At what age do you let babies cry it out?

Refine

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 8:59 am

Sometimes it's that they are babies and don't know how to do it since they've never done it before and need some time to figure it out which may not be comfortable for them.
You pick up newborns as soon as they whimper because they are so dependant on us. They can't burp on their own. They can't eat enough to stay full for more than three hours. They can't move into a more comfortable position.
Eventually they become more independent but the adults are now their pillow in order for them to have a comfortable sleep. If someone took away my pillow, it would take me a couple of nights to adjust. I wouldn't either be happy at first, but in the baby's case it enables him to get the full sleep they need.

Or real life may be more interesting (they've discovered crawling, or love interacting with people) than the boring bed (issue may persist into adulthood), and parents need to set a bedtime against baby's approval. Some children have more determined personalities, a trait that will serve them well in adulthood if they have healthy leadership from the adults in their life.

Welcome to parenthood.

banana123

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 9:14 am

Refine wrote:

No. At some point the adults are no longer comfortable pillows and the baby wants to sleep flat and have space to move.

And there's no reason to pick the baby up at every whimper. Go over quietly and observe. Maybe the baby needs you and maybe not. If you pick up your baby at every whimper you may be waking your baby up instead of letting them fart and continue sleeping.

The boring bed issue is learned and depends a lot on what message the adults are giving them.

Ora in town

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 9:26 am

nchr wrote:

You DHs point is irrelevant because cry it out is not the problem with orphanages.

It teaches them to self sooth, trust parents, sleep well, make decisions, etc. Plus it develops better sleeping habits later in life.

Not being heard when crying is the problem with bad orphanages... and leaves long-lasting marks...

Now you are right that not always picking the child immediatly is not like letting them starve and in their feces and almost without human interaction...

On the other hand, your prognostics that CIO teaches them forever to have better sleep habits, is not true either...

banana123

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 9:29 am

Ora in town wrote:

A good orphanage doesn't let children starve in their feces and does provide human interaction. But even if they hear the crying, they will never be able to answer each cry when the baby needs them.

And it leaves long-lasting marks, as you said, that are less dependent on how bad or good an orphanage is and more dependent on the fact that the child is in an orphanage in the first place.

banana123

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 9:37 am

nchr wrote:

Oh? So what exactly is the problem with orphanages? A good orphanage, that provides nutritious meals and human interaction and proper stimulation, how come those kids are still not top of the world?

After all, if the orphanage is well-staffed and high quality, all that's missing is immediate response to the cries, and not responding immediately to crying teaches children to self-soothe and trust caregivers, sleep well, and make decisions, and develops better sleeping habits. So why don't we see those kids doing better than their parent-raised peers?

Kiwi13

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 9:39 am

Once again, I’m starting off by saying I’m not a fan of CIO. Now that that’s out of the way...

With all due respect to posters who believe CIO harmed their children and say that the effects showed up years later, I find that to be extremely unlikely. A much more feasible explanation is that either there was much more involved than CIO alone (like, much, MUCH more in terms of attachment and neglect issues), or it’s possible (probable) that the issues aren’t because of CIO at all.

It’s scary not to know why your child is struggling, and as mothers we want to understand so we can help. Hashem made babies and young children extremely resilient. A few nights of CIO within the context of an otherwise loving, secure relationship with parent(s) is NOT an earth shattering trauma. It’s just not.

Babies are real people, like a poster said on page 1. They have real feelings just like adults do. What they DON’T have is years and years of baggage that interfere or “trigger” them into interpreting CIO as anything more than it is.

