I do not think cry it out is an appropriate way to teach babies or children to sleep, whether it is a graduated method (like Ferber) or full-on let ‘em scream until they pass out extinction (like Weissbluth) or until they vomit and beyond (like Schafer), I’m not on board. There are some people who have been reading my blog for a long time and consistently express their dismay at my anti-cry-it-out posts. Recently, a few more people have chimed in on my blog and on twitter with their disappointment at my closed-mindedness on this issue.
Let me try to explain why I can’t recommend them.
I cannot recommend a book or a system that has great suggestions but concludes with a last resort that I consider to be wrong, because ultimately a lot of people will be looking for the easy way out and will take the documentation of that last resort as permission to go ahead and use it.
- I wouldn’t recommend a marketing book that suggested lying or spamming as a last resort if other techniques don’t work.
- I wouldn’t recommend a financial management book that suggested cooking the books a bit if you don’t think the real results will please shareholders.
- I wouldn’t recommend a book on getting out of debt that suggested robbing a bank as a last resort.
- I wouldn’t recommend a book on how to write a good term paper that suggested buying it off the Internet if you don’t have enough time left to do it properly.
- I wouldn’t recommend a weight loss book that suggested anorexia or bulimia was an appropriate step to take if healthy eating and exercise doesn’t let you lose 50 lbs in 5 weeks.
There are books that I own and would recommend that include some things that are not 100% my cup of tea, but that I do not think are wrong necessarily. Those books I will happily recommend with the caveat that I am not 100% of the same mind as the author. But cry it out is something I do think is wrong and I will not recommend any book that includes it even as a last resort.
I also cannot recommend a book that includes a cry it out method when there are other alternatives that are less likely to be damaging in any way:
- I wouldn’t recommend that someone buy bottles with bisphenol-A (BPA) in them when there are stainless steel or glass alternatives available.
- I wouldn’t recommend that someone formula feed if they are able to breastfeed.
- I wouldn’t recommend that someone drive drunk if they can call a cab.
- I wouldn’t recommend hitch hiking if public transportation is available.
- I wouldn’t recommend burning your old tires instead of recycling them.
- I wouldn’t recommend using the morning after pill or abortions as regular birth control instead of planning ahead and using other types of contraceptives.
Perhaps there are people who feel they cannot or choose not to use those alternatives for whatever reason or that have decided that they don’t work for whatever reason. There are plenty of other people that will tell them that it is okay, so I don’t need to compromise myself by recommending them on my blog.
I know there are people who are disappointed in me for being so closed minded on this issue. While I think that is too bad and it saddens me to disappoint others, it would sadden me even more if I compromised my beliefs and disappointed myself. You do not need to make the same decisions that I do or come to the same conclusions that I do and I will not call you a bad parent for making different choices that I do. But I will not change my position on this. I do not think it is appropriate to leave a child alone to cry to sleep. Period.
Image credit: Ernesto JT on flickr.
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How can people ask you to recommend or blog about issues that you don’t personally agree with??!!
I don’t think it is wrong of you to feel this way. I feel this way about co sleeping. I can not and never will be able to say it is a good idea or that I can recommend it. I get “flamed” for this all the time. But for the exact same reasons you blogged above it is my opinion. I respect your opinion on this. Don’t bend just because people give you a hard time.
Lee
I love co-sleeping of course, but I wouldn’t expect you to recommend it if you are not comfortable with it.
I agree completely. I tried CIO 2 days when my oldest was about 10 months old. He’d barely been sleeping during the day for months, had huge black circles under his eyes. I was desperate to help him get some sleep & everyone on my very mainstream message board was saying how “great” CIO was. On Friday, I tried Ferber for 1 hour. B just got more & more upset, so I took him out & nursed him & he went to sleep. On Saturday, I decided maybe Ferber was too extreme, Baby Whisperer’s PUPD supposedly wasn’t CIO, I’d try that. 45 minutes later, B was absolutely hysterical. It took me 2 hours to calm him. I was against CIO before I tried it, but I was desperate enough to ignore my instincts. After seeing it, I’m not only against it, I’m firmly of the opinion that it’s child abuse & that people who promote it should be charged. I avoid, as much as possible, people who I say that they’re doing/have done it & think it’s great & I wish I were brave enough to tell people who are promoting it what I think of bullies who not only traumatize their own children, but encourage others to do the same.
If everyone agreed, it would be such a boring world. it’s just when people get ugly and completely judgemental that the world does fall apart. You don’t do that. <3
Lee
and now you will get the nit picky “I can’t belive you would compare this with THAT” response in a couple hours……… but I AGREE!!!!!!
I absolutely 100% agree with you and have blogged on the issue myself. Crying it out is taking the night off as a parent. Parenting is a 24 hour job. You just can’t “clock out”.
This is EXACTLY how I feel. There were several times in my daughter’s very colicky first 3 months of life when people suggested we let her CIO and I would reply with this. *high five*
i guess you knew i’d show up.
i’m reposting what i just posted back on the other page the thread that may have started all this begins.
before i do so, i will happily make naomi’s prediction come true! you create a very flawed argument and discredit yourself by comparing ferber to “cooking books” and “robbing banks”, etc. this is a classic slippery slope fallacy and is not a valid argument.
you’re welcome naomi!
here’s what i wrote earlier about some points phd made in our thread:
“Cry it Out”
• ferber is about crying-it-out
“if you create a healthy sleep environment that children will become healthy sleepers… ”
• ferber is, in fact, about creating healthy sleep environments
“… without intervention.”
• ferber is not an intervention
“It may not be at the pace that parents (or society) want and it may require more parental involvement than parents want (and more than society deems “normal”).”
• we are parents that have plenty of time and spend it all with our child, we very much agree and practice attachment parenting (of course i’m likely to be accused of doing no such thing because of ferber). my wife decided to take 1 year off her career and now only works about 2 months a year. we do not need or use alternate child care. when she works i care for our child. we do it all ourselves. we also take the time to be fully committed to cloth diapering. my wife still breast feeds our child and has no plans on stopping soon.
“I think it is either unrealistic expectations, societal pressure, or reluctance to do the other things required to create a healthy sleep environment.”
• none of the above apply and don’t necessarily apply to someone who has read many books and simply chose one that they felt, after much research, would work for them.
________
i completely respect your choice, but not your position, because it assumes a lot and is making judgments about other people’s choices.
i have not read your full post on your blog but will now have a look at it. i wanted to write this before i did read it.
here i go. will likely post a comment but glad that this dialogue has created a healthy discussion.
btw. after bath time tonight. i read my daughter 4 books (she loves the mole sisters so much) then she looked at me and said “papa, bed” and pointed to her bed (due to creating a healthy sleep environment). she stretched out and grabbed her bear and she said “nighty night”. i said “i love you.” closed the door. i will see her in the morning rested and ready for a great day. this scenario has been repeated every night (except for some of the heavy teething spells) since we created her healthy sleep environment with ferber’s many suggestions.
would you deny these types of common results to other parents struggling with sleep issues and having to deal with the havoc the lack of sleep can create in a family, a child, at work, etc.???
this is the result of a doctor’s decades of research in sleep and this is what constantly gets demonized by people.
(added for this post)
of course, it does not and cannot work for every child but arguments like yours, i believe, may scare some people away from it that might in fact benefit from it. that’s my issue with this negative propaganda about ferber.
with light
dz.
I don’t think I discredit myself by making those comparisons. I am saying that I don’t care good a book is and how great its suggestions are if it includes a chapter or section that includes something I think is wrong. I think cry it out is wrong, just like I think the other things in that list are wrong. Other people think cry it out is great, just as there are people who think starving yourself is an acceptable way to lose weight (and people who think all the other things on that list are acceptable). It isn’t about what you think is right or wrong. It is about what I think is right or wrong. I cannot recommend a book on my blog that includes something I think is wrong, no matter how much “right” stuff happens to be in the same book. I don’t see why that is not a valid argument.
>>we very much agree and practice attachment parenting … my wife decided to take 1 year off her career … we do not need or use alternate child care. when she works i care for our child. we do it all ourselves. we also take the time to be fully committed to cloth diapering. <<
What do cloth diapering, taking a year off from a career, & not using other care have to do with attachment parenting?
If you're going to attempt to discredit arguments, its best to make sure your examples are relevant. Attachment parenting isn't about cloth diapers or work status. It is about creating a healthy bond & attachment through breastfeeding, bonding, babywearing, sleepsharing, balancing needs. It is about honoring your baby's cries as a form of communication, NOT using baby trainers to systematically tune out your baby's needs at night in order to train them to a parent-dictated schedule.
As far as your example of how ferber's "healthy sleep environment" has created an easy bedtime/nighttime ritual for your family. There are alternate ways of creating "healthy sleep environments" conducive to independent sleep (if one feels that is valuable in a baby or toddler) that don't include ignoring a baby's only method of communication (crying).
There is NEVER a valid reason to leave a child screaming alone in bed until they pass out from exhaustion or loss of hope of comfort.
my examples were simply used as preemptive, because every time i defend ferber the first thing i hear is that we must be parents that don’t have the time to spend doing things right which was actually brought up as a reason for using ferber. i using those things to show that we do in fact have the time and did not choose ferber as a quick fix.
ferber does not ignore crying. you must be another that never read his book but ready to pounce. and your final statement confirms that.
This is my understanding of the Ferber approach to graduated extinction (from this page):
I understand he recommends doing a lot of other things first, but if that suggestion is in the book anywhere, I cannot recommend it.
For me, “ignoring crying” is exactly what the extinction method of cry it out is (which Ferber illustrates in his book). How is putting your baby down awake in bed & leaving baby to comfort himself in room alone with gradually increasing amts of time, not ignoring baby’s cries?
A baby cries to COMMUNICATE not MANIPULATE. When you leave baby to cry, even for a few planned minutes, you are ignoring their attempt at communication with you.
There are ways to create healthy sleep associations & bedtime routines that DO NOT involve crying. Crying does not lead to peaceful sleep. I don’t need science or a book to tell me that – I know it from being a HUMAN.
When I cry, I become more tense, not less. It elevates my stress level. It makes it harder for me to breathe as my tissues become inflamed. Its not a state I want to be in when sleeping, and I’d give nothing less to my children.
It isn’t difficult to treat your babies with dignity, compassion, and empathy – to help them sleep the way YOU would want to be treated in sleep. Simply imagine being unable to walk or talk, and trying to communicate with your caregiver that you are unhappy or uncomfortable or scared or cold or hungry, and they walk away & close the door.
I’d never want that for myself, so I’d never give that to my children. And that is why I have never used CIO.
“Simply imagine being unable to walk or talk, and trying to communicate with your caregiver that you are unhappy or uncomfortable or scared or cold or hungry, and they walk away & close the door.”
why would i imagine something i would never do?
and what you do is draw a correlation to ferber and that’s absurd.
