’m still trying to figure out how to make up for that time for our son, and making sure our daughter does not have to go through the same experiences. I’ll never again put so much stock in what people tell is “necessary” for MY child.
I agree that when babies cry, it usually means something. It’s either they’re hungry or something’s not right. As parents, we have to learn on how to pick it up and take care of our babies.
Ok. Babies cry for all kinds of reasons. Does every crying episode a baby experience lead to brain damage? Really? Cortisol is released into the brain for stress in general and a week or to of sleep training is not going to forever harm a child. In fact there is a lot of scientific evidence that lack of sleep for both children and adults is harmful. I did a modified CIO method with my daughter. Did she cry? Yes. Does she now fall asleep happily on her own? Yes. Did she stop crying altogether? No. Did she stop crying after 5 min, or 15 min. or 30 min when sleep training? YES BECA– USE SHE FELL ASLEEP. Not because she learned we wouldn’t respond. I think if a child has stopped crying it is due to neglect in general and not CIO. Does she cry when we put her to bed now? Very rarely–when she’s sick or scared or has pooped. Do I come to her every time? Yes. Does she still have faith I’ll respond to her needs? Yes. Did I feel guilty following CIO–maybe for about 5 minutes.
We are a much happier family now that we’re all not sleep deprived. Our bedtime routine takes about 15 minutes, 95% of the time my daughter is happy and chatty when I put her in the crib and my daughter sleeps through the night and wakes up happy. She knows we respond to her needs, she is highly verbal, highly interactive child way ahead of the all development milestones. She also knows how to fall asleep on her own. Sometimes she even asks to take a nap!
If you don’t want to teach your child how to fall asleep on their own, fine. But I just see a lot of what I read as fear mongering to rationalizing the choice not to sleep train and trying to get others not to sleep train and feel guilty if they do.
Can I ask what method you used? I am having an awful time with my 14-month daughter. She hasn’t been napping for a while now. I tried for 2.5 hours today to get her nap. She still get up 1-4 times a night and wakes up at 5am. It would be nice to know what worked for you.
Cosleeping
I wish! I did that with my son and it worked well and had planned to with my daughter. However, any time I lay down to sleep with her she freaks out.
My youngest child is about to turn 20 in a few weeks. I remember reading Penelope Leach’s book when both my sons were infants and I also remeber throwing it against the wall in frustration. In the part labeled 0 -6 Months, she advocated soothing your baby to sleep.
Since my second son was still crying and being rocked and breast fed through most of the night by 6 months, I eagerly turned to the part of her book that was about 7 -12 months. The 1st chapter started off with words to this effect: If you haven’t taught your child to sleep through the night by now you’ve done something wrong or you have to change your ways or something like that. That’s when I threw her book against the wall with a few choice words. (N.B.: My oldest son would fall asleep before I put him all the way in his cradle or crib!)
At his next check-up I asked the pediatrician (who is one of the nicest and kindest people on this planet) for advice. He said, “Let him cry it out. It will take 3 nights and then it will be done. I promise. But DO NOT go into his room, not even once.” He saw the look of horror on my face and then he lent me a video from the TV show 60 Minutes that demonstrated this technique.
After watching the video we employed the technique with VERY HEAVY HEARTS. And you know what, it worked in 3 nights. The 1st night he cried for 1 & 1/2 hrs. — horrible, the 2nd night for 45 minutes — terrible, the 3rd night, 15 minutes. By the 4th night he did not cry at all!
My son is now a happy and very successful student at one of the world’s top engineering schools with a major scholarship. He loves his father and me very much and acts it and says it often. He has also had a fabulous girlfriend for over a year. I don’t know if we did any “brain damage” but he is more than OK and I’d take whatever P. Leach says about getting your infant to sleep with a grain of salt.
Just my opinion and experience; and I wanted to insert a different point of view based on that experience. I know that it’s anecdotal. I do not think that there is anything wrong with picking your baby or toddler up when he or she cries at bedtime or any other time. Obviously that’s up to each individual parent and we shouldn’t be judgmental about what another chooses to do. There is no ONE correct way to do this. Good luck to all of you who are facing this dilemma and are just trying to do what is best for your child — it’s not easy.