Kiwi13

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 9:40 am

banana123 wrote:

Lack of primary caregiver leads to attachment issues. Doesn’t matter how loving the series of stand-ins are.

notshanarishona

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 9:41 am

So much judgment on this thread. It’s funny because I was mom shamed by my pediatrician for not doing cry it out and letting my baby wake up 5-7 x a night. Eventually we did do sleep training but with a coach - we used Batya Sherizen- Batya the Baby Coach. There was some crying but we were soothing him through out and now he does know how to self sooth more .
There is no one right or wrong method. There are so many factors such as the babies age, how bad his sleep is and how that’s affecting the family, how the mom is functioning, ppd, etc . At the end of the day sleep is important for the babies, it’s not just about the mom’s health although that is also important. Every one needs to do what it takes within reasonable limits to keep themselves and their baby sleeping.
Their is also a difference between sleep training a baby who wakes up once or twice a night (which is normal!) and one who wakes up every 2 hours (which is not healthy!) .

FranticFrummie

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 10:00 am

notshanarishona wrote:

Just to give an example of what my son’s feeding schedule looked like until 6 months, I would pump for 30 minutes every 3 hours, then wash and put all the parts in the sterilizer; my husband would feed him or gavage it in the feeding tube depending on how hungry he was (this whole process took roughly 1.5 hours and then we has 1-1.5 hours until he would wake up again. I do believe there has to be a line drawn somewhere if the mom is not functional , obviously we waited until doctor allowed hut people will do anything to get sleep.

Wow, that's intense. Kol ha Kavod to you for working so hard!

Frumme

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 10:19 am

amother [ Tan ] wrote:

This is insane.
Do you know how long 5 minutes is for a baby?
Never mind 10!
And never mind a little baby who doesn’t understand yet.

This is cruel.
1-2 min AT MOST!

Have you ever tried to sleep when someone keeps coming into the room every 2 minutes? It doesn't work. Most people, children included, take 5-10 minutes to fall asleep. If you come in every 1-2 minutes, baby is not going to be able to sleep. Now that is cruel.

And by the way, at 8-9 months, they do understand, because that's when, developmentally, they have learned that they can protest cry (as opposed to a hungry or dirty cry). I didn't feel comfortable doing it earlier.

By the way, this is coming from someone who co-sleeps (I take her into the bed when she wakes up in the middle of the night, since she doesn't generally STTN yet), is still nursing her toddler, and wore a baby wrap or carrier almost religiously for 13 months. There is plenty of love and affection going around. If letting her CIO for 5-10 minutes at a time for 3 nights to ensure she gets her much needed rest is what makes me a "bad mother," I'll take it. Thanks.

banana123

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 10:32 am

Kiwi13 wrote:

And sometimes there is nothing more than CIO - not during infancy and not later in life.

I find this discussion somewhat amusing. There are so many parents who only notice developmental delays when the child is already 2, 3, or 4 years old - usually because the delay is not an obvious, gross motor delay. But just because the parents only noticed the delay at a later age, doesn't mean it wasn't there from the beginning.

And the effects of insecure or disordered attachment are also often overlooked. The people trained to spot those issues are not usually called in unless someone reports an issue, or the family participates in a study.

Many, if not most, of the signs of insecure attachment are usually understood by parents to be caused by the child being "a difficult baby" or "very needy." We pass them off as normal stages of development. And that's what they look like to the untrained eye: Only someone with experience who can put two and two together will realize that there is an issue there, and it's not just "being a baby." And because so many children experience this kind of trauma, and so many babies exhibit these behaviors even in an extreme fashion, we no longer see it as anything other than "normal." The very extreme images that we all imagine when we think of insecurely attached infants are generally very rare.

Yes - the human race in general is extremely resilient. But not all people grow up emotionally healthy. Just because a child has an attachment disorder doesn't mean that child won't have children or make sure they stay alive to have their own children.

Babies may not be able to interpret CIO as "anything more than it is" but what it is, at its core, is "I need my parent, my parent is not coming." And in babies who do not yet have permanence, that translates into "my parent is gone, I'm all alone in the world, waahhhhh." After babies have permanence, they know the parent still exists and can come back. But they also know that the parent isn't coming, and they're not yet mature enough to understand why.

banana123

Fri, Jun 19 2020, 10:34 am

Frumme wrote:

What does coming into the room every 2 minutes when a child is sleeping have to do with CIO?