You drew the connection to Ferber, absurd or not.
In my original response, I didn’t mention Ferber, I opposed your examples of attachment parenting and stated my opinion that given the variety of ways there are to create a healthy sleep environment without crying, expressed my opinion that there is never a reason to leave a child to cry it out.
You responded with reference to Ferber and stated he doesn’t recommend ignoring crying.
I opposed that by explaining why I believe the extinction method of CIO is in fact ignoring a baby, and further defining my opposition to cry it out.
OUCH!
i just reread this post of mine. wow. talk about putting your foot in your mouth!
i said:
“Cry it Out”
• ferber is about crying-it-out
i meant to say • ferber is NOT about crying it out
i obviously need an editor!
In my opinion, graduated extinction is a form of cry it out. Are you saying that there is no graduated extinction in Ferber’s book?
no. but my child responded very well and barely got upset. which is why i keep saying that it might be the answer for people out there that are afraid of approaching it. i also, as one of your other readers pointed out, learned a lot from ferber about sleep in general and specifically my own sleep patterns. 30 years of research from a distinguished sleep specialist must count for something.
Oh gosh! You are absolutely allowed to feel whatever way that you do! And Since this is YOUR blog- you can choose to put whatever you want on it! Why would you recommend something that you wouldn’t do yourself?! Great Blog BTW!
My response to your critics is “Duh, she doesn’t agree with CIO, therefore she won’t recommend CIO.”
I haven’t done much reading on the subject, but I know whenever I read or hear about parents employing CIO it makes me feel stressed and anxious for the baby. I imagine my own daughter crying all alone and I know I could not physically restrain myself from going to her. Not to comfort her would go against my basic mothering instincts. I don’t criticize parents out loud, but I always wonder why so many people think a baby needs to sleep thru the night. Why do they believe a baby would not still need to be physically close to mom or dad? I don’t understand it.
Oh, I also wanted to ad that I’ve read parents’ accounts fo their babies crying for 4 or 5 hours, and I just can’t fathom how they live with that. Do parents really let their infants cry for hours or are they just exaggerating?
ferber does not say, EVER, to leave your child crying for 4 or 5 hours! that is irresponsible and dangerous.
read the book.
i guarantee you that everyone here posting their unfounded reactions to ferber have never even read the book.
Weissbluth says close the door and do not go back in. Period.
i’m not discussing weissbluth.
and i’m in no position to, whether i agree or not, because i’ve never read it.
dz.
Weissbluth does not say “close the door and do not go back in. Period.” Re-read the book your despise, and are advocating against, before saying something like that. It worked well for our family and he has some extremely helpful information and cues to look for. We have two kids who are great sleepers and share a room at 5 and 1.5 years old. They are happy, sharp, independent individuals who are not totally dependent on Mom and Dad for sleep. It makes for a happy household all around! And I understand what dustyz was getting at in explaining his home situation. Just because some of us use the CIO method for a brief period of time does not make us horrible people who are “taking a break from parenting.” I am a stay at home mom who loves her kids and has taken time out to raise them–no daycare. And MANY people have come to use to ask what methods we’ve used to make such caring wonderful kids. Just my two cents.
Mary:
In his description of the Extinction method, which is one of the approaches he considers acceptable, Weissbluth does say that you should close the door and not go back in.
From p. 261 of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Weissbluth:
Remember:
1. When the duration of protest crying at night is open ended, not limited, learning to fall asleep unassisted takes place.
2. When you put a time limit on how much protest crying at night you can tolerate or accept before going to the baby, you teach the baby to cry to that limit.
Weissbluth does make allowances for the times when *you* think your baby is hungry (and makes all sorts of assumptions about why a parent should be able to know that better than the baby) and for a quick clean-up of vomit before re-exiting the room. But generally, the Extinction method as he describes it involves closing the door and letting the baby scream until he falls asleep.
And this:
“Weissbluth does make allowances for the times when *you* think your baby is hungry (and makes all sorts of assumptions about why a parent should be able to know that better than the baby) and for a quick clean-up of vomit before re-exiting the room. But generally, the Extinction method as he describes it involves closing the door and letting the baby scream until he falls asleep.”
is beyond disgusting to me.
I can’t imagine being treated this way myself by another human being.
Why ANYONE would think its acceptable to treat a baby, who is completely dependent on other for care, this way, is incomprehensible.
And as to this:
“because intermittent positive reinforcement had enormous teaching power.”
perhaps he should think about that statement a bit. He acknowledges that positive reinforcement works, yet this mthod is about associating negativity with sleep as a method to teach a baby to sleep through the night – which, in itself isn’t healthy/biologically sound for a tiny baby who has a tiny stomach, and still-developing lungs, for whom frequent night waking is a means of self-preservation.
I’m really astounded that books like these can stay on the market. People treat their animals better than their children when it comes to sleep.
No, I haven’t read the book (and I’m not interested in it, see my comment above, CIO doesn’t feel right to me). As I wrote in my comment, my question comes from reading parents’ accounts on blogs or in comments, and I wonder if they really leave their child crying continually for that long.
I pesonally think CIO methods are cruel. I could never use them on my child and I cringe when I hear of other people doing the same. If I could change it, I would, but its one of those things that falls under that sacred category of “personal choice.” I’m sure there are those out there that shudder when they see me constantly holding the Birdie, nursing on cue, and co-sleeping (but not necessarily bed sharing.) It works for us and we’ve got a happy four month old baby that can be put in her crib when she’s drowsy and she’ll go to sleep on her own because she knows if she makes a peep then someone will be there for her.
I did read the Ferber book and am simply not a fan. Although, I do recommend new parents read the first sections which discuss the physiology behind sleep and explains the vast differences between a baby’s sleep and an adult’s sleep (I then tell them to skip the rest of the book!) I have saved several friends from heartache by explaining that a baby sleep cycles are 45 minute increments, whereas we adults have 90 minute sleep cycles. It helps to know that a baby is probably not really done with his/her nap after 45 minutes, he/she simply woke up between sleep cycles and just needs help getting back down.
However, I am adamantly against crying it out – before I had children, it just seemed cruel and after I had my own baby, I read The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland. That book was the “proof in the pudding” for me. After seeing all of those brain scans and information, I firmly believe that leaving a child in a prolonged state of distress is harmful. Sure, CIO works because the child simply gives up after awhile, not because he really learned how to comfort himself.
Overall, I hate the word “training” and bristle at it being used in any sort of parenting method – including potty training. Bleh.
We still co-sleep with our 2+ year old and almost 4 year old. At this point, we have no plans to “kick” them out. It kills me when folks infer that co-sleeping is the “easy way out”. I think of it as the “better way out”. That is all. To each their own.
FYI – Other authors like Elizabeth Pantley (No Cry Sleep Solution) also have wonderful information about sleep. That is why I would recommend her books over anything by Ferber or the others.
excellent! someone who has read the book.
but… “I firmly believe that leaving a child in a prolonged state of distress is harmful.”
ferber never says to do this, EVER.
Weissbluth does though and I referred to him too.
Wouldn’t that depend on your definition of “prolonged state of crying”? To me, more than a minute or two in which the baby is not actively being soothed by a caregiver is prolonged. So, waiting 5 or 10 min, or longer fits into “prolonged crying”.
I think the reasoning behind the “battle” about CIO vs. non-CIO is because some parents just have easy kids who form good sleep associations at the beginning and never really do cry. To those parents, they think “CIO = no big deal” because for their child, the crying was maybe a couple of short sobs, a few whimpers. Or maybe 2 minutes in the car seat before the child settles/sleeps while driving. But other kids need a lot of help falling asleep. My son, my first child, was like that and is still like that. He joined us in bed at 4:30am (he is now almost 3 years old). Co-sleeping, rocking, holding him, helping him sleep are all very important to him. With my daughter, around 8 weeks old she would fall asleep on her own with some rocking. Or she would nurse to sleep. Right now she’s sleeping in her crib happily at 1.5 years old. There are times when she cries out around 10pm. Maybe a couple of sobs or a moan. By the time I walk upstairs to her room she’s already back asleep. Time elapsed: 1 minute. A little crying for her is no big deal.
So really the answer here is that each parent should follow their baby’s cues and meet their own baby’s needs. I would never advocate CIO to any parent but if a parent is questions “is CIO okay?” then most likely they DO NOT feel it is okay in their gut and that is a sign they should be listening to their child’s needs rather than listening to what other parents or books are saying. I wish new parents could be infused with more confidence that they know what is right for their child.
If new parents had never been around any other parents and never read any books and simply followed their own instincts… they would, of course, respond to a baby’s cries. The reason parents don’t is because they have read somewhere or heard that they “shouldn’t”.
Annie, I am glad you stick to your guns on CIO. A blog is very personal thing. This is not babycenter where the writers are supported by ads for certain products and it must appeal to the masses. This is YOUR blog and it represents YOUR views and opinions.
I’m very glad I’m not babycenter!!! Last night when I was looking up stuff on Weissbluth I was not surprised to find numerous articles on his methods with big huge formula ads smacked on them. Ugh….
couldn’t agree more!
but blogs are places for dialogues and this is simply that. nothing more. i’ve mentioned several times that i respect annie’s choices. i love her blog. and most certainly ferber does not work for every child. i just don’t like seeing unfounded comments about ferber that might draw someone away from the book that might actually benefit from it.
I’m not sure what you mean by “unfounded”… I have read Ferber’s book and I even own it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but I have read it cover to cover. I definitely like his scientific studies and explanations of how sleep works, how it develops and how poor sleep affects other areas of your life. In fact I even made my husband read a few chapters because my husband has AWFUL sleep habits!
Here’s my opinion: I think the problem with books like Ferber’s book is that the parents with children who have serious problems with sleep — like my son — do not need a book which contains anywhere inside the book that it’s okay to leave a child crying, even for a minute, if they already have trouble sleeping on their own. Ferber’s 30 years of experience and scientific studies are awesome. Pair them up in a book like Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution (and she does have all the great “science behind sleeping)… then you’ve got a book that’s appropriate for all children, especially those with strong need for parenting to sleep. That’s the issue I have with Ferber’s book and why I would never recommend it to a parent who’s totally sleep-deprived and at the end of their rope… those parents already know about extinction and close-the-door-leave-the-room… they’re just looking for a doctor’s name on the cover to ease their conscience to give up on helping their child.
Anyway from what you say about your child I think it’s going to be really hard for you to understand the type of parent/child combo which can exist in the world… and that’s why it would be better if Ferber’s book did not exist!!!!
I don’t think you need to explain yourself. You hold the beliefs you hold, and you don’t have to apologize or justify that to anyone.
I will say that every baby is different and some things work better for some babies than others. While i agree that leaving a baby to scream does not seem right to me, there are parts of sleep training that make sense to me and that babies in my experience have responded well to, resulting in a better rested baby and parent. And i don’t need to defend that belief, just as you shouldn’t feel you have to defend yours.
