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January 2015 Moms
rachel+family
member
Crying it out
rachel+family
member
So curious. Seeing as starting controversial threads is popular this week: Who plans on doing sleep training with their baby before their 1st birthday? Will it in include letting baby cry it out (alone) or the Ferber method (checking in every 5-10 mins). Or will you just comfort baby when they cry?
We tried sleep training with our son and everyone was miserable that week and it was not a success. He is 14 months and still is not left alone to cry it out. I realize that it is popular and "successful" for some and that's we tried it.
We tried sleep training with our son and everyone was miserable that week and it was not a success. He is 14 months and still is not left alone to cry it out. I realize that it is popular and "successful" for some and that's we tried it.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Crying it out
I know it hurts me more then it does him, so it's not something I like doing. We just put him in his own room, and his own bed since he's been born. If I wasn't expecting, he'd still be in bed with us full time. It's been a hard transition so far, so unfortunately I feel he'll be CIO more then I'd like.
Though with our next I will be less afraid of hearing a baby cry, I don't think we will let her CIO alone.
It's better than shaking a baby obviously, so if you were out of control or need a breather walking away for a minute to collect yourself, I understand.
I just read a little blurb on my feed yesterday that hearing crying can trigger our own stress responses ingrained reactions from how we were made to feel about crying when young. I found that very interesting. I am pretty patient with a crying/overtired baby and can pop it in a carrier and rock it basically forever and I remain pretty calm and collected. (In those moments I realize that I'm offering every comfort in my command just with my presence, arms, and motion.) my parents never did CIO with me either and for the most part I think we were raised with the ability to healthily express our emotions without being made to feel wrong, annoying, etc. My ex could not handle hearing the baby cry and if he failed to calm her he would have to leave the room. Interestingly, that's how his parents handled him, and his only emotion he is/was able to express to get a response without being repressed/abandoned was anger. And that's still his favorite
People would always comment that my daughter would never cry (when she was a toddler and older.) I just always responded to her needs calmy and swiftly.
Baby wearing and bedsharing also prevent a lot of crying and frustration in my experience. The baby wearing all day gives constant motion that they are used to in the womb, and helps get the pent up energy used so that their bodies can fall into sleep. Bedsharing means that milk is there on tap and they can learn to help themselves without having to cry for me. It's my own no-cry sleep solution.
My daughter in particular would still have nights of crying, and I would sometimes get up to rock her to help her body relax, or just rub her while I was still half asleep beside her. I was also personally highly stressed because I was in a bad relationship, which makes the situation worse.
Remaining the calm one is key to not feeling frustrated. Sometimes you are doing everything and they are just screaming, and you have to "let go" of trying to 'fix it' and just offer your physical presence/comfort while he/she just expresses what we can't understand. Some people (usually old people,) said that I would "spoil" them by always holding the babies, not putting them down while they were crying. Well, If raising confident, emotionally-healthy children is spoiling, then sure lol. Honestly, having a coparent (my ex) who had no patience and couldn't handle any amount of crying without becoming visibly agitated (or withdrawing completely,) was far more stressful to me than the baby crying, because I felt alone. He told me to stick her in her bassinet/crib and close the door. That felt wrong to ever fibre of my being, and he also was making ME feel like I was wrong too, so it was just a very lonely time for me emotionally, sometimes id be crying myself while rocking her alone in our bedroom.
Anyway, by the time I had my second baby, I was infinitely more confident, could better articulate what I wanted for myself (and baby) rather than struggle to describe why it was so important. It helps that my DH is a gentle and patient person with high emotional intelligence, and was very supportive in doing things my way (attachment parenting style) and supporting me 1000. Since he was new to this. The difference that made to me mentally was night and day.
We never did hardcore sleep training either, I'd go soothe her if she woke at night, until she slowly learned to soothe herself. We lucked out with her. I'm interested to see how this baby will be.
I didn't think about it until @Stargirlb brought it up, but interestingly, I came from a household where my parents didn't talk about feelings or show emotion much, and my FIL gave me a hug and told me he loved me the first time we met. They are like Greg's parents on Meet the Parents/Fockers.