This is a great discussion! I am somewhere in between on this topic. My son co-slept with me- mostly because he slept so soundly and woke once at night to nurse for about 20 seconds and then he’d fall asleep- and I barely woke up. I tried putting him in a crib, but it just didn’t work. He now goes to sleep on his own- with a cup of tea near his bed so when he wakes up thirsty he has a little tasty (soothing) something to drink. Crying it out might have worked for him, but he fell asleep so quickly just feeling me next to him I never wanted to try.
Then I became a foster parent- my little girl is totally different. She will cry for hours. If I lay next to her she just wants to play. When she wakes up at night she wants to play and chat- not sleep. So the little bit of sleep training I did with her was more about learning to sleep on a schedule and learning to sleep at night. When it’s naptime, I put her in her bed and let her cry- usually about 30 secs. to 1 minute now; when she cried longer I would go pick her up and sooth her after 5 minutes or so. But I found with her that picking her up got her excited rather than soothed. After 5 months with me she sleeps great. Sometimes we bring her into bed with us in the middle of the night, most of the time with just let her stay in her crib but we’ll pick her up and put her back if she’s crying. She had a different start than my son so I think that some of her unsettled behavior might come from that- but she is very consistant now.
Bottom line is every kid is different. I am at a different place now than when I had my son. I’m more tired, I don’t have the lovely hormons that lactating mama’s produce, but most important is that my mother’s intuition tells me that I need to address these situations differently.
That’s really the key- some parent- child combos work for the CIO method and others don’t. Good parenting is an eb and flow and a dynamic process of finding the best way for today. There’s never one way.
Best of luck to all with the joys and challenges of caring unconditionally for another little being. May each moment be miraculous!
Basically the idea of the Cry It Out method is to teach the baby to fall asleep on his or her own by progressively increasing the waiting time before responding to the child’s cries. Not surprisingly this method has often been misunderstood as involving simply letting the baby cry until he or she goes to sleep. Although this progressive method may work for some infants there are other things to consider. Read more about this in our post: http://www.justaskbaby.com/blogs/professor-elkind/cry-it-out
While I am very anti-CIO, I dislike the fear mongering involved and I am disappointed that age appropriate behavior is not addressed. Saying “babies shouldn’t cry it out” means something different to everyone. My “baby” is nearly 2 years old, and while I would never have let him cry it out when he was 6 months old, at 22 months he often will throw a temper tantrum at bedtime. But at this point, it’s his age appropriate behavior kicking in and testing his boundaries…..and what he needs is me to enforce them. Telling parents “CIO IS ALWAYS WRONG!” is setting them up for failure and misery.
Additionally, the rigid nature of the argument lacks empathy. I bought into all the extremist attachment parenting theories with my first, very very easy, baby. With my second child, I believed CIO was always wrong and I never let him sleep alone. And we never got more than two hours sleep at a time for over a year. Sleep deprivation is easy to dismiss if you’ve never suffered it badly. Add to that the stress of hearing your child cry and everyone being on edge? If you’ve never been there, done that, consider yourself lucky. Sometimes a parent needs to put the child down and step away to regain some sanity.
I hope that the anti-CIO faction understands that it’s very likely not detrimental much past 1 year. When your child gets old enough to actually try to assert their choices (i.e. the choice not to go to bed!) then it’s not CIO, it’s enforcing rules.
Every child is different. One child may be fine to be left alone, another won’t. It’s dangerous to say all babies should CIO fir three days. It won’t work for all. I have always HD a tough time falling asleep. My husband falls asleep easier. Should I follow his bedtime routine? No. I’m not him. I had one baby who would cry for 7 minutes before falling asleep for a nap. Every day. For a year or so. She coslept with me at night, but cried at nap time. I had another who would scream forever and then be hard to console for hours
I would have to agree with Sylkozakur. Some children are very sensitive and the “cry out” method may have a traumatic effect. Other babies may have an easier time dealing with it. I think it also depends on their age and what stage they are going through. My main point is that what works for some may not work for others.
@Hunny: “As my friend, a psychologist says, ‘Its kind of hard to self soothe when you have no concept of self’ ”
The argument cuts both ways — it’s kind of hard to feel “abandoned” (as most anti-CIO people claim) when you have no concept of self.
And you have no sense of object permanence before about 9 months, for that matter, meaning EVERY single time a person or thing goes out of the range of your senses, you have no idea that it continues to exist. When Leach mentions “giving up,” we project all sorts of initiative and conscious effort of adults “giving up” onto an infant. But the infant isn’t capable of such thoughts.