I respect your opinion, and your freedom to express it. No one should expect you to change your opinion simply because they don’t like it and have their own opinions. I am not disappointed that you stick to your beliefs. I applaud it! Never compromise your beliefs. However, I hope you don’t mind if I share my own opinion and the experience that formed it – not in an attempt to change your opinion, but simply to throw in my own two cents.
Although I think CIO is not ideal, I have a hard time saying that it is “wrong” in all situations – every parent – child dyad is unique with their own needs.
With my daughter I tried Pantley, I tried Karp, I tried Sears… I absolutely did not want to do CIO, because, like most people who consider themselves attachment parents, I felt that it was “wrong”. However, all the no-cry sleep suggestions resulted in hours of crying and attempted soothing, ending up with a baby who would only sleep on my chest for short periods of time. She wouldn’t sleep beside me in bed, only on my chest – neither safe nor conducive to a good night’s sleep for either of us. So, as a “last resort” I tried my own form of CIO – not Ferber, not Weissbluth, but a version that I could handle – I decided that if she cried for too long or became too upset or hysterical, I would go and get her, attempt to soothe her, let her play a while and then try again later. If she was protest crying, similar to what she does when I change her diaper or put her in her car seat, I would let her cry. After 20 minutes of protest crying the first night and 10 minutes the second night, she was asleep. And she sleep for hours at a time and was much happier in the daytime.
So which is less damaging? Hours of crying and limited sleep using “no-cry” techniques or 10 minutes of crying and hours of sleep using CIO? I wouldn’t trade my happy, well-rested baby for anything. I did read Bed Timing by Lewis and Granic and wonder if the relatively short period of crying was because we did this in one of the ideal “developmental windows”… No way to know.
So, is CIO right for everyone? Definitely not. Is it wrong for everyone? Definitely not. It was definitely right for us (though I will admit that our experience is highly unusual). Would I ever suggest it as the first place to start? Definitely not. I really do feel it should be a last resort.
Becca, I agree with you completely. I was co-sleeping with a VERY exhausted, miserable baby and resorted to my own version of Ferber for Hippies, as I put it. I was prepared to let her protest — not even cry — no longer than three minutes at a time for a maximum of 40 minutes, at the direction of my Sears-y, anti-CIO pediatrician. I was WRECKED about it, and my baby was miserable, just like yours and then … uh, she never cried. She fussed to sleep — less than she was doing next to me or in my arms, I might add — and was out like a light in less than 20 minutes, with nary a tear. She never cried. She got mad –yelling, not crying — for about three minutes, then rolled around to get comfortable– but she gets mad in my arms, too, so that’s just her sleep thing.
However, I will also say that I am fairly certain that some of this was developmental, and that if I’d tried it earlier, it would not have yielded the same results. So I’m not sure how I feel about it, ultimately.
Also, we now do a mix of crib and co-sleeping, and it works for us. And had she actually cried? My feelings may have been VERY different. But again, she never did. She just, uh, went to sleep. Like she was RELIEVED I wasn’t touching her and overparenting her to sleep. The other thing I meant to add was that I did it because she was like your baby, Becca — not sleeping AT ALL. And MISERABLE. Getting up every 45 minutes. I tried Pantley, to no avail. I tried Karp. To no avail. For WEEEEEEKS.
She still gets up 2-3 times a night to eat or snuggle, and comes to bed with me at 4 a.m. at the latest. I didn’t do this for my own convenience, is what I’m saying. I did it so that she would get some actual sleep and be healthier and happier — which, honestly, she is. I’ll get up 2-3 times a night for the next three DECADES if I have to. In comparison to every 45 minutes, and having a really unhappy, overtired baby, that’s NOTHING.
Also, I love how I’m saying I did something. I didn’t do anything. I just PUT HER DOWN, which is something I’d never tried before. True idiotic genius!
My youngest daughter was similar, while I never let her cry herself to sleep, when she was several weeks old, I clued in that she was not wanting me to rock and cuddle her to sleep, she just wanted to flop out and go to sleep. I would lay her down, rub/jiggle her butt and she would relax then snore. She wanted my presence as she bedded down, but not my arms. She still wakes in the night, she is 9 and often joins her dad and I in our room, and that is just fine. She tells us when she is tired, and knows her own body’s cues for sleep, she just happens to be that kind of kid who doesn’t sustain sleep very long.
My older daughter, exact opposite, wanted to be snuggled and rocked to sleep, to DEEP sleep, long after my boob slipped out of her mouth, I’d VERY CAREFULLY lay her in her bed, slip my shirt off (warm and smelling like Mama) and tuck it around her chin. Once I got her to BE asleep, she was down for 9 hours, my boobs would CRY in the a.m. waiting for her to wake.
See, with 4 kids, I’ve learned that every child has a sleep personality. A parent sometimes has to struggle to learn that personality and tailor their sleep system, to the child.
It can take A LONG FREAKING TIME to find out what works best.
Sleep parenting is like homeschooling, a lot of people have an opinion, a vision, a position, but what works depends on a lot of other factors.
Crying it out, not my choice. Ever. I was left to cry it out as a baby, *according to my parents* and I have horrible sleep issues. My step daughter, left to cry it out as a babe, would cry till she puked, she has horrible sleep issues now. My husband, same deal, horrible sleep. The correlation in my world, between horrible sleep and having been a CIO baby, means it’s not something I can adhere to or support as a parent.
I think there is a big difference between a baby who fusses slightly or protest cries (my son is more of a whimper) and a baby who cries him/herself to sleep. Frequently I get to the bottom of the steps and my son (3 1/2 months) whimpers for a minute or so. If it gets to full blown crying or lasts more than a few minutes, we go back up. At least with my son, there is a huge difference between fussing and crying.
Thanks jonniker and Don’t Pat the Belly. I just wanted to add, that although many things may seem completely wrong and unnatural there may be situations in which the wrong thing might be at least a little bit right. Things aren’t always black and white – there are almost always shades of grey. There’s the old intro to philosophy example of theft (I hope no one jumps down my throat for this analogy). Theft is wrong… but if a man steals life-saving medicine for his child because he cannot afford it, is it still totally wrong? Is it less wrong than it would be for a man who steals maliciously? Intent may make a difference. Sometimes the end may justify the means.
Fortunately my husband and I are on the same page on this issues, but I have had to defend our opposition to CIO to more than one relative. Our son has never cried himself to sleep and he is a great sleeper. We had more than one person tell us that he would never learn to put himself to sleep if we didn’t let him CIO. He started sleeping through the night because he was ready to, not because we forced him to. We did lots of other things to encourage good sleep, but honestly he’s had a bedtime routine since birth and that is what makes him a good sleeper. I’ll never forget when we were visiting family and people seemed shocked that we would do things like swaddling, bathtime, rocking, and baby massage as part of our routine. I was even more appalled that several family members (young and old) seemed to think that CIO was the only way to get a baby to sleep. I’m not sure how CIO would help me get more sleep because honestly I’m not sleeping when he is crying.
One of the biggest things that is keeping us from leaving our son with my husband’s family is this issue. I will not leave my child with anyone (family member or daycare provider) who practices this method. I know they think I’m being closed minded, but I’m willing to hurt family members’ feelings over this issue. I’m not sure why people expect you or any other person to endorse a method you don’t believe in. Our pediatrician doesn’t endorse CIO. Our daycare provider doesn’t endorse CIO. Even the hospital where he was born offered a class on sleeping that was centered around baby massage not CIO. You could argue that all of those places are much more likely to be “compelled” to represent a variety of perspectives and if they don’t don’t endorse it (and frequently opening condemn it) that should tell people something.
You can’t learn to parent from a book. You are raising children, not navigating software. Each author and each book can give you more grist for the mill. You must sort out philosophy and techniques and you must be endlessly flexible as you see your child’s responses.
CIO breaks my heart. I may be exhausted sometimes but my son is a happy baby (notwithstanding recent teething issues). I hate hearing how “we HAD to Ferberize him” from parents who previously used gentler methods to parent their children to sleep. I hate reading how “you have to let them cry it out” about breaking night-waking habits. I hate hearing how “you will change your mind when you have another baby” because I choose to help my baby fall asleep. My tongue hurts from biting it when I hear these things; I’d appreciate it if those who disagree with me would bite theirs.
amen! i have triplets and everyone was constantly trying to push me down the cio road, saying i’d deeply regret it if i got them used to being rocked and snuggled at sleeptime. i have never regretted those choices. my babies were and still are (they are 4 now) great sleepers and hubby and i have wonderful memories of time spent cuddling them and singing to them. they grow up so very fast.
I wish I knew what to do about this sleeping issue. My 10-month-old daughter is having sleep issues (suddenly won’t nap at daycare, has trouble going down at night and wakes up every few hours to nurse). I’m exhausted. I don’t want to do CIO, though my husband is starting to suggest it. I just want to have a happy, sleeping baby!! I’ve read bits about Ferber (though not the actual book itself) and CIO has just never appealed to me. Thank you for your book recommendations.
Thomasin: If your daughter was sleeping well and is suddenly having more problems it is usually due to:
A change in routine (e.g. later bedtime, new care provider, etc.)
A new food that might be making her irritable
A milestone she is working on (e.g. learning to stand up, walk, etc.)
Teething
In terms of books, I have a number of recommendations in My Parenting Library. I also have compiled a list of Gentle Sleep Tips for Babies and Toddlers.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that your baby is either teething, learning to walk, or suffering separation anxiety. It could also be pin-worms or lice (common among small children in daycare) or an allergy to a new food.
It could be that your baby, just now, has suddenly realised that mommy is gone all day. She may not sleep at daycare because she is nervous and upset and doesn’t know when or if you are coming back. She won’t go to sleep at night because she desperately needs mommy. She wakes up, as all normal humans do, but she can’t go back to sleep because she has to know whether or not mom is there.
Obviously if its pin worms, lice, or allergies then it should be treated. If its teething or a milestone it should pass as well.
But if its your baby’s temperament not being able to adjust to mommy and daddy being at work all day nothing is going to change that, she will certainly sleep better at some point in the future but the problem will manifest in other ways.
You know your child and deep down underneath all the “advice” and “suggestions” and other crap moms get loaded down with probably have an inkling what is wrong; though maybe you don’t want to admit it.
