Sleep training wasn’t the goal putting him in his crib by himself hadn’t crossed my mind till the 4Th night. I wasn’t planning on doing anything but calmly getting him to sleep as I’ve done in the past. By night 4, my only goal was to just get him to calm down for more than 30 seconds at a time. This was only the 2nd time in his life that I’ve seen him even remotely this upset.

Also, the only book we’ve actually read is the No Cry Sleep Solution and got a lot of useful info from it.

We have absolutely no problem with nighttime feedings (as many as necessary) or with doing anything we need to soothe our child. My wife still breastfeeds and functions on very little sleep better than anyone I know. As I mentioned, prior to these nights, we would be with him as he got tired and he would fall asleep either in our arms or on the couch in his room while laying by our side. For the first 8 months my wife nursed him to sleep, but the last two months either of us could be by his side.

This time it was just his reaction to mom not being there and how upset he got. (This did happen once a few weeks ago with our sitter when he got tired earlier than normal and before we got home and screamed for 45 minutes in her arms before passing out). These last few days I literally tried almost everything you mentioned and it just irritated him more and more because mom wasn’t there. (I was even thinking of trying to go outside with him but our street is very busy and bright.) At the end though, he seemed to calm down much quicker and fall asleep quicker when I let him be by himself.

Just to be clear, I’m not arguing for or against CIO. Hopefully we all do what we feel is best for our children. I’m just wandering if anyone else has been in a similar situation and if some form of CIO worked for them or if they found success doing something else. My wife has a lot of evening work up ahead and I want to do anything I can to not have him get so upset night after night. He cried so hard in my arms that he started coughing, gagging and shaking.

“What could you have done differently?”

Many things! It all depends on what your goal is. Are you trying to sleep-train your child? Are you wanting him to learn to settle on his own? Are you just wanting to help him to sleep when your wife isn’t around? Are you wanting to maintain a close, attached, peaceful, empathetic, and responsive relationship at night (the same as you would, I assume, in the day?)

If you’re truly not wanting your child to cry to sleep alone (I wouldn’t want to cry to sleep alone, not knowing when/if my parent would return, and unable to get myself to them, or to fix my situation, or communicate my discomfort effectively), then you can hold him, soothe him as he allows, let him know you hear him, you understand his frustration, and allow him to tire in-arms until he’s ready to settle and/or falls asleep.

Some babies just cry when they fall asleep – but they don’t need to do it alone.

You could try reading a book like The No Cry Sleep Solution or the Baby Sleep Book for some helpful tips at gently helping baby learn to fall asleep without stress or strife.

You can try settling him in his crib (if you feel HE really wants/needs the space) but leave out the specific length of time, and don’t leave him – instead soothe him with your voice, pat his back, hold his hand, and explain why you have him in his crib. Babies hear you & understand more than we often give them credit for.

You can bring him into your bed, cuddle with him, sing to him, comfort him to sleep, then transfer him to his crib.

You can put a mattress on the floor in his room, completely baby-proof the room, settle him on the mattress, then roll away – allowing him to sleep on the mattress without having to disturb his sleep to reposition him.

You can settle him in-arms in a carrier then go about your business around the house until your wife comes home, and then allow baby to reconnect with Mom after work.

Babies are individuals with real needs and feelings – they are just unable to talk and unable to move as we are. They also don’t have the fully developed ability to understand that when their caregiver is gone, they aren’t truly GONE. Sleep isn’t something that needs to be taught – the same as you wouldn’t teach a child how to walk. You just set up the proper environment, offer encouragement, empathy, understanding, and support! Sleep training may “work” in the short-term, but the potential for long-term damage – to baby’s trust, to your emotional connection, even potentially to baby’s physiology – is greater than the perceived gains of sleep-training (which often has to be repeated after baby has been sick, or goes through a growth-spurt, or goes on vacation, etc.).