Infants simply respond to their environment. If a baby’s basic needs are met (food, warmth, etc.), but he is overtired and/or not ready to give up stimulation from Mommy or Daddy, he might cry. Babies adapt to the consistency of their environment, though. If a baby cries for a few days or a week at bedtime, and nothing happens except falling asleep, the baby usually will adapt. From an evolutionary perspective, there’s no reason to waste calories crying when it’s highly advantageous to fall asleep (from a learning perspective, a rest perspective, etc.).
There have been many studies showing sleep training to be effective. For some babies, that means instead of crying for anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple hours at bedtime while they are overtired and unable to figure out what to do, now they go to sleep in under 15 minutes.
Sleep training doesn’t work for all babies, and it works for some babies at certain ages but not at other ages. If you try it and don’t see results in a week, perhaps a different strategy is in order. But if you have a very fussy baby who cries for an hour or two at bedtime every night, and a few days of sleep training can get him out of that habit, the baby may cry SIGNIFICANTLY less in the future.
Leach’s argument doesn’t make sense in that case. If excessive crying is bad, and if for some babies sleep training can REDUCE excessive crying in the long term by a few days of crying at first, isn’t her objection to CIO actually DAMAGING babies?!
I’ve read this article in the past, and found myself reading it again. As mom to a five-month-old who just started sleep training, I have to say this article has quite a bit of fear mongering and holier-than-thou attitude.
My son has never liked sleep. He was colicky, and we went straight from those kinds of nights into teething (first tooth at 4 months to the day). Sleep problems all along the way in that we would fight hours to get him to sleep, only to try and lay him down and have his eyes immediately pop open. I tried co-sleeping. He slept, I didn’t. Naps were awful, as he’d only nap on me after an hour or two of soothing. I was exhausted and chained to our recliner all day long. I wanted to wear him as much as possible to help, but a sore back and bum shoulder hasn’t let me carry my 90th percentile weight/length baby. I ended up going to my dr. about post-partum depression. She doesn’t think I have it; I just need a break and some decent rest. BUT, if things stay like they are, I’m quickly on my way there.
Both my husband and I agreed our AP way of trying things in the beginning wasn’t going to work. We also, over time, realized that a middle-of-the-road approach wouldn’t work, either. He just gets stimulated with checks. So our option left was for him to CIO. It was the hardest thing for me to do, and he still has an off nap every so often. But he gets much better sleep than the twilight sleep he’d get lying on my chest. And I get much better sleep and rest. I get to DO something other than hold him for naps, and therefore I physically feel better.
The sleep deprivation he would have experienced from constantly being held and not getting good quality deep/REM sleep would have manifested itself I’m sure in a few months. I think a few days of extra crying (though after colic, is it really extra?) for good quality sleep and good sleep habits down the road is worth it.
@Christine:
I’ve been thinking about your response to my blog. And I think you’re wrong. I’m not “holier-than-thou”. (And actually, I wrote a blog about AP coming off as such a while back: http://eyr.lil.mybluehost.me/2009/07/01/where-attachment-parents-lose-ground/) I think it’s pretty much common sense to say that when your baby cries, he needs something. Period. And I may be a smartass in my blog post, but that’s because that’s my default setting, not because I believe I’m better than anyone.
I’m interested in your son’s colic. Was he diagnosed as “colicky” by his pediatrician? Because that’s actually pretty rare. Do you know that there are some cultures that don’t even have a word for “colic”? It’s mostly a Western reaction to a baby shouting for its needs. Some parents have remedied seeming “colic” with babywearing and a lot of skin-to-skin contact. (And yes, my older child was also large, and I wore him–as a single mom whose only time to get things done was during the day, because I worked at night. So you’re just not going to get a ton of sympathy from me. Sorry.)
But you know what? I’m not an expert. I’m an expert on my sons, who were not forced to cry it out.
So what I did with this blog post was refer to the expert, who called the stress caused by the cry-it-out method “toxic”.
You’re upset because the way you chose to get your son to sleep is called wrong by this psychologist. You can call that “fear mongering”, but I call it sticking your head in the sand. Let me know how that works out for you.