In the meantime you, the adult, must simply get more sleep and that means going to bed earlier or getting up later, or napping (which probably isn’t possible if you work). Assume that you are going to be woken at night and then plan your life accordingly. You can’t function without enough sleep, and you can’t cope with let alone help your daughter through this without help. Trust me. I tried Pantley’s method once when I was already extremely exhausted and at the end of my rope, and while I have nothing against Pantley’s method, however for me it can not work. I have insomnia and if I have to try getting the baby to fall asleep on their own (ie without my nipple in their mouth) more than three times it doesn’t matter how gentle it is or how well it works for the baby I am awake and unable to sleep and therefore unable to function at all after a night or two. After the second night which I spent crying on the floor of my son’s room afraid to let him sleep in my bed because I was too exhausted and too upset I realised that I just had to get sleep. And I have found that as long as I am going to bed at a reasonable time, or sleeping in enough AND hubby is helping out enough around the house I can get through almost any amount of waking up at night. My first never slept more than 2 consecutive hours until he was 2 years old, I thought I had it rough until I met a mom whose son woke every 90 minutes on the dot.
Get enough sleep, get enough help, and use whatever sleep arrangement gets the best sleep for the most number of people. Maybe that’s bed sharing (with or without daddy), maybe its a side car arrangement, maybe its a crib where baby can see you and you can touch baby, maybe its room sharing, maybe its baby in baby’s own room with a monitor.
I’m delurking here to hopefully offer a small amount of reassurance to you about what you write. Our daughter slept through the night starting at about 8 weeks old and kept it up until she was 7.5 months old. Then she got ear infections and her first teeth and outgrew her bassinet (she’s always been pretty small) such that we needed to move her to her crib. Consequently, she started waking at night. At her 9 month doctor’s visit her pediatrician gave me the whole speech about CIO and I listened. Against my husband’s better judgement, I tried our pedi’s advice that night. It involved putting her in the crib, but me staying next to the crib without looking at her so that, in his words, “she would get mad, but not scared.” About 1 hour in, she was hoarse from crying so hysterically and my husband put a stop to it. I am so glad he did. I was completely traumatized by the experience and feel guilt about it to this day. The next day, he and I got online, found your blog and found reassurance that it was ok not to CIO and it made all the difference. Currently, at 13 months, she goes down in her crib (which is still next to our bed by the way) at night and sleeps there until she wakes around 230 or 3 am at which point she comes to bed with us. It’s a system I would not trade for the world. I am personally very grateful that you have your opinions about CIO posted to this blog, and to know that we aren’t the only ones that feel this way about those practices. To give the benefit of the doubt, I am sure that there are some people and some babies that CIO has worked for without excessive trauma or else they wouldn’t persist as practices, but there are a lot of other babies out there that it won’t work for and that needs to be taken into account too.
Thank you for your comment Samantha. I really appreciate it.
i am a believer in the cio method. when it works. my oldest child was the one it worked on. i did the ferber method. it took one night. he’s been a perfect sleeper since. and he is now almost 14.
my younger 2…nothing worked. my daughter, who is now 11, is a great sleeper but she was 3 1/2 when she started sleeping through the night.
my youngest is 5. i let him cry it out for a couple of weeks. to the point of vomiting. and then, i stopped. because it wasn’t working. nothing worked with him actually. i have a collection of books of varied school of thought. he’s his own person. i figure he’ll eventually stop screaming for me…someday.
i believe that a parent has to do what works for them. co-sleeping, cio…whaever.
That’s sick. And neglectful.
I can’t imagine letting a child cry until he vomited. That poor baby.
Melissa:
Just curious. Do you not have any instincts telling you that it is wrong to leave a child to cry until he vomits? Or do you have those instincts but somehow feel that it is necessary despite your body and mind telling you that it is wrong?
I’m asking because I have a very strong physical and emotional reaction to the sound of a baby crying. It is so strong that I could not bring myself to do something like that. I would be violently ill if I did.
So I’m curious if you did not have that same reaction or if you did and somehow found a way to repress it.
I don’t want to get involved in this CIO discussion but I just wanted to chime in here that I am a person that is not affected by a baby’s cry. I respond to my baby’s cry knowing that he/she is now awake or that she/he is tired or needs something but the crying itself does not bother me.
An example of this is one night we went to visit a couple and for some reason ds just starting wailing. He must have cried for at least an hour, I tried to nurse him, rock him, change him – anything and everything I could possibly think of, I tried and he would not stop crying. The woman I was visiting said “wow, you’re really calm” and I just shrugged “I”m doing everything I can…”
I didn’t like that he was crying but it didn’t make me upset and I didn’t think that there was something wrong with him…I just held him and eventually he went to sleep and I finished my visit.
Now if my child has a cry of “I’m hurt” like on Tuesday when my dd (10mths) got a wasp sting, then I have an inner reaction that says “you’re baby is in trouble”…
I guess I know that I am meeting my children’s needs and if I’m not, I’m trying to be aware of their changes and needs as they come up and I also know that I have bad days or days that I’m just not happy…so I expect that my children will have days like that too.
And just to state it again, I do respond to my baby when he/she cries – I just don’t have an emotional or physical reaction to the cry.
i consulted with my pediatrician, who i hold in high regards. she assured me it was perfectly fine. he did not vomit every night.
my instincts told me that he was fine. and guess what…he is fine.
i stopped letting him cry it out. it wasn’t working. despite the fact that he is FINE. he just isn’t a sleeper.
he is now almost 6. and he is FINE. but still does not sleep through the night.
my children, all 3 of them, are turning out terrific. despite the fact that some of them have been left to cio.
i repressed it by shutting my door, turning on the tv and hiding under my pillow. but if you read my comment…i stopped. after he vomited. perhaps i didn’t make that point strong enough.
again…each to their own.
Personally, I could never let my kids cry it out. I just couldn’t do it! People would tell me to use the Ferber method but I just could not follow the rules.
For me, the only book that helped me with ideas to get my boys to sleep was Elizabeth Pantley’s The No-Cry Sleep Solution.
My babies are now bigger boys and sleep is no longer a problem… remember, this too shall pass!
Melissa, I strongly disagree. Parents need to make lots of decisions for their children – and they are the ones to make them (not their doctors, child care providers, or the grandparents). At the same time, they are being irresponsible if those decisions are based only on, “what works for them.” It is a parent’s responsibility to understand their child’s current developmental reality and to do what is truly best for the child even when it is painful or difficult – for the parent. For most children under 2, to one degree or another, anything outside their vision and hearing no longer exists. To leave them, in distress, is abandonment. At the same time, to not do everything you can to help them live independently is as soon as they can is intrusive and disrespectful. Someone asked earlier what parenting full-time (vs. having other regular care providers) has to do with this discussion. It has everything to do with it. If parents are too tired, it is next to impossible to choose the behaviors that will best serve their children.
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Amen!
Love the last comment, this too shall pass – so true.
My son, now 8 never slept. Now he does. Sleep deprevation seems like toruture when you have a baby…but I think you should remember that sleep is a privilege not a right!
They are only tiny once…and it’s for such a short time, don’t waste it by letting them cry!
We all sleep now…and sometimes I miss the nights with them!
Baby sleep is a big issue for most parents. It’s also a touchy subject and like many, I tend to be scared to comment about it.
I think more people have to back dustyz up
After reading the comments above, I can see he is totally outnumbered! The CIO method worked for us. I was initially against the idea but am now a true believer. It is a good option so don’t be afraid to try it. 6-7 months is a good time to start sleep training since a lot of babies can’t crawl yet – so that makes it easier. I also think it will not work for every child since all babies/parents are different.
As parents, we need to respect other parents opinions/views and try not to be so judgemental. It’s hard to not be judgemental but we just have to. Parenting is hard and we’re all doing our best.
So your thought is that CIO is better earlier because it is easier to abandon our babies when they are more completely unable to fend for themselves? I guess you wouldn’t want your baby trying to crawl to get to you; better that they can only lie helplessly on their back. Hey, while you’re at it, why not let your nonmobile baby cry until vomiting for a couple weeks.
That’s not “doing your best”, that’s doing the least. This thread is starting to take a sickening turn.
Actually, we were thinking about the physical safety of the baby. We figured at that age, they wouldn’t be strong enough to hurt themselves. Some older babies that we know would probably throw a big fit and may hurt themselves in the crib in just a couple of minutes. It turned out, timing was just right for us.
nice to see you out here mommyingaround! a little support from the trenches.
when ferber comes up it seems that all rational thinking goes out and the reactions are pure emotional. like the comment above about being easier to abandon your child. as if you even implied that in your comment. but that’s what happens, i see it every time.
regardless, the only point i was only ever trying to make is that some parents that may in fact benefit from ferber are scared into thinking that it is completely wrong because of the very posts that are on this site. so they’re denied a potentially positive experience from misinformed people. that’s really been all i was trying to communicate. and almost every post proves me right in the way people react and assume things about how someone parents because they used ferber.
arguments based on misinformation are dangerous in any realm.
there are no such things as “ever” or “never” in parenting, education, etc. we are a wonderful, varied and highly adaptable species. which is why we’re still here (i can’t vouch for the success but we’re still here). and people should have access to all kinds of techniques, styles, instincts, etc.
i love humans.
with shining light,
night night
dz.
Why on earth does dusty need back-up on a post where the blogs author is explaining HER decision not to recommend certain books because they are not compatible with HER beliefs??
Judging another parent’s choices is not disrespectful of them. The judgment is what happens between our ears. We own that and it can take whatever form we like. Respect is shown through our actions. I’m showing you a great deal of respect right now by moderating my response to your comment and applying a fairly stringent self edit.
It is intellectually dishonest to argue that we should show our respect of other parents by refraining from judging their choices as if all choices were equal and none were worthy of judging negatively. Part of the consequences of being alive and making decisions is that others will judge you. Quite frankly, Annie saying she can’t recommend these authors should be no skin off your nose. If what she said is bothering you then I’d suggest looking inward rather than out at others to resolve the issue.
intellectually dishonest, hmmm.
i’ve made no judgments, this is a blog, i’ve only been posting comments and thoughts. i’ve been quite clear in expressing respect for this blog and its author. i was simply expressing my thoughts on common reactions to ferber. nothing more.
skin off my nose? completely intact, thank you.
if you’d taken the time to read, my concern (i’m happy to repeat myself yet again *sigh*) is that some parents miss out on potentially positive results from a system demonized by misinformation. this is perfectly legitimate and neither intellectually dishonest or not based on any judgments placed on this blog or its author.
and i would defend other demonized systems with the very same argument, whether they be political, educational, spiritual, etc. (or parental in this case). especially systems un-researched (or even read) by those who demonize
my wife and i read this blog because we like it. therefore as a reader i’m free to post my thoughts when something i care about comes up, as are you. that’s all this is. the last time i checked, that’s what blogs were all about. a democratic (albeit sometimes anarchic) forum for discussion.
thank you, carol
and have a lovely day.
with light, as always
dz.
(time to move on)
bonjours a tous
Actually dusty I did you read you. I get that you are a means justifies the end kinda person.
Reverse that and it’ll be what I meant.
LOL…I thought that was backwards Carol. I was trying to figure out what on earth you meant!
Just because there is some possibly great information in Ferbers books doesn’t make CIO right. And no matter how right a book is otherwise if it promotes something that you believe to be actual ABUSE then its your right not recommend the book at all.
