Cry it out - I feel like crying!

allthingsblue

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 8:27 pm

amother [ Silver ] wrote:

I wonder what would happen if I would argue the same for spanking as a discipline method? After all, most of us were spanked and turned out fine, and many would argue that it's not harmful and can actually be beneficial.

(I personally do sleep train, but not CIO. I use Elizabeth Pantley's book.)

BTW, I have no idea why you would rely on a pediatrician for PARENTING advice. They may be experts on the medical side, but know less about toilet training and sleep training methods than most mothers.

My pediatrician actually gives great parenting advice. Like last time I was there, he told me it's important to give kids choices whenever possible (he told my dc "should I check this ear first or this ear first?"). And he's full of other tips too. He's an advocate of CIO when it's necessary (baby old enough, and mom is sure baby is not hungry wet or sick).

Learning

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 8:28 pm

tichellady wrote:

There is lots of research on this saying that sleep training is not harmful and can actually be beneficial . Not all children need to be sleep trained and not everyone needs to do it but for some families it’s imperative. Let everyone talk to their pediatrician and make their own decisions.

I never heard of such a research. I heard about research that proved that it is harmful. Rabbi noach orlowek shlita said that it can affect the child's trust in his mother and in humanity if left to cio before the age when he/she is old enough to underastnd that out of sight is not
gone forever. ie, before about 11 months old he said.

amother

Yellow

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 8:39 pm

blueberry6 wrote:

Wow, now I feel really heartless. Guess I'm not getting any help here...
For all those who are wondering, I did some research and I spoke to a few people (including my mother! who is one of the most wonderful, NOT heartless people I know) ... based on that this does seem to be an accepted method, AND the right age to start doing it.
I fed her a few times before I put her in so she shouldn't be hungry. She's slept through the night before without an issue, it just was never consistent - so that's what I'm aiming for. And I wasn't ignoring her for 40 minutes! I went in a few times to talk to her, and the crying was on and off anyway.
I'm just trying to establish a routine here, that's all.
Thanks anyway, ladies.

You sound like a caring mom. CIO is very outdated and it makes sense that your mother thought it’s a good idea. We have more knowledge about attachment nowadays and our parents didn’t really have that knowledge and concept. I think CIO is a terrible thing to do to a fragile baby. ( obviously you will have the staunch proponents of CIO disagree, and that is ok) If you want your baby to sleep and want to use a more gentle method, read “ The No Cry To Sleep Solution “ by Elizabeth Pantley.
Good luck!

amother

Lavender

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 8:54 pm

I’m not saying I advocate this, but just as a comment to all those saying it causes attachment issues, I will say that I probably let my children cry a lot longer than I should have as a young mother because I didn’t know better. And bh we have very healthy attachment and are very close and have an amazing relationship (they are teenagers). Knowing what I know now I would likely do things differently. But I don’t think this one thing in itself is what causes attachment issues. For those so concerned about attachment, I wonder if you continue to work on that healthy attachment throughout their life.

miami85

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:05 pm

Some kids are just harder about separating than other. Most of my kids would just cry a few minutes and be asleep. Then along came my 4th child. WOULD NOT SLEEP WITHOUT ME. We tried EVERYTHING--wrapping myself in a receiving blanket and placing it in the bassinet for my scent, pacifiers, inclining the bassinet due to reflux, lovies, moving him out of my room, letting him cry etc. nothing helped. He just wanted me. Then we were on a trip and in a situation where I couldn't do anything for him and I knew he shouldn't have been hungry, it took him an hour, but he did finally fall asleep. After that point he was MUCH better at self-soothing and for the next 10 months he'd cry a little but he'd fall asleep. Now I have my 5th who she's AMAZING about sleeping, but even though she's pretty easy she doesn't LOVE saying good night, and she often cries for a few minutes, but I can think of a few times that I realized that she wasn't ready for sleep, but more often than not she goes to sleep after crying for just a few minutes.
CIO ONLY works if you KNOW that baby needs sleep and nothing else. Nighttime is not the time for playing or cuddling or comfort from mommy. Mommy can show you love all day (except for work times) but night time--Tatty sleeps in Tattys bed, Mommy sleeps in Mommy's bed, each kid in their own bed etc. It's hard, but it has to happen. As an epilogue, my 4th child STILL has sleep and attachment issues whereas my other kids don't. Sometimes its just the personality.

amother

Cerise

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:27 pm

amother [ Silver ] wrote:

I second Elizabeth Pantley's book. It's a much more gentle method. I absolutely don't believe in CIO. It's harsh and cruel. Your baby has no idea if she'll ever see you again. At that age, the cognitive level is out of sight, out of mind. Forever, as far as she's concerned. Please rethink your method.

tichellady

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:31 pm

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

This book didn’t work for my child at all! If it worked for your kid, you are very lucky and really shouldn’t be commenting on other people’s methods since you have a naturally good sleeper. I think many of the people who are so against sleep training didn’t have a child who didn’t sleep. I was Actually against sleep training until I realized it was dangerous for me to continue without making a big change

amother

Silver

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:35 pm

tichellady wrote:

That's like saying, "Regular therapy didn't work for my kid. He had to be taken into the psych ward against his will to help him. So therefore taking kids to the psychiatric unit of the local hospital should be considered an appropriate first line parenting technique."

Yes, there are times we need to let kids CIO. There are also times where a mother must leave a newborn baby for several days at a time, where a parent must hit their child, and where a child must have access to food restricted. That doesn't make them good parenting, absent the extreme circumstances that made them the only viable option.