Cate, it seems to me that you’re pretty defensive about an opinion
Isn’t everyone entitled to theirs? And again… You’ll always have “experts” on both sides of most arguments… Just because you agree with this particular one does not make you correct. Maybe you did what was right for your kids, but you cannot tell everyone else what is right for them or their children. And I find it absolutely astonishing that you have no sympathy for a tired, worn-down woman who is struggling with issues that we all deal with as mothers. As a single mother, I don’t care what your situation is, who is or isn’t helping you, or what your beliefs are as a parent. I would have much empathy for ANY human being who is trying to find the right way to parent their child. If for nothing else, than just the common ground we all share as being parents. How disappointing that such a seemingly educated and intelligent woman like yourself has such little dignity that you have to take cheap shots at someone who, like it or not, probably has a lot of common ground with you. And really, I think that everyone here sounds like they’re just trying to do something “right” for their children out of love… And the fact that we all love our children should be enough for us to stand together and support each other, despite our differences.
@Christine – I’m so sorry for your son’s colic & sleep difficulties. I hope things are getting better & you are all getting more rest & routine.
@Cate – wow. What a rude reply. I had a very similar situation with my daughter to Christine with her son. My daughter also had colic – she was home-birthed, breastfed, co-slept, & worn skin to skin all the time. I’ve heard similar thoughts on the non-existant nature of colic. It’s just not accurate. My daughter’s colic was assessed by the pediatrician, we tried everything (& I mean everything – including cranial-sacral manipulation). Nothing worked & we just soothed her the best we could until it faded at close to 4 months – when she immediately began teething.
I found your reply so offensive & unsupportive (really, “TOXIC”) – I’m not sure you are in a good position to be “helping” other mothers with ANY advice. I totally agree with Jen. How disappointing.
I’m curious to know how psychologists determined that an infant does or does not have a “sense of self” in the first place, and what the heck that really means anyway. The fact is, my child screams for 30 minutes before bed if I hold her and rock her to sleep (ending in tears for both of us after three false starts, 1 hour of night time sleep, and me going to bed at 8pm for the 2nd MONTH in a row) or if she’s SAFE, WARM, HAPPY, WELL FED (from the breast, I might add) and surrounded by the company of her favorite little animals in her crib.
This psychologist’s research doesn’t support attachment parenting any more than CIO anyway. Simply because you’re employing the CIO methods, doesn’t mean that your child is crying more than an AP kid. If any of you were willing to stop patting yourselves on the back long enough to work out the logic, then you’d realize that the only conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that the best method for raising a child is the one that produces the fewest tears (and thus causes the least damage), EVEN if that method be Ferber.
I have looked into the sleep training debate quite a bit and unless there is new research I am unaware that Penelope Leach is referring to, every single bit of research about crying, brain cortisol and future brain development (or lack thereof) were done in the context of abused and neglected children. There is NO research about cortisol measurements in sleep-trained infants, or whether this causes any damage. In fact, the Australian Murdoch Children’s Research Institute followed up 225 children aged 6 who’d had controlled crying methods used on them as infants. In comparison to other 6 year old children who had similar sleep problems in infancy but were not given such interventions, the sleep-trained children showed no adverse effects on their emotional and behavioral development or on their relationship with their parents.
So Cate, you can smugly inform us that you’re a single mom who sucked it up and cite as many “experts” as you like but as far as I’m concerned, there is NO evidence whatsoever that my sleep training harms babies’ brains. Asserting that there is is absolutely fear mongering and pretty irresponsible. Let me know how that works out for you.
62% of American adults, most of whom were “sleep trained” have difficulty falling asleep. Sleep training is not for the benefit of the child. It’s for the parents. Be honest. You’re not doing it for them. You’re doing it for you.
Syllozakur, I am absolutely doing this for my daughter. If I REALLY wanted to do something for myself, I’d let her nurse all night long in my bed so I could lay there and sleep while she nourishes herself. I could roll over on her and squish her (which I’ve already done twice). I could pick her up each and every time she whines so I don’t have to hear her cry, removing the motivation to move her own body towards her toy by herself, and delay motor development. If I were truly “doing it for myself” I’d let her nap in her Moby wrap, spending that time sitting quietly on my butt, instead of straightening up her environment, encouraging hard work, organization, and independence. If I were a truly selfish person I could do all that. But because I LOVE my daughter, I’m going to insist that she sleep in her own bed. You do what you like with your kids, because frankly I’m too busy actually raising mine to tell you how to raise yours. In the meantime, you can shove comments that insinuate that anyone who doesn’t co-sleep for the first 2 years of life is an asshole and an irresponsible parent up your butt. 😀 I mean that in the nicest possible way.