Of course one could recommend it with the caveat that it contains methods which constitute abuse. Just like you could recommend a book that is so old it recommends not putting a baby in a car seat even though we all (hopefully) now know that’s a horrible idea and illegal.
But with the plethora of sleep books out there I have to imagine there are many books that impart all the same information as Ferber excluding CIO. Its not that this blog author, if I may speak on her behalf, said that nothing that Ferber says is right or ever worth listening to. She has simply stated that she, personally, is not willing to overlook CIO in a book. The author believes there is noting in Ferber that you can’t get from some other book that doesn’t support CIO –so she chooses to never, ever recommend a book that contains CIO at all. Read that again she CHOOSES to PERSONALLY never recommend or endorse any book that contains CIO. She knows that many other “anti-CIO” people choose to endorse some of those books with the caveat that they don’t believe in chapters X, Y, and Z. But that is their choice and she has drawn a line in the sand and doesn’t want to keep hearing “Oh but X book is soooo great except for the CIO part”
If Ferber works for you without following the recommendations for CIO or graduated extinction or whatever you or he wish to call it that’s fine. Just don’t expect her to recommend the book
Crying oneself to sleep is not a healthy sleep environment ever.
Even when I am holding my child, comforting him, stroking his cheek etc. if he is crying as he falls asleep on my shoulder in exhaustion I don’t think that is a healthy sleep environment but at least I’m do my best to help him through whatever is distressing him.
I used to be dogmatically against CIO as you seem to be. But strangely enough it was actually my journey through EC’ing that helped me come to terms with it in some cases. Through EC I learned two relevant things
#1 babies are a lot more aware and understand a lot more your intent than we give them credit for conventionally
#2 anything you do regularly to a child is conditioning them – there is no hoping of not “training” them. you can train them to go to sleep with your help or go to sleep without your help, but either way you train them through your interactions with them – no escaping it.
And abstracting out from there, my fundamental principles are that I want to *believe* in my babies and *respond* to them, but the particulars of whether you show them this by being with them every second, or by repeatedly coming into their room to reassure them don’t matter so much – because I believe babies do understand your intent and do know you are still there and just asking them to be on their own for a while, even from the age of 4 or 5 months.
So… I do want to “train” my children to know that I am there for them and believe in them, which makes my first choice full presence. But if that is not working, then I am willing to pursue other options as long as I feel sure they know I am not abandoning them, and I believe what they are communicating. My last choice would be shutting the door and leaving them to CIO for as long as it takes – I think that’s immensely stressful on a baby and should only be tried if every other option yields worse effects on the family.
My first child was pretty classic constant nurser, up frequently at night, could only be soothed by heavy attention – needed to be nursed or walked to sleep all the time until over 3.5 years old. The times we tried to ask him to get by on less of our involvement (nurse and then cuddle, rocking instead of walking) he just got more and more upset. We were able to give him what he needed until he outgrew the need, and for that I am grateful – he’s a very secure child now at 4.75 who when offered the choice between one more bedtime story or 5 minutes cuddling will choose the bedtime story!
My second child did lead me down an intermediate path, though – perhaps it was the happy oversupply of a second-time lactatrix, but she would not fall asleep while nursing in the early months – it was too stimulating for her and kept her awake. Likewise, constant walking and rocking kept her too revved up to sleep. We eventually found that Karp’s 5S’s worked well for her to short-circuit her getting worked up when tired and let her relax into sleep quickly. As she outgrew swaddle and pacifier (well, as I weaned her off those from 4-6 months fearing long-term use) she struggled to find that quick switch into sleep, and it turned out that my very presence was getting her worked up when she needed to sleep – she was often crying for 45 minutes while with me because she couldn’t relax to sleep – not even with nursing or walking as had worked for her brother. So I tried leaving her alone for brief periods instead – to remove that stimulus – and for her it worked. She would cry for 3-5 minutes, but without stimuli, she could then relax and head in to sleep. When she learned to crawl, it became a whole other ball game because she was never in a crib, and would just crawl around and wake herself up… and then I basically had to train her *into* the habit of nursing to sleep. Even now at 28 months she still can’t always nurse to sleep very easily – we recently nightweaned because she was staying up for over 10 minutes – sometimes an hour while nursing 2-3x in the middle of the night, and we were getting really exhausted. She still nurses before bed and then cosleeps, but if and when she asks to nurse in the middle of the night, I remind her that it keeps us both up and makes us tired, and we’ll nurse in the morning instead. I’m happy I waited to do this until it was a problem for us and until she was mature enough to understand what I was asking her. She does sometimes get upset, and I acknowledge her feelings – so she knows I believe in her – but I restate my expectations (the training part) – that she go back to sleep now and nurse later.
I think you can do this with a pre-verbal baby, too because of my point #1 (awareness) – but it’s harder to communicate with them and takes more sensitivity to communicate the right message to them and truly listen to what they are telling you. So I think it takes *immense* belief in your baby to leave your baby alone to cry in a way that is physically and psychologically healthy – if you approach it with the attitude that your child is an inconvenience who needs to be trained to be “easy” – that carries psychological damage that continues well outside whatever time they may be crying alone for. If you believe your baby is upset about being alone, but remains secure in knowing you are there (if in another room) *and* you have some perspective that being in the room with them will make things worse, then I think you can humanely ask them to try going to sleep on their own – staying aware of how they react to the attempts, and providing for their sense of security in as many other ways as possible (cosleeping, babywearing, lots of s2s contact).
I do understand how dangerous is it to condone CIO at all because of the cultural pressures towards it and the tendency to skip the whole part about deeply understanding and honestly responding to your child… but I think like any intervention away from the biological norm, there is a time and place for it and you can mitigate the unwanted side effects with a careful and considered approach. I don’t want to promote c-section, hospital birth, crib sleeping, formula feeding or even time outs, either, but I do accept that there are situations where they can be done with love and care when the alternatives are worse.
p.s. a pet peeve of mine is the word “Ferberize” which treats infants as objects to which a process must be applied. it’s completely opposed to my view of sleep habits as something you negotiate in your relationship with the child. i’ve heard even Ferber dislikes the term
Rosemary – It you have some research to back up your belief that babies understand our intentions as infants (with brains that are not fully mature) I would love to look at it.
Carol – here’s a link to an article which describes some research: http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/news/insight/article/681813–what-s-going-on-in-the-brain-of-a-baby As I understand it, there are other research projects that talk about how babies are capable of understanding much more than we give them cred for.
As for me, I also have that violent physical and emotional reaction to a baby crying that was talked about earlier that steers me away from CIO methods. This reaction has lessened to a degree with my second child because I need to balance between both children’s needs, but it still remains enough of a factor that I prefer other methods.
” …but I think like any intervention away from the biological norm, there is a time and place for it and you can mitigate the unwanted side effects with a careful and considered approach. I don’t want to promote c-section, hospital birth, crib sleeping, formula feeding or even time outs, either, but I do accept that there are situations where they can be done with love and care when the alternatives are worse.”
well said! especially the part about love and care. compassion should be part of any process involving your child or any human being for that matter.
dz.
(couldn’t resist!)
Carol – I don’t have specific references in mind, though I’m sure I’ve read some research about babies being highly emotionally aware. Doing elimination communication has opened up another avenue of communication with my babies before they are verbal, and I’ve learned a lot from them through EC’ing. If you are tense and anxious and unsure about what you are doing, they tense up and can’t relax and release their sphincters. When you are relaxed and assured and playful, they relax and open up. I’ve seen the same effect with breastfeeding “struggles” and realize now that I was getting into power struggles with my days-old baby trying to get him to latch on… I’d thought power struggles only started in the toddler years! So I do think there will be a difference in the emotional consequences of CIO to the infant depending on their emotional read of the parent – if they see the parent is calm and reassuring their reaction is going to be different (on average, every child is a special case, know your child, etc.) than if the parent is angry and punitive about CIO. Likewise, the parent has a different experience if they know they are doing the best thing for their child than if they are unsure of themselves or locked into a power struggle with their child – whether doing CIO or deliberately not doing CIO – one way promotes confidence and compassion – the other anxiety and detachment. The emotional currents run deeper than the surface expression of whether you perform CIO or not.
In the case of my second child – the alternative was having her cry in arms for a hour as I broke down her resistance to sleep (and as much as she wanted me there, she would often push me away while I held her) and leave my 2 year old with his needs unmet for that time versus…nursing my daughter in bed, giving her a chance to go to sleep that way, then telling her she was safe and asking her to try sleeping on her own and leaving her alone for 5 minutes to see whether she would fall asleep or not. I learned if her crying was intensifying after 3 minutes or still going on at 5 minutes that it wasn’t going to work. My message I was communicating to her was: my expectation is that you will go to sleep nursing in bed… that’s what I’d like you to do. If you’re done nursing and still can’t fall asleep, I’d like you to try lying down in our bed and resting on your own, you are safe, mama loves you, and mama will come back and check on you in a few minutes.
One piece of direct evidence I have of her awareness at that age is that from 5 months on she has called her brother by name – imperfectly pronounced at first, to be sure! but she understood what was going on around her to a degree that I did not believe possible when I had my first, and only realized through doing EC (and to a lesser extent, through breastfeeding).
What has actually worked best for my daughter for sleep through the 2+ years is lying with her with my back turned to her – I am present, but not engaged and stimulating her. Still, she will usually take 30-45 minutes of what I call “chasing her tail” before she settles down and it’s testament to my very involved husband and my very patient older child that we’ve been able to allow her this kind of time most of the time.
Even if babies can understand their parents intentions, I think there is a gap between understanding intentions and being emotionally handle the situation. For example, even if a child understands that mom just wants her to go to sleep, that won’t necessarily take away her fear or her hunger or her thirst or her pain or whatever it is that is keeping her from sleeping to begin with. I think most (but not all) parents will reasonable respond to hunger, thirst and pain, but I think too many are quick to dismiss fear as unreasonable or irrational. My children have been afraid of many things that I am not scared of and that I think it is silly to be scared of, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are scared.
yes, a scared child does need comfort and reassurance, but there is not only one way to do that. whatever way you do show them to find comfort, they will learn that if they are able. i think the emotions they pick up on from you are going to be more prominent than the mechanics of the exact methods you use. the highest priority is to teach them in a emotionally healthy and positive way – and the *easiest* way to do this is with your continual presence… but i don’t discount the possibility that there are other ways in individual circumstances with individual personalities involved. just as i think the easiest way to nurture your baby is through exclusive breastfeeding, but i don’t discount that you can be an attached and responsive parent and nurture your baby without exclusive breastfeeding.
I believe that crying is a baby’s way to communicate – and I would never let my kids CIO or recommend it to others. I do have relatives who have used that method – They know that If I were ever to babysit I could not do CIO.
I’ve heard many excuses including that it will strengthen their lungs to CIO.