Babies are only babies for such a short time. There’s never a reason NOT to respond with gentleness and empathy to their cries. Even if it means you’re up more often than you’d like to for the first couple years of your life. It’s worth it.

As a little background, for about 8 of the last 10 months, my wife would nurse our baby to sleep, we then transitioned to just with him on the couch in his room till he fell into deep sleep, sometimes in our arms and sometimes on his own. We would then put him in his crib. He would wake up once or twice a night and my wife would feed him and then he would go back to sleep but would sleep very restlessly the rest of the night. Though we discussed CIO, we never really thought we would do it.

So the first day my wife goes to work in the evening, we played in the evening, went through the bedtime routine but as soon as he started getting tired, he started crying and within minutes it turned into uncontrollable crying and outright screaming. No matter what I tried to do, holding, bouncing, hugging, rocking, walking, nothing stopped the screaming for more than a minute or two. Eventually he passed out in my arms from exhaustion after almost an hour of screaming, with coughing fits and gasps for air. Even though I knew nothing was wrong other than him missing his mom, it is still very exhausting.

Next evening, tried for an earlier bedtime, same thing occurred. Third evening, later bedtime, more playing around, laughing and crawling all over the apartment, but come bedtime as soon as I brought him into his room, the screaming started almost instantaneously.

So on the forth night I decided that if he is already screaming for an hour at a time, let me just put him in his crib for a bit. I never read the CIO books, but a few friends told me about the 5 min, 10 min, 20 min routines and I figured I’d give it a shot. Ends up he fell asleep standing up in the middle of the 20 minute round. It was definitely tearing me up having to hear him scream without at least trying to soothe him somehow but he screamed for a lot less than when I was actually holding him. The next night he fell asleep after only 6 minutes.

Tonight was the third night. He cried for a lot longer than on the 2nd night but most of the time it was more of the complaining cry than the actual screaming. That’s how I found this blog, trying to find some advice while the baby was crying.

So without setting off a new wave of angry discussion, any suggestions on what I could have done differently? It seems like leaving him in the crib worked better since he got more worked up being held by me than by being in his crib alone (or at least he got tired much more quickly), but maybe I was doing something obviously wrong? If tonight he had gone to sleep as easily as yesterday, I probably wouldn’t be writing this.

My problem is that the language you use, in this case the analogies you draw, imply that the Ferber method is something harmful or immoral, when there is no evidence that it is either one of these things. You draw analogies to BPA in bottles, drunk driving, investment fraud, and eating disorders, to name a few. You also say that there are other alternatives that are “less likely to be damaging” when you have no evidence that the Ferber method is damaging in any way (I’ve looked at your references, and there are none that indicate any studies about the specific effects of sleep training.) This kind of language IS divisive, and it encourages the kinds of derogatory comments about “cry it out parents” that populate the comments of this post.

A lot of parents here like to encourage us to “use our instincts.” My instincts told me that my daughter was experiencing disrupted sleep patterns following previous more restful sleep, likely due to developmental changes and traveling across time zones. My instincts told me that she was not getting comfort out of co-sleeping as a solution. My instincts told me that her disrupted sleep patterns were having a negative impact on her quality of life during the day. My instincts told me that her capacity to self-soothe was imminent and emergent, and just needed gentle encouragement in that direction. And my instincts were right.

I understand this is your blog, and I am just a guest. But as someone who lived in a highly “attachment parenting” oriented community, I saw these types of conversations divide very good and very loving parents unnecessarily, again and again, and it really gets under my skin. I posted to voice a new perspective that perhaps has been left out in this environment, but I would never expect you to actively endorse things that you don’t like.

Thanks for providing a forum for discussion.

This wasn’t a divisive post designed to get blog traffic. It was a response to people who kept asking me to add Weissbluth’s book to my list of recommended books. You (and Sarah and everyone else) are welcome to your own opinions on this issue, but this is my blog and I don’t need to recommend books that include recommendations and techniques that I am not comfortable with.