Syllozakur, your statement is completely baseless, not to mention irrelevant. Where are these stats coming from? And what does sleep training have to do with how or why adults are or are not sleeping? How you made that wild leap of logic from the (questionable) statement that 62% of adults have trouble falling asleep (perhaps a percentage of them are co-sleeping, no?) BECA– USE they were sleep-trained is beyond me. Again, I have yet to see any of you doing anything more than making contradictory emotional statements about research that was done on a completely different group of children. And AGAIN, “cry it out toxic for babies brains” should probably be stated “excessive crying for any reason is toxic for babies brains”…but I guess that wouldn’t get that many hits on your website, huh? Not only that you wouldn’t be able to pat yourself on the back for being “Extreme Parent Of the Year”.
By the way…my child went to sleep by herself this ENTIRE WEEK with NOT ONE SINGLE TEAR swaddled in her own comfy bed for 12 hour stretches. She woke up each and every morning with a smile and spent her days playing, instead of trying to catch up on the sleep she missed while two adults snored and tossed and wiggled around her. She also has clean laundry and a rested mother for the first time in her life.
What is truly amazing to me that so many of you are badge-wearing liberals who wouldn’t think of encroaching on a woman’s body by expecting her to carry an “unwanted” pregnancy to term, but the thought that that same woman should have her own bed (and her child should be rested) is just appalling and “cruel”.
My numbers come from the McKenna and McDade study on cosleeping. I don’t advocate everyone cosleep. It works for me. I don’t object to cribs. I object to crying it out. Not every baby WILL cry it out. My first baby was very “high needs”. My second wasn’t. She napped in cribs. She slept with me at night to facilitate breastfeeding. I think there are ways to crib sleep a baby that doesn’t involve crying it out, & I don’t think every person who crib sleeps their children let them cry it out.
I apologize for bitchy tones. I get defensive on this topic as the only person in my circle who bed shares (next to my sister in law).. I’m also pro-life btw.
Btw, my breastfeeding all night babies who cosleep were so delayed in their motor development that two walked at 8 months old and the other two walked “late” at ten months. And my kids who can’t learn independence without sobbing themselves to sleep are very independent children who consistently test higher than their grade levels. They are fantastic at creating their own toys using crayons, paper, tape and boxes. Don’t BS me and tell me lids can’t learn independence if their parents, I don know, hold them?
I meant kids, obviously. Oh, & in addition to being pro-life, I’m also a Christian.
Gee…what is this “holding” business you speak of? Yuck! How can you stand to touch that little screaming brat. I only had my kid because I thought it would help my social life and my figure. Only you new-agey co-sleeper-for-life-if-necessary freaks “hold” your children. Any modern sleep-training parent worth her weight knows better and would never consider holding her child. I guess I’m just jealous of your over-whelming mothering skills. I’m in awe of your amazing Mother Earth nature that just gushes forth from you. You just intuitively knew to hold your baby. Hmm. I never would have thought of that. Here I’ve been priding myself for being a cold, soulless, insensitive bitch who resisted affection or soothing at all costs. How did you ever come up with the idea to hold and love your child to sleep every night all by yourself? That’s incredible that you’re the very FIRST person to do that, and thus a genius. I’m going to try this “holding” thing with my own baby, just as soon as she wakes up from her two hour nap in her own crib. Then I’m going to drag her kicking and screaming into the bed with me and her giant, snores-the-paint-off-the-wall father and sleep with one arm crammed up underneath my own head and the other hovered over her to protect her from our cats and my husband. In the morning, I’ll be able to congratulate myself for being a Martyr Mom like you! 😀 Yay!!!
And congratulations for having the gnat’s ass-worth of sense that it requires to realize that God is real, and fetuses are humans. You’re still not explaining how the difficulties that adults have falling asleep has anything to do with sleep-training my baby, and you’re still building up the straw man that babies who are sleep-trained “sob themselves to sleep”. I have been called names, harassed, whined at, insulted, condescended at, and judged by just about everyone who comes into contact with me and my child since we had her. I already have insane problems with other women, and we all do, I’m just the only one who doesn’t give a crap enough to admit it. Women are our own worst enemies, and I avoid you at all costs. Because we do crap like this to each other. We judge, manipulate, and sabotage each other all the time. If our husbands treated us the way that we treat each other, we’d leave them. And our daughters watch us and emulate us and end up doing the same crap. If you think you’re not guilty or you think “that isn’t me, I’m a good Christian and I would never…” ask yourself why you are here. Are you REALLY “sharing strength” or “spreading the cause” of co-sleeping? Are you really so committed to this cause that you’re willing to spread mis-information and make other women who are doing something differently with their very DIFFERENT families and homes than you feel inferior and feel like crap?? Or are you just looking for validation of your own choices, and are willing to use the confidence of women who are different to get it?