I coslept – and my babies did sleep through the night – they would nurse when they wanted to and we’d both still be alseep. It was a magical time. My babies knew that at the slightest whimper I’d be there to pick them up, change them, feed them, soothe them, whatever they needed. Why would I not? Why would that end at bedtime?
Yes, crying is a baby’s way to communicate, and I think it’s important that we show our children we are listening and we believe what they are saying. I still think it’s possible to disagree, with respect, with what they are saying.
In many other ways we have to tell our children no occasionally… obviously you try to be on the same page and set the stage not to come into disagreement, but it’s going to happen to everyone… unless you’re always saying no to yourself, which isn’t in the end emotionally healthy for your child either.
I coslept, continue to, and my babies don’t sleep through the night. They would nurse when they wanted to, and we would both be awake, certainly me! It’s a magical time the first few minutes, but after that I start to get pretty tired, and after 45 minutes I start to go a little insane. My babies knew that at the slightest whimper I’d listen and respond to them – but that I didn’t always give them exactly what they wanted in that moment, at that moment. I don’t do it in the daytime, and I don’t at night either. Everything is negotiated and a give and take. As the adult, I have a special responsibility to take a broad perspective, and to give profoundly of myself, but my goal is to respond with intelligence and respect, not to just automatically do what they ask.
Yes, I do say no to my kids. I say no when they ask to go to the park while I’m making dinner. I say no when they ask to go outside in the winter in shorts. I say no when they ask to play with a sharp knife. But I do not say no when they tell me that they are scared.
it’s not about telling them no, you shouldn’t be scared, or pretending that they aren’t, but instead showing them how you would like them to cope when they are scared. my daughter got scared on airplanes starting around 1 year old – we didn’t stop flying, but we talked to her about it, we modeled how we make ourselves feel comfortable in airplanes, we play-acted airplane trips while at home, we gave her comfort measures on the airplane (nursing, hand holding, distraction, snacks). if she continued to react badly to flying then we would know those approaches weren’t working, and maybe we should avoid it altogether at least until she got to a more mature developmental stage. we never told her she shouldn’t be scared or told her we didn’t care about it. we cared, and we tried to help train her to become accustomed to the situation.
As a mom of much older children (one grown, one teen) as well as younger ones (one preschooler, one infant), I have to say that from my perspective, the whole issue of getting kids to sleep seems so insignificant to me in the whole scheme of things. I have never, ever, let any of my kids CIO, and all of them were sleeping well on their own by 3-4 years of age. The very notion that they will “never” sleep well on their own is laughable to me, when I see how much “like a log” my older two (and even my preschooler) sleep. I can also say all of this as a person with health problems, too, including fibromyalgia and a sleep disorder of my own, so it’s not as though I have it somehow “easier” than others or can’t understand their fatigue; if anything, I have it worse. I do what I can to take care of my children when they need it, and they DO outgrow the need, as I can attest to. I was a CIO victim myself (yes, I said “victim”) and never once did it occur to me to do that to my own children.
Rock on sister!!!!
I am slightly disturbed by the rationale that it is better to start CIO before the baby crawls, for it’s own safety. The baby is distressed by being alone and that is why s/he is trying to get to you. I am disturbed by the lack of attention to that detail.
There are other options and each child is different. But reading about or hearing about blatantly ignoring a child’s cry, especially if they can’t get to you and you won’t go to them, is quite disturbing for me.
Thank you for writing this! I’m a first time mom of a 2.5 month old boy and he won’t nap during the day and I can’t even consider letting him cry. I come from a ‘spare the rod spoil the child’/'children should be seen and not heard’ upbringing and that style of parenting just doesn’t sit well with me. I do not believe for one second you can “spoil” an infant but my mother sure does – she’s already told me that I’ve spoiled my son because I pick him up when he cries and try to figure out what he needs. So, it’s glaringly obvious that I should not be getting advice from my mother.
As a result of this entry, I ordered two of Elizabeth Pantley’s no-cry solution books. I should get them next week. Hopefully they help!
Thanks again, and I’ll be checking back regularely
interesting, and relevant, article.
http://www.babble.com/japan-co-sleeping-common/
dz.
It is interesting and relevant because there are also studies that have found that parents who co-sleep and parents who do cry it out are generally happier with the state of their child’s sleep than parents who attempt to put their child in a crib, but not do cry it out. Parents who want to have their baby in a crib, but also want to tend to their needs at night end up frustrated with the constant up and down and back and forth, whereas parents that either tend to their child’s needs in their own bed or use an intervention like cry it out to avoid dealing with their nighttime needs will get enough sleep.
Yes, our culture and our upbringing shapes how we parent. But we also need to find a way to get over it in cases where it could be harmful. A lot of people were spanked or even abused as children and their first instinct when their child misbehaves may be to raise their hand to that child. Those people have to work harder to avoid abusing their child than someone that wasn’t abused themselves. Same thing with co-sleeping. Someone that grew up with solitary sleep may need to work harder to be okay with sleeping with a baby than someone who grew up co-sleeping. But no one said that parenting wasn’t hard work. Also I wonder why almost all Westerners seem to be able to adjust to sleeping with a spouse, but this researcher suddenly claims their solitary sleep as a child prevents them from sharing a bed when a baby arrives. Seems a bit illogical to me.
phd
this will be my last post on the subject.
btw, i did not comment on the article for a reason. i just said that i read it and found it interesting. period.
there are exceptions to every rule and every study. and we are one. we chose to co-sleep right from the beginning because as parents our instinct was such. and we loved it and would have continued but at 8 months our child stopped enjoying sleeping with us because she stopped getting full night sleeps. she was grumpy in the morning and her nap schedule was thrown off. our instincts, after much thought, told us that it was simply from her movements (she moves a lot in her sleep). she was suddenly waking herself up a lot. even in a king size bed. after talks with other parents and some sleep books, we chose ferber. we were hesitant but willing to try and, lo and behold, it worked like a charm and she immediately took to sleeping in her crib. in fact has been doing so, 9-10 hours every night for the last 10 months. it was not cruel, ever, she never cried for more than a few minutes. (btw, ferber clearly suggests that you pick a schedule that you are comfortable with whether it’s 30 seconds or 3 minutes between times that you go to the child to comfort).
so back to the only point i have ever truly defended in all these posts. i simply hope that parents that could potentially benefit from ferber, as we did, are not scared away by all the talk of negligence, cruelty, etc. these are very strong words and in fact not applicable.
it’s not for everyone. nothing is. but it might be for someone that has built up an emotional reaction to ferber due to misinformation and hyperbole.
please note, to everyone, i never used the term ferberize in any of my posts. i don’t like it either and agree that it gives the sense of your child as product.
also, for the record. the mother that claimed ferber worked for her first child then witnessed her second child cry to the point of vomiting. that’s not ferber and i would never defend something like that.
okay
that’s it for me.
dz.
over and out
As my final point to you dustyz I wanted to clarify that I consider my emotional reaction to Ferber to be due to maternal instinct, not misinformation and hyperbole.
noted.
but it is important to remember that you have, admittedly, never read ferber, so it’s kinda hard not to think that, although instinctual as you claim, your reaction is misinformed, or ill-informed, or alternatively, under-informed. since your arguments against ferber are very narrow in scope and focus entirely on CIO or graduation. if the book were only about that, it would be very short indeed.
found a great review by a well researched parent of how ferber worked for them, similar to our story. it was worth the read.
http://tiny.cc/gdznm
truly signing off
dz.
Again, the whole point of this post was that it doesn’t matter how great Ferber’s book is. If there is a section that suggests graduated extinction is an appropriate way to get a baby to sleep, then I cannot recommend that book. I have confirmed through personal sources, through Internet sources, and by flipping through the book at the bookstore that it does in fact contain information on how to do graduated extinction. So it is not a book I will recommend. There is plenty of great information on infant sleep, how much sleep they need, sleep patterns, sleep associations, etc. etc. etc. in the Elizabeth Pantley books, so I don’t need to buy a CIO book to get that info.
My instinct (altho sometimes ignored) has always been to parent consciously during the day and the night. The truth is- I stink at night-time parenting. I’m a grumpy, sorry wreck of a woman during the first year. (If I could give birth to a one-year old, I think it might just be paradise.) So when my girls were not good sleepers, I tried lots of books and ideas.
I did like all the sleep information in Elizabeth Pantley’s books. I also like a question I remember from the beginning – something like this: Do you really have a sleep problem? Or do other people have a problem with your children’s sleep?
What a concept for me. Because even tho I really wanted to get some sleep, I really wanted to trust my instincts. I did great the first time around. I struggled more trusting myself the second time, when I had to function all day with two kids (one who didn’t nap) and on limited sleep.
When I got desperate enough, I tried a CIO method (a book loaned from a friend) and it seemed to work after a few days. And then it totally back-fired. Our result is that it has taken 6 months of concentrated effort of reassuring dd#2 that she can trust us; that we’re not going to leave her alone. It is truly heartbreaking for me, because my instincts rejected CIO outright, but the “judgment prior to investigation” argument wormed in.
We’re finally starting to see some progress with our relationship and trust, day and night. I will NEVER leave a child (anyone’s child) to cry again. And truthfully I get a little angry when I read comments like “when ferber comes up it seems that all rational thinking goes out…” It was my rational thinking over my instinct and emotion that was the real problem.
So Annie, I’m glad you stay true to your beliefs and don’t compromise. I am glad there are voices saying this is not ok. I wish I had heard them more loudly before. But I know I won’t make this mistake again.
K
I’m so unread on sleep-training (when my daughter was four-months old we showed her the SleepEasy solutions video and told her to pay attention, and that night she slept through the night on her own) that I actually don’t understand the data or the authorities that get thrown around in these discussions.
What’s the reason to think that short, medium, or long periods of crying alone are damaging? What’s the damage? Is there a way to figure out what a sleep-damaged child looks like at 2, 5, 10, 20 years old?
I read a lot of comments to the effect that “I couldn’t handle hearing the baby crying.” And instinct goes a long way, sometimes. But instinct is also developed for a different kind of world. The math on instinctual evolutionary changes is bad for thinking that an instinct about something that developed millennia ago will be helpful now. Why do we think our instinct is tracking something true?
And do parents who oppose CIO stop the car every time their baby cries from the backseat? Sometimes? Never (because cars are somehow different)? Is this just about nighttime routines, home routines, or every case in which a child sleeps?
Epistemology, how we know what we claim to know, matters a lot here, I think. Traditionally, empirical evidence is mustered against innate ideas, but here it seems like both camps are going with their innate beliefs and then hurling empirical evidence at each other while each ignores the other’s evidence. Because the argument isn’t about the data, it’s about some holistic belief that is inured to evidentiary changes, and inconvenient data can be ignored if you have convenient data and a gut feeling.
Backpacking Dad: Those are a lot of questions!
