I know many parents listen to everything their doctor tells them b/c they trust them, even if it is parenting advice rather than medical advice. It angers me that the overwhelming opinion is that CIO is just fine. I do believe that the same situation arises with formula. Pediatricians don’t seem to be as invested in breastfeeding as they should be.

As far as the c-sections go, I am one who does not believe in taking any risks that could harm my child and I’d happily have a c-section to avoid problems. But I do agree that there are far too many of them performed. My daughter was breech and I read about ways she could have been delivered vaginally, but the bottom line was, I was not going to take that risk for my “birth experience.” It was about her and her health, well-being and safely. I think some women do get caught up in a vaginal birth at any cost and it can be detrimental.

If you mean, does my child know at that point that I was there for her in general terms, then, no, I don’t think she thinks about it in those sorts of abstractions. I think her emotions at that point are confusion and upset because the process of getting to sleep sometimes proves complicated and she has a bit of trouble with it. Unfortunately, having me there at those times doesn’t help things; it makes them worse. If I could help her with it, I gladly would, but I can’t, because all attempts to soothe her just keep her awake.

When I say ‘work something out’, I don’t mean that, in this particular case, she needs to cogitate on a problem by herself. I mean that she needs to manage the problem of going to sleep by herself, because having me there trying to soothe her keeps her awake. I’ve needed to accept that and deal with it in the same way that, when she and her brother are older, I’ll sometimes have to accept and deal that they have to deal with the problems they have then without stepping in to work everything out. I know it’s unusual to have to do so at this stage, because, of course, babies don’t generally have the kind of problems that are best worked on alone. But some people do just need a bit of time completely on their own, without outside stimulation, to get to sleep, and when you couple this with a baby who’s crying for a few minutes in protest at having to stop all that interesting being awake and go to sleep or just plain to release some tension, then what you get is a baby who needs to be left alone crying for a few minutes in order to get to sleep. That’s what I’ve got, and I’ve learned to accept that that’s sometimes (less often – she’s getting a lot smoother with her falling asleep as she gets older) what she needs.

Do you really believe that an infant or even a toddler under 2 knows that you are there for him if he is alone in a room? You keep saying child here…I am under the impression we are talking about babies. I do not believe a baby needs to work something out for himself by crying alone in a room.

I also send my children the message that I’m there for them to help them. However, I do think that part of my responsibility is to accept that sometimes they don’t want my help and need to work something out for themselves. Being sensitive to that is part of being sensitive to their feelings and needs overall. I also try to avoid leaving my children with a feeling of abandoment; however, it seems to me to be simple common sense that if a child cries more with you there, then, whatever the issue is, it isn’t a feeling of abandoment.

As I say, I have no doubt that my child would eventually have gone to sleep from sheer exhaustion no matter what I was doing, because there are limits on how long it’s physically possible to stay awake. However, that wouldn’t mean the gentle methods worked – it would mean that the child’s physical need for sleep eventually worked in spite of the gentle methods working against it. My definition of ‘works’ does not include ‘child eventually passes out through sheer exhaustion after having gone through increasingly distressing states of sleep deprivation’. I don’t want a method that keeps my child awake until she becomes so desperately exhausted that she falls asleep in spite of it; I want a method that will enable her to get sleep as easily and comfortably as possible when she needs it.

I do not doubt that using gentle methods consistently is a difficult and sometimes longer route than some form of CIO–but that does not mean it would not have eventually resulted in sleep. Obviously neither of us can *prove* this in any individual case. All I can say is that it took a long time for my to use gentle methods and they eventually worked. You can believe that they never would have worked with your child, but I do believe you would have found a way if it were necessary and it would have (eventually) worked.

I don’t think my daughter is particularly intense. I just think she has a hard time going to sleep, and I’ve learned that meeting her needs in that way *does* sometimes mean just leaving her alone to cry.

I do not mean to be dramatic, but I had a “high need,” intense, colicky daughter. I had already planned to follow most of the AP principles but when she was born, we found she had a heart condition. Leaving her to cry would have resulted in her turning blue and requiring emergency surgery (instead of the planned surgery she eventually had) and possibly dying. So, it literally could have killed my daughter to leave her to cry it out.

Please believe me when I say that if you have to find a way to use gentle methods to get a child to sleep, you find a way. Even the extremely intense ones who just “won’t” go to sleep.

To assume that everyone who does not CIO must have a more easy going child is to minimize their experience.