My child hugs her toys, waves her little chubby arms around, makes a goofy noise or two with her mouth, finds her pacy and closes her eyes. The two hours a night for the past 2 months (that’s 120 hours, just in case your math is as strong as your logic) that she spent sobbing herself to sleep (but at least it was in our arms while we were crying too, right?) versus the give or take 4 hours she spent crying in a crib TOTAL, all of those hours being punctuated by much cooing and singing and soothing on behalf of her parents more than validates my decision to do what I feel is best for MY child…end of story. If you don’t like it, saddle yourself up a lawyer honey and come and legally remove my child from my home. If its THAT damaging to sleep-train, then you’ll have more than an adequate argument for your case in court, and more than enough proof of your own vested interest in my child. Otherwise, perhaps you should find something else to do with your time. Frankly I’m tired of everyone else’s opinion about my child. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
spoken like truly unhappy person. very arrogant and very rude.
thanks
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.
I hope your child never reads the start of this, but you sound like the sort of person, who will make sure you tell them. May they grow up to be the offspring you deserve.
If you had the “gnat’s sense” to read my first posts, I never attacked crib sleeping. I attacked “crying it out”. Those are two different things. I admit I got nasty when someone else, who must feel tremendously guilty for her choices decided to attack me, put words in my mouth, and attack MY way of parenting. I never said bedsharing is the best way. It works for me. It doesn’t for other people. I get that. But you can put a baby in a crib without crying it out.
http://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/cosleeping.pdf
Whether CIO works or not, this article is severely lacking in information and should not be considered a valid proponent for their point.
@ Michael: Agreed.
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.
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.
@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.
@ 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.
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.
Absolute rubbish!! I did cc and it worked, yes was difficult but needed to be done!! I have many friends who did the same! No scientific evidence?! What scientific evidence exactly are u looking for?? The fact that generally after 3 nights it worked for me!! Everyone’s different and totally up to choice how you cope with t own child quit attacking people who do cc!!
it is not toxic to let a baby cry it out!!!!!….. (from time to time) what ive read in the comments below are mostly cases of neglect and they are sad sad cases. but being a single mother of 2… a darn good mom, i can say from experience that sometimes a baby just needs to cry, they get tired, and frustrated and want nothing to do with being coddled. i know there are days when im just so tired or stressed i scream into a pillow. babys are pepole jut like me and you, and they have the same emotions. now im not saying this applys to small infants… they need all the physical attention they can get! but starting 6 months or so id say use it as needed.
I’m glad this article popped up. I had an awful night last night. From the time we sat down for dinner at 6:20 to about 8:45, my toddler cried. He is 31 months old. He gets so worked up when it’s time for dinner. His picky eating has been very difficult to address. We had pot roast. He took 2 bites and threw an absolute fit thereafter. Our rule as parents is that when you sit down to eat dinner, you sit there until everyone is done eating (even if you don’t want to eat at all). We’re trying to teach him that sitting at the table as a family every night is essential. He kept trying to get up so I finally had to buckle him in his seat. This triggered an absolute meltdown. I want him to know who is the boss and that he can’t get away with everything. My other half swore that just putting him to bed after an hour of him being inconsolable, was the answer. After about 10 minutes of being in bed, I ran in there to cradle him. My husband got so upset with me for giving in. My cradling didn’t help but letting him out of his room for warm coconut milk and a cup of granola (since he didn’t eat dinner), did work. It sparked a debate between the husband and I. When my son gets to this point of being upset, there is NO way to make him feel better, and that includes coddling. I need help. These meltdowns happen too often (almost every night) and I’m getting to the point where I just don’t know how to address the situation. I’m an attachment parent, breastfed my son, didn’t vaccinate, am very in tune with his health and my heart breaks because at this point I feel that my son has gone from being happy, sweet little buddy to picky, crabby, inconsolable and irritable. How on earth do I deal with these changes firmly while still letting him know that I love him?