By your team I just meant that I agree with you on all points, and support your parenting style, I ‘m on team ‘support a parent’ not ‘judge a parent’. Parenting is not easy, especially when you feel like what your instincts are telling you would be judged by outsiders. This is just one of those issues that unless you lived in another family’s shoes (or slippers in this case) you just don’t have any idea. Only you and your husband know what is best for your child, children, family. Only my husband and I know what is best for mine.

Just a little background on my situation is that we had a severely colicky baby who ended up getting chiropractic treatments at almost 5 months. He had a hiatal hernia and severe cord tension. I don’t recommend it for everyone, but we were out of options at that point. When your baby is rarely happy and always seems uncomfortable and can’t relax you try everything. After three sessions over three weeks Jax was a new boy. You could see his relaxation and comfort in his tummy visibly. He is still hard to get to relax, but we are working on it. He is now a very ‘chill’ baby, and people always say how happy and smiley he is, and ask if he ever cries. Ha! There was plenty of crying but now that he has learned to sleep he can go on with his life. And if we had to do that by letting him cry a bit after exhausting all of our options, then I’m sorry if someone wants to judge our decisions.

It’s important to note that cry-it-out has multiple meanings to multiple people. Alright, I’m done commenting on this. I promise! This post has always bothered me in it’s absoluteness. But I am now more confident in my parenting so I appreciate it as a divisive post as a way to get some blog traffic.

Does it? Perhaps I missed that part. Are you sure you didn’t just make that up?

Bob – Yes, that is correct. I believe that co-sleeping is not automatically better for every baby, every parent, and in all circumstances. I’m sorry if the fact that I have had a different experience from you offends you. Please see my above comment on why this issue gets under my skin. Hopefully it will resolve some things. Good night.

I think the issue of sleep training is incredibly and unnecessarily divisive, as it divides parents who should be united in the mutual cause of doing everything they can for their children’s well-being. I can understand having a strong feeling for your own children one way or another, but in an echo chamber, these opinions can turn into some of the comments that pop up in a thread like this, that parents who use Ferber are “selfish,” “cruel,” or “ignore their baby’s needs.” In reality you are creating ill-will between good parents, who have in common the TRULY important aspects of caring for their children. I suppose this is nothing new in the history of parenting, but it still bothers me.

Every baby is different, every parent is different, and every set of circumstances is different. For some parents and/or babies, sleep training just doesn’t work. For some parents and/or babies, co-sleeping just doesn’t work (we tried it with ours – she slept terribly and did not appear to enjoy herself). Yes, trust your instincts, to know yourself and your child and what will work for all of you. Beyond that, there is no evidence that choosing one approach over another will doom your baby to psychological damage.

Your comment, Bob, is an example of the attitude that disturbs me. You seem to imply that the reason this extremely brief window of crying will permanently damage my baby is because it reflects my overall attitude towards my child. This sentiment is what divides communities of loving parents instead of uniting them. For my husband and I, this personal decision, like all of our parenting decisions, was undertaken thoughtfully, compassionately, and with all of our interests in mind. There are a million ways to be a good parent.

If you were less judgmental of my parenting skills, we could have a great conversation about our experiences – from this end, I could tell you of my daughter’s exploits in the baby sling, her bizarre love for seaweed, her “double-boob” nursing habits at 18 months, how well she responds when I explain each step of a process before undertaking it with her, the way that stating the emotions I see her expressing instead of telling her to stop having them seems to soothe and validate her. The way she gives out hugs and kisses and melts everyone in the room.

But instead, you have decided, without evidence, that a brief and transient personal choice I made in raising my child is harmful to her, and reflects my poor attitude towards her needs.

This issue pushes my buttons because being a parent is hard. Being a good parent is hard. We need communities that don’t rely on just reinforcing one’s own beliefs, but welcoming different perspectives. Our desire or ability to meet our children’s needs, and our dedication to them, should not be questioned over an issue like this.