1) There is evidence that excessive crying and not having cries responded to is harmful. I talk about some of that evidence in my post on the 10 reasons why we don’t do cry it out. Most people don’t disagree with that. What the proponents of CIO tend to argue is that some extensive crying at night, for a while, to teach a child to sleep is not the same as generally being unresponsive to an infant’s needs all the time. Among those that agree with some brand of CIO there are a multitude of variations on how far you can let it go…i.e. how young is too young, how much crying it too much crying, etc. I tend to believe that different human beings are capable of handling different amounts of stress and that we can’t know which baby cry it out will be “okay” for and which ones it will not be okay for.
2) In terms of what a victim of cry it out looks like at 2, 5, 10 or 20 years old (I assume that is what you meant by “sleep-damaged” and that you didn’t mean sleep deprived, because that would be a different thing altogether), I think it depends. The brain is an interesting, sometimes fragile, and sometimes resilient thing. I talked about some of the possibilities in my post on our 10 reasons, but there really isn’t one picture you can paint of what the result is.
3) Do parents who oppose CIO stop the car every time their baby cries in the backseat? I don’t know what everyone does. I can tell you what we do. We respond to our kids the best we can in that situation. Sometimes that means handing them a pacifier, sometimes putting on some music, sometimes talking to them, sometimes having one parent ride in the back seat with the baby. If the baby is truly distressed, then yes I would stop, comfort, and nurse my baby. But I would try other things to calm the baby down first.
4) There is no concrete data that 5 minutes of crying or even 15 minutes of crying is going to harm an infant forever. There is concrete data that excessive crying is harmful. Where the problem comes in is that we don’t know at what stage it becomes excessive and I assume that it is different for different people. While I think that is important, my reasons for not doing CIO are not just about the “harm” it might cause in a physical/physiological/psychological sense, but also about the harm it might cause in my relationship with my child. For me it is about how I treat other human beings. I don’t think it is right to put a baby in a room, shut the door, and ignore them. Same as I don’t think it is right to bully people, to make fun of people, etc.
To answer the question of how a CIO victim looks at 2, 5, 10, or 20 years old, I want to point out something about myself: I started developing symptoms of narcolepsy (a sleep disorder) around age 8-10, which started at that time with a sleep paralysis episode accompanied by a hypnopompic hallucination. I have since struggled with it all my life (I’m now 45) and now take Ritalin to help keep me awake during the day. Did the CIO actually *cause* this? Well, no one can say exactly, but as Annie said, the brain can be a fragile thing, so who knows?
Also as far as stopping the car when the baby cries, we do the same thing as Annie describes she does: We try to do what we can while the car is still moving, but if it gets out of hand, we stop and nurse and get the baby comfortable, then we move on.
Thanks for inspiring me to finally write the post that’s been sitting and waiting to be told.
I’m glad you posted this, so I know never to hold out hope you will recommend my book.
I respect your opinion and definitely understand why you wouldn’t recommend these two books. Ferber’s book has one method and that is the interval visits as you described. Weissbluth, while he does give a choice of methods, he pushes extinction the most and there is no question about that. There are several other books I’m sure you wouldn’t recommend for the same reason.
I know I won’t ever change your mind about cry-it-out nor do I want to. It certainly isn’t for everyone. The only reason I decided to post a comment (because I wasn’t going to at first) is only for readers who aren’t sure about the two extremes of the argument on cry-it-out. I even debated Pantley about it on Opposing Views here: http://www.opposingviews.com/questions/should-you-let-your-child-cry-it-out so you can read a lot of my arguments on why it’s not everyone, but is for some, there.
Anyone who calls cry-it-out the “easy way out” already tells me that their position is extreme and judgmental. I’m sure you already know you’re being judgmental, so I hope that isn’t being offensive. You are telling parents that they are worse parents than you because of this ONE decision they have made about their child and what might be best for their family.
My whole website is dedicated to baby sleep and parents finding their own way to parent their child. I personally don’t know their situation and so I am not one to say what is right or wrong for them. My job is to help them find their way and make recommendations based on their unique situation. I would say 95%, if not more, of my clients don’t ever have to do cry-it-out, but those who do are not supported any less from me.
Although I am able to help a lot of parents without cry-it-out, I personally chose to use it. It wasn’t because I saw anything easy about it. It was because I saw the effects of lack of sleep had on my son (and still have almost 4 years later) when he doesn’t get enough sleep. I saw that it was taking me more than 3 hours to put him to bed only to redo it every 2 hours all night. I saw that co-sleeping wasn’t working for us either. I made a choice best for our family and never regret it given the boy I see in front of me today. My younger son is very different and we never had to go through the same things with him as we did with our first.
The main thing about all these choices in ways to help your baby learn to fall asleep and stay asleep is that you need to find what works for his or her personality and temperament. Not all babies respond the same way to “no cry” methods nor do all respond the same to cry-it-out (I’ve helped many parents who tried cry-it-out and it didn’t work, so I helped them find a method that worked for THEIR BABY).
Furthermore, the way a parent responds to sleep deprivation is different. How YOU react to being sleep deprived will be different than another parent. And, given you have successfully co-slept, you might not have even had much sleep deprivation at all and that’s great! It’s simply not that way for everyone. One mom might just need two cups of coffee rather than one while another parent can barely function during the day. One mom might need to work as a nurse for 12 hours and can’t concentrate. A stay-at-home mom might not interact with her baby as much because she’s so tired and would rather be a better mom in the day and feels she’s failing as a mom because she has no energy to do the things she wanted to do staying home with her baby.
There are so many situations out there and all are unique. I get e-mail from parents every day about their sleep struggles. I think when you hear so many parents’ stories and “hear” the desperation in their cry for help, you get a different perspective and it drives home EVERY DAY that everyone’s situation is truly unique. Sleep deprivation is hard and until you truly go through it, I don’t think you can “get it” and even then it’s probably different than the mom’s next door. I am not sure how many people you have helped one-on-one, so I’m not sure how many different temperaments you’ve been exposed to, but it does matter. Not saying that you would change your position, but you might not judge as harshly.
There is a lot in between sleep deprivation and cry-it-out and I’m certainly not a cry-it-out pusher, but I do empower parents on my site by giving them as much information I can to make an informed decision. And, I try to empower these parents to know that they know THEIR baby best and to have confidence in making decisions about what’s best for THEIR family. I try never to judge because I’m not walking in their shoes.
@Nicole:
I don’t think that parents that have tried everything else there is and then eventually resort to cry-it-out are taking the “easy way out”. I think they are very desperate and at the end of their rope and don’t know what else to do. However, there are also other parents who have not tried everything else. Ones who will see that chapter on sleep training and skip straight to that because they don’t want to do all of the work that is required. And if the book says it is okay, then it must be okay. There are plenty of people who say that the baby is X months old, so it is time to start the sleep training.
I know people who have spanked their kids out of desperation because they didn’t know what else to do. I know people who swear that spanking is the best way to discipline children. In my book, there is a big difference between those two situations. I don’t judge a parent who spanks out of desperation. But I also won’t recommend a book that suggests spanking is an appropriate discipline strategy. That is also how I feel about cry it out. I try not to judge individual parents who have resorted to it in desperation. But I do think it is wrong and I will not recommend a book that suggests it as a strategy.
My two children were very different with regards to sleep. We co-slept with both, but my son woke up every 2 to 3 hours for the longest time, whereas my daughter slept for long stretches right from birth.
I have worked one-on-one with a lot of families as a moderator of an attachment parenting support board. I have helped people to get through rough times. I have suggested gentle methods that could improve their baby’s sleep. I have helped them to see that this too shall pass. I have helped them to have realistic expectations about infant sleep. I have helped them get help with nighttime parenting from a spouse. You are right. Each person’s situation is unique and what works for one may not work for another and that is why a book like Pantley’s with so many different suggestions for different families is so great. That is why conversing with a mom or dad about their situation is helpful when coming up with solutions. But for me cry it out will never be one of the solutions that I can recommend.
I do understand what you are saying about not recommending the books because of chapters in them. When you feel that strongly about something like cry-it-out, it makes sense you wouldn’t recommend them. I can’t speak about all parents out there, but most I seem to come across never read a book and just decide to do what’s in them because it’s in a book. Most people seem to read 3-5 books (Pantley, Sears, Weissbluth, Ferber, and West) and still are more confused than ever about what to do and where to start.
I think all this also depends on how you define “cry it out”. For me, having a newborn at 8 weeks cry all night to stop feedings is VERY different than having an 11 month old learn to sleep without replacing a pacifier 10 times per night. For us, we only focused on bedtime for a long time. And, after that it got 10 times better. I breastfed for a year and fed both boys AT NIGHT up through a year. Those adamantly against cry-it-out seem to paint a picture that you never tend to your child at night ever again and it’s just so not that way. Sometimes it’s more about helping them learn a new way to fall asleep and yes, sometimes, they aren’t happy about it. Who would be? Just because they only know of one way to fall asleep does not mean they can’t learn a new way. The only way they can complain is by crying because that is the only way they can communicate. Does that mean they always get what they want at night because they cry, but not during the day? Because I’m quite sure you wouldn’t let your baby get anything she wants just because she is crying in the daytime.
As I said before, cry it out is never a first recommendation of mine and for long-time co-sleepers the first thing I will say to new clients is that it’s an unfair extreme to go from sleeping all night next to mom and dad to crying alone in another room and it’s just not something I can feel good about recommending. For some situations when you have tried the “gentle methods” as you describe and in the end if your baby is simply resisting a change, I do think it’s okay that they complain some. We will probably just always disagree about the complaining thing.
Again, it highly depends on the age of the baby, whether there really is a problem (expectations adjustment), and what’s going on, which takes me back to a parent knows their situation best. My goal is to help parents formulate a plan that does fit their situation, if it warrants it because when you’re sleep deprived, the hardest part is coming up with the plan.
Nicole: With regards to the complaining thing, my thought is that until they are old enough to explain with words why they are “complaining” I am not prepared to judge the intentions behind their cries. I will simply respond to them. I will make sure that I am there and that I offer what comfort I can. It doesn’t mean that I will get up and play with them, but I will ensure that they have what they need. Once my kids are old enough to talk and tell me what is going on, then I can make decisions about whether it is complaining or if it is a true need because they can use words to explain that to me.
You don’t feel like you can tell what they are complaining about before they can talk? When my baby was crying, I could figure out why he was crying, usually. Again, it doesn’t mean you ignore crying at all times, which is why we focused on bedtime only for a long time. If you know your baby “needs” to be rocked for 3 hours to sleep at night and every time you stop she cries, you know why she’s crying. She’s TIRED and doesn’t know how to fall asleep without the movement. So, some would say as long as you are holding her while she cries, that is okay and others would say that’s another form of cry-it-out and to keep on rocking. All I’m saying is that it’s normal for them to cry when you stop doing what you’ve always done because they just don’t know any other way to fall asleep. It doesn’t mean you avoid all tears at all costs, in my opinion.