(ETA: Although I think saying that OP needs to ask mechilah is extreme and hurtful. We all make poor parenting decisions at one time or another, as part of doing our best. I don't know if CIO is the only thing that will work for OP, but I have full faith that she is doing her best to be a good mother and that she cares wholeheartedly for her child. I personally disagree that CIO should be the first method attempted for sleep training, there are gentler ways that work for the majority of babies.)

imorethanamother

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:39 pm

amother [ Silver ] wrote:

Once again. Science says the baby will be fine. I found four different peer-reviewed journal articles that discuss how it’s fine. Can everyone stop interfering?

I challenge you to come to my house and tell me which of my kids I let CIO and which I didn’t.

lilies

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:43 pm

amother [ Lavender ] wrote:

A person can only do as much as they know. It's only an issue when you do know better but don't act upon your better knowledge.

Yes! And there can be lots of damage to be undone.

amother

Silver

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:46 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

It's not that CIO will guaranteed destroy your child's attachment, but that it increases the challenges to secure attachment. As with a majority of polarizing issues (including formula etc.) most kids will be fine, some won't. Most "recommendations" are just ways of stacking the odds better. It's just a matter of what level of risk you find acceptable.

imorethanamother

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:52 pm

amother [ Yellow ] wrote:

If you read the OPs original post, she mentions all the Elizabeth Pantley recommendations that she’d already tried and it didn’t work.

Just looking at the book on Amazon, and this is my favorite review, and very spot on:

Quote:

My wife and I call this book The Wishful Thinking Solution.
This book simply will not help your kid sleep, although it may entertain your brain thinking it does until he is 2 or 3 years old and learns by himself (yes, eventually they are exhausted enough and they learn).
I decided to write the review because I feel that this type of book takes advantage of first time parents, their fears and insecurities, and tries to guilt mothers into the type of thinking "the bigger the pain the better the mothering". I understand if you do not want your child to cry, and if that works for you and your family, go and do whatever you have to do, but do not think that following these methods your child will learn to sleep. He will not, although in the meantime enough time may pass that some children will get to sleep consolidation.

50% of this book is spent telling you this methods will work, 30% telling you to ignore all science and studies existing on baby sleep, 20% name-dropping Dr.Sears and telling you that she has read all his books, and the 10% devoted to the methods are essentially telling you to tease your kid with the same things your are probably doing, but removing them the moment he seems asleep in the hopes that he will be exhausted enough after all the night-wakings not to notice. Oh, yeah, and never ever let your kid cry or calm himself, that is cruel.

tichellady

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:56 pm

amother [ Silver ] wrote:

??? I don’t understand how you are comparing cio to hitting a child And withholding food. I really don’t. Sometimes I feel like I’m living on a different planet from other posters on this site. This is one of those moments. I did a lot of research on cio and according to all current research it is totally safe . Sometimes I wish my parents did it for me since I was a terrible sleeper as a baby and toddler and I think I had health ramifications as a child from being sleep deprived.

tichellady

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 9:57 pm

amother [ Silver ] wrote:

What are you basing this on?

Frumme

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 10:25 pm

Learning wrote:

Don’t do it. Babies are human beings with neshamas. Would you like to scream in the dark for hours in a strange new world? Eventually they give up on you coming and on the world. It’s not even allowed by Halacha. Chazal said that a mother that lets gamer baby cry with no reason is going to pay for it. Teaching the baby to sleep is not a reason. Running from a burning house is a reason. There is no teaching to sleep. Sleeping is a natural instinct that hashem put in us. Ask for mechila and hashem is going to forgive you on yom kipur.

This is a very cruel and hurtful comment.

If we knew something like OP is extremely sleep deprived, or has PPD-- would you still have posted this? We have no idea of her motivations for sleep training and it's inappropriate to make assumptions like she is letting her baby "cry for no reason." Her reason could very well be she has to take care of her own health. A well rested mother is certainly much better than a sleep deprived one.

amother

Babypink

Fri, Sep 25 2020, 4:55 am

blueberry6 wrote:

I need some reassurance.
I'm trying to sleep train my baby (almost 6 months) ... past 2-3 nights I started trying to implement a routine, bath, pajamas, story, shema, etc, then put her in the crib and gave her a kiss and said "good night, mommy loves you" and left. She cried for a bit... not more than like 10 min... but eventually fell asleep and slept till the morning ( Very Happy

It was amazing! I SLEPT). Once I had to go in to calm her down.
Tonight she's been crying for much longer. It's already 40 min and I went in twice already. She def seems tired but maybe there's something I'm missing? I don't think she's hungry...
As I'm writing this she seems to have quieted down BH... but I just need to know that I'm not being an awful mother. Maybe something's bothering her and that's why she was crying for so much longer? It's so hard to hear her screaming Crying

And for those of you who's done this, is it supposed to work like this? Like amazing for a couple of nights but then to sort of regress? I mean... 40 minutes? I can't

I had a friend who did "crying it out" or "self-soothing" or something like this and the result was that the children would make a huge fuss BEFORE going to bed, because they knew nothing would help them once they were in bed.

Also, the first children with whom she did this had a very bad connection to their mother later in life.

Crying it out is not the "miracle cure" they promise you.

Science says that you should not let a baby cry for a longer period of time, until the baby understands it's not worthwhile crying and stops... This could cause attachment disorders.

What you can do is teach your child a little bit of patience, that is in general wait a few seconds before you pick up, or react with your voice first, and wait a bit for the rest...

So it could be that children who progressively learned to be a bit patient are better at self-soothing when they wake up during the night...

But don't do 10 minutes crying, and kal vachomer not 40 minutes...