First, I don’t think it is healthy for an adult to dictate a sleep or feeding schedule for a child. An adult can create an environment conducive to good sleep and good nutrition, but forcing an imposed schedule on a child (especially an infant) isn’t healthy. Parents have needs. Children have needs. It is up to the parents to create an environment and balance that allows both to be met: Intersecting needs: Maslow, interdependence, parenting, caregiving, relationships.

Second, I do have a job (as do a lot of parents who have night parented children who woke frequently) and never had to let my children CIO. I also didn’t have to sleep on the floor next to a crib because they slept in the bed with us until they were ready to move to their own beds. There are plenty of ways to create a healthy sleep environment that works for everyone without anyone having to sleep on the floor or sleep on a living room couch eating junk food. Our kids slept in our bed for quite a while. When they did move to their own rooms, we moved them to a comfortable double bed that we could join them in if they did need someone during the night. Even if my kids had been up all night long every night, in our home there were two parents and we could have split the night and still both gotten enough sleep (in fact we did that in the early days with my son when he was waking a lot at night). There is no need for both parents to wake up with the child every time.

There are some extremely willful kids in the world. I was one of them. I don’t think it’s healthy to let kids dictate their sleep schedules or their feeding habits. Otherwise–and we all know this–they would end of eating cake every day and sleeping on the couch in front of the television. I actually was the kid sleeping in front of the couch and eating junk food.

What if you have a job? Seriously. My husband was functioning on about two or three hours of sleep every night and working full time and watching the kids when he wasn’t at work. If you have the time to wake up every two hours for two years of your life, then awesome. Have at it.

But alot of people have to be functioning adults who will get fired for acting like zombies on the job.

Just a thought.

In a lot of the examples it seems as though one parent is missing. My husband and I are partners in creating a home for our family and in raising our children. Sure the mom is often going to be the primary caregiver, especially when breastfeeding but there are a number of ways Dad can help out besides making dinner and tidying up a bit.

For us my husband slept in the guest room during work nights and helped out on the weekends. We each took a morning on the weekend to sleep in. When he came home from work, he would take Ellen for a bit so I could sleep. I fit in the sleep during her naps and wore her to get the minimum of housework required to live comfortably completed.

We found that when she started on solids at 6months, the frequent overnight feedings lessened. By a year, even less. Ellen slept with us and we were so thankful as twice I woke up to her so hot and still asleep, with a severe fever. We didn’t completely wake up when she stirred. Although we were not well rested, we were not desperately sleep deprived.

As for her sleep routine, she is a little over 2 and sleeps in her own room, through the night. She often asks to go to sleep, sometimes we have to lie with her, sometimes she just rolls over and says, ‘good-night’. It wasn’t hard to get her into her own room, we started with having story time there, then naps and finally introducing it at bedtime. In the beginning she wouldn’t always want to sleep in her own room but we didn’t worry about it and let her sleep where she is more comfortable.

Our philosophy was that Steve & I had to adjust to living together, so we have to do the same with our children. Ellen does not dictate life in our home, she is a child that needs guidance, encouragement and support as she discovers the world around her, there are rules that are non-negotiable and others that are flexible, I would prefer for her to sleep in her own room through the night, but she will always be welcome to wake us up and we will be there for her. As for running out on the street, that is not negotiable, she is simply not allowed.

Sometimes I think as parents we over think and come to radical solutions without really looking at the issue. CIO to me is really radical, Ellen’s crying was physically painful for me, I couldn’t imagine retaining my own sanity listening to her cry so much, it would feel like a failure to provide a safe and nurturing environment for her.

In an earlier post, I pointed out that some of the research relied upon by opponents of the cry-it-out…