Thanks for the intelligent discussion! This debate will be around forever, I’m sure, and no one has the right answer for everyone. I just like to help parents feel they aren’t bad people for making decisions best for their family. It is hard enough being a parent these days. Take care! See you around Twitter!
@PickNicksBrain
As a mom of a co-sleeping one year old, I just want to thank you for your articles regarding co-sleeping! Often enough, other new moms are judgmental to the way I handle my dd during the night and give their unsolicited advice. Your views on the topic give me hope that I am doing what is right for all of us and that I am not the only one around that does not believe in the CIO method. Many thanks!
“I do not think it is appropriate to leave a child alone to cry to sleep. Period.”
Good for you for making a stand against a bad idea and its apologists.
Hmmm. Provocative post and comments. Sorry I’m a little late joining this discussion but still wanted to add something. I have recommended Weissbluth to friends in the past (and I AM personally an attachment momma myself)–with long lists of disclaimers, but still… I do see your point about wholesale rejection / boycott when you believe something is wrong, period. But… (yes, here’s my but), I do think Weissbluth has done a lot of very interesting sleep studies. For example, research on the number of hours of sleep needed in each age group, even including some studies on teens. He also has detailed studies on sleep patterns at different ages and bedtime hours and the effects of these things on school performance. I haven’t found this kind of data from any of the attachment folks and I’m somebody who needed it. It saved my life when I found out that most babies under a year (and not just in the US) sleep between 6-8 pm and that my baby didn’t in fact have the mythical “colic” but was just overtired and trying to go to sleep for the night. I also didn’t understand sleep cues well before Weissbluth. So maybe what I’m saying is that the attachment parenting literature out there is incomplete–or at least not marketed well enough for sleep-deprived people to find the answers they need. Do you think I’m wrong?
While the CIO advocacy and strong forms of CIO in Weissbluth’s book do bother me, I have suggested it with caveats to people. However, I have found a non-CIO book that covers more of the sleep biology than No Cry Sleep Solution – it’s Sleepless in America, and that’s the sleep book I recommend first. It informs you about sleep biology without scaring you and guilt-tripping you the way Weissbluth does.
@Priscilla: Have you read The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley? Most, if not all, of the things you mentioned there are in her book. She may not have done the research herself on those things, but she references and explains them clearly. She also did research/test all of her sleep tips with real families.
You wrote, “I do see your point about wholesale rejection / boycott when you believe something is wrong, period. But… (yes, here’s my but), I do think Weissbluth has done a lot of very interesting sleep studies. For example, research on the number of hours of sleep needed in each age group, even including some studies on teens. He also has detailed studies on sleep patterns at different ages and bedtime hours and the effects of these things on school performance. I haven’t found this kind of data from any of the attachment folks and I’m somebody who needed it.”
I’ve made an enquiry about that to the Alliance for the Transformation of Childhood (atlc.org), of which my newsletter is a member. They’re pretty big on research in all areas and might have something.
Although, we’re talking about babies here aren’t we? Studies on “sleep patterns at different ages and bedtime hours and the effects of these things on school performance” are irrelevant.
Thanks everyone. I haven’t actually read Pantley’s “No Cry Sleep Solution” because I heard mixed feedback about it from friends. But I will try it and “Sleepless in America” because I would like something better to recommend to data-oriented friends.
Bob Collier: Sorry if I wasn’t clear. Weissbluth’s book is very disorganized so yes he does go into sleep for older kids but one of his points is that at certain ages regular bedtime hours are important and at other ages, its less important as long as they are getting the right number of hours for their age group. He also looks at school performance based on baby sleep patterns among other things.
I understand. Thanks for clarifying.
I admit that I did not read all of the comments on here, so forgive me if I’m saying something that has already been said.
I wholeheartedly agree with your anti-CIO stance. People often tell me that by not letting my daughter CIO I am spoiling her. Well, I’ve got news for ya, buddy – I don’t immediately rush to her and fix all her problems for her the second she starts crying. I wait a minute or two to see if she can self-sooth. If she can’t self-sooth in a couple of minutes, she’s not going to be able to if I just let her keep crying. Of course I want her to figure things out on her own, but for now she is 5 months old and how much do you really expect a 5 month old to know?
My 4 year old still gets frustrated with a lot of things after a few minutes of not being able to figure them out. That’s understandable. *I* get frustrated after a bit too! So naturally I am going to help my 4 year old after 5 or 10 minutes of her trying and not getting it. Why wouldn’t I want to do the same for my baby?
Another way that I look at it is like this: they say when you put your child in time out, it’s only appropriate to put them in for one minute per year-old that they are. So if I would assist my 4 year old after 5-10 minutes of frustration and no gain, why wouldn’t I help my baby at a sooner point in time?
Am I making sense at all? I’m not really able to word this as eloquently as I would like and I apologize for that. I’ve never really had the opportunity to hash it out until now. HAHA. Anyway, I am glad I’m not the only nutjob out there who is spoiling her children. (HAR HAR.) Thanks for yet another great post!
A view from the other side (of older children who did not CIO):
My (breastfed, attachment parented) children are almost 6 (girl) and 8 (boy.) 8 yo coslept from birth, had many frequent but brief nighttime needs (nursed around the clock every 2 hrs for the first year.) Has always had a need for high-touch/high contact, day/night. Watching a movie together, he’s always in physical contact with husband or me, usually with feet tucked under one of us, pressed into a corner of the couch (I suspect he has some sensory integration issues related to needing strong pressure/strong touch. They are mild, but manifest in sleep/closeness behaviors.) He goes to sleep every night in his own room (with me reading next to him most nights, though he easily goes to sleep solo when there is a babysitter, or when having sleepovers with friends.) At 8, he is still a frequent nighttime visitor to our room, however his disruption is minimal (I don’t wake most nights) and it is something my husband and I both like, with busy active lives it’s a chance to reconnect. Again, I think it’s an element of my child, he needs that high amount of touch to feel centered. He is an extremely happy, extraordinarily bright, well-adjusted child with friends, interests, and passions.
My almost 6 year old also co-slept for the first six months, at which time we realized that she needed her own sleep surface (she was very wakeful with us, very sound sleeper when solo.) NOTE: During the time she sleep-shared, her then-toddler-brother was not in the same bed. Simple co-sleeping safety.
She went through periods of time when her sleep was challenging, particularly with a middle-of-the-night period of wakefulness (coincident with my cycles.) I attended to her, but it was a challenge from about 18 mos to 2.5 yrs old. I never considered CIO as an option to my parenting of her during that challenging period. I used other strategies (a restful bedtime routine, a favorite music cd, sleep-sharing in her room, holding her, rocking, breastfeeding, rolling in a stroller through the house, slinging, singing, singing while slinging, a nighttime comfort object, white noise.)
Today at almost 6, she sleeps completely independently. She goes to sleep in her own room, and sleeps all night, every night (illnesses and rare nightmares notwithstanding) in her own bed. She is a joy to be around. She is independent, bright (accelerated a full year at school,) creative, expressive, energetic, articulate, imaginative. She has friends, enjoys dance, has a thousand ideas, and loves to share them.
Both of my children had different nighttime needs. We met those needs in different ways, because they are different people. When meeting those needs, we considered what was best for the child, as well as what worked well for our family. We never felt that CIO was a viable option, because it felt completely wrong to us and went against our parenting instincts on every level.
I’m with you. I cannot and will not support or advocate resources or parenting methods that advocate “crying it out”. A book a lot of my children’s friend’s parent’s use is called “Baby Wise” ( there is apparently a whole series including “toddler wise” etc). This book teaches regimented and strict routines set up by the parent, for the baby to follow, including crying themselves to sleep.
It breaks my heart knowing that for infants and toddlers, usually their “want” is their NEED and they cry to get their needs met. If they were verbal, able to say “mommy I am scared and I need you”, no commendable parent would ignore their pleas. Consider their cries in bed to be the same plea in a non verbal way.
It dismays me and while I won’t openly criticize others, I won’t be silent about my personal view that it is inapropriate.
Thanks for always landing on the side of meeting baby’s needs and not faltering though you may have an unpopular position!
I have been fortunate enough to have a great sleeper. She’s been “sleeping through the night” since she was 4-weeks old. Last night, however, she cried so loud and so hard that I thought she would hurt herself. I stuck it out with her, doing what I knew to comfort her, and before long she was asleep in my arms. The most remarkable thing about it was that she slept from 10 til 8 the next day! I haven’t felt this rested since she was born! I don’t recommend CIO but I do have other tips and tricks to help with getting baby to sleep.
I let my second child ‘cry it out’ because my situation was getting really bad. I was desperate, my family life was suffering, my business was suffering and my other child was suffering with the lack of sleep in my home. I had the help of a ‘professional’ and let me tell you that it didn’t work. Let me rephrase: It did work in the sense that she slept for longer than an hour at a time and she slept away from my armpit for once. BUT It stressed the crap out of me, and it stressed my poor baby girl. I feel very guilty about doing it. She never stopped crying. The crap about it being only 3 days of crying is absolute BS. My baby cried for weeks. It helped her sleep longer, but I’m still feeling very guilty about it, and feel that I was wrongly influenced. I would not recommend crying it out to anyone. I’m glad that you are sticking to your beliefs, I wish I had been as strong. I hope that my baby girl does not have lasting affects from that ‘bump’ in the road. Thanks for your blog!
I wish i had the same ability to put my thoughts on paper like you do. This post is amazing!
http://www.accustomedchaos.com/2010/05/attachment-parenting-cio-me.html
Your “analogous” reasons for refuting these sleep methods are totally out of left field. Perhaps the reason you cannot appear to actually explain your opposition to the “cry it out” method is that your position is rooted in madness and is wholly illogical.
Sammy Jay:
I have explained my opposition to the “cry it out” method many times. I’m not sure where you got the idea that “I cannot appear to actually explain” my opposition. Maybe you are not prepared to hear it, but I certainly have explained it.
Wholly illogical? I love your sense of humour. Perhaps you could explain your position to the scientific world. All the science I’ve read on this topic in eight years of publishing a parenting newsletter tells me that babies left to ‘cry it out’ encode that experience in their neurology as abandonment. Abandonment is extremely scary for a human being who’s totally dependent on other people for its safety and wellbeing, as all babies are. All the science I’ve read on this topic tells me that babies left to “cry it out” typically stop crying not because they learn to sleep “on schedule” but because they give up hope of being attended to. They stop crying out of despair in other words.
Thousands of years of biological reality – the “human givens” as they’re sometimes called – don’t go away just because certain alleged “parenting experts” have decided that it’s more convenient for our modern society if parents are persuaded that it’s okay to leave a baby to “cry it out”.
Apparently, millions of parents now genuinely do believe that and act accordingly. They’ve been misled.