New crying question

jjmz1127

Let me first clearly state that I have never let LO CIO. It breaks my heart when she cries. I just want to do everything in my power to stop it.

With that out of the way I am just curious about CIO. What is the harm? What's the point in letting LO CIO? And my big question is when you are in a car and LO is screaming and you can't pull over what's the difference in CIO in the car vs the house? I know when you're in the house you are choosing to let baby cry & when you're in the car you don't have a choice but LO doesn't know the difference... I have yet to drive anywhere with her on my own. My husband takes us places and I sit in the back seat with her. She still cries but at least I'm there to try to comfort her.

And again, NOT letting her CIO! Just curious about why this topic is so taboo and what kind of "harm" does it cause the baby.

Zimger

If you are in the car you can still talk to your baby and interact with your voice. They are not left alone to self soothe. You are still interacting with them.

The harm in letting an young infant CIO is that the only thing they learn is that no one is coming to meet their need so why cry. This is not healthy.

cagoldi

It's now understood that letting a young baby cry for extended periods of time unattended leads to an increase in stress hormone levels, cortisol, specifically. They can remain elevated for hours or even days after such an event.

It's called neonatal glucocorticoid neurotoxicity and it literally harms brain cells. Doesn't seem like something you want to risk when your baby is building neural connections at such a rapid rate.

ETA: hit post too soon. Even if they were able to self-soothe, why would you want them to devote any energy to that at this young age? They should be paying attention to the sound of a crackling leaf, how the sun feels on their skin, the color of the sky, etc. rather than trying to calm themselves.

PrimRoseMama

I'll let an expert explain. My bestie @lizabethann06 . CIO is damaging...

chevronseven

Ditto what everyone else has said, but also the crying itself is very physically exhausting. I will admit that when DH was away at Air Force Field Training, I had one night where I just lost it (mostly thanks to an insensitive comment from one of his friends) and threw myself a good old fashioned tantrum for probably an hour. And I felt sick the next day. I hate the way I feel after crying, and for an infant who is still developing it has to be that much worse. And then of course that feeling probably makes them want to cry more....

jjmz1127

Thanks ladies! All this is very helpful. Now I can explain to DH why it's bad for her. I never had an actual reason other than... She's my little sweetheart and I can't let her cry like that!

Shoecrazysarah

cagoldi said:

It's now understood that letting a young baby cry for extended periods of time unattended leads to an increase in stress hormone levels, cortisol, specifically. They can remain elevated for hours or even days after such an event.

It's called neonatal glucocorticoid neurotoxicity and it literally harms brain cells. Doesn't seem like something you want to risk when your baby is building neural connections at such a rapid rate.

ETA: hit post too soon. Even if they were able to self-soothe, why would you want them to devote any energy to that at this young age? They should be paying attention to the sound of a crackling leaf, how the sun feels on their skin, the color of the sky, etc. rather than trying to calm themselves.

I am NOT a fan of CIO. However, I have yet to find any peer-reviewed scholarly articles that prove your above assertions to be true. Do you have any such sources?

I have located one study, in which infants were taken to a sleep lab and allowed to CIO. When Cortisol levels were tested they remained elevated hours/days after they had stopped crying. However, the infants were in the unfamiliar sleep labs the whole time. Therefore, the results are anecdotal at best and really only prove that infants remain atressed when in a unfamiliar environment.