Anyway, we did a graduated method of CIO where we checked on DS every 5-10 minutes around 8 months, and that seemed to work. He's 21 months now and sleeps through the night consistently. He still doesn't really like going to bed though.
How can you tell a one or two month old when to be tired or hungry?
My last one fell into his own patterns but I wouldn't call it a schedule.
I strongly believe in feeding anytime baby has hunger cues!
I forgot to mention in my first post that my son is 7 months old and sleeps through the night most of the time and I've never used CIO.
With DS1, he literally would not sleep without me next to him for all naps (!!) And bedtime (we bed shared). I could not get him to sleep solo no matter what I tried. Eventually he would go to sleep in the swing, and man those two hours detached from his side were bliss!! Then after he got too big for the swing he would only sleep alone in the infant car seat...but we had to walk him to sleep while carrying the car seat...which became very heavy after weeks of doing this. We both had severe calluses on our hands. Also, he only ever slept for 2-3 hours at a time ever, including overnight.
Around 9 months old I broke down. I needed sleep. So we started ferber (I guess it was Ferber?), we let him cry for 5 minutes at a time, and tried longer and longer. Every time I went in to check in him it seemed to just upset him more. Clearly this wasn't working. Finally we decided to full on cry it out, left him for a good half hour. It broke my heart but I was exhausted. After only two nights my little man was putting himself to sleep in the crib and after only a few weeks he was STTN.
Baby #2 will not have the luxury of napping with me because DS1 will be home with us. So she will have to learn how to nap solo much sooner!
Edit to add: you also know the different type of cries. I will never let him full on panic cry. I do everything in my power to make sure he never cries but again every kid is different and he needed a little push to be able to sleep alone in the beginning. He only cries now if he has a reason, even if I can't sometimes figure out that reason, I will always quickly run in to offer comfort and sympathy.
TLDR we didn't plan on CIO but you have to do what works for your family and each individual child. Be flexible and respond to what works for your baby.
I'm not sure if we will do CIO with this baby or not. Totally depends on the baby and temperment.
as soon as DS was old enough to climb out of his crib we transitioned him to a bed. we still lay with him until he falls asleep at nap/bed time and sneak out. He doesn't cry in the middle if the night when he wakes up, he just walks to our room and wakes me up and I put him in bed with us.
When we're on vacation he sleeps in bed with us so it seemed like a natural progression. Not sure how this bed will fit two adults and two toddlers but I can't wait to try!
If we need to sleep train again, we'll start with the same method, again around six months.
Oh, but NOW...he's such a pain. No really, he's a chill 4 year old.
As I said, not all methods work for all babies and not every method works for all parents. I don't believe that choosing any sleeping strategy will do damage to a child - co-sleeping doesn't create dependency and CIO does not lead to abandonment issues. All a sleep method helps with is sleep.
Does a schedule benefit the baby? Not as much as it does the parent. But I'm the parent and if I need baby to wake up at 6:30am so I can take them to daycare so I can go to work? Guess who's waking up.
You might not believe it, but there is evidence that cry it out is harmful to babies.
The fact is that caregivers who habitually respond to the needs of the baby before the baby gets distressed, preventing crying, are more likely to have children who are independent than the opposite (e.g., Stein & Newcomb, 1994). Soothing care is best from the outset. Once patterns of distress get established, it's much harder to change them.
Rats are often used to study how mammalian brains work and many effects are similar in human brains. In studies of rats with high or low nurturing mothers, there is a critical period for turning on genes that control anxiety for the rest of life. If in the first 10 days of life you have a low nurturing rat mother (the equivalent of the first 6 months of life in a human), the gene never gets turned on and the rat is anxious towards new situations for the rest of its life, unless drugs are administered to alleviate the anxiety. These researchers say that there are hundreds of genes affected by nurturance. Similar mechanisms are found in human brains--caregiver behavior matters for turning genes on and off. (See work of Michael Meaney and colleagues; e. g., Meaney, 2001)."
More here
https://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out
"What does 'crying it out' actually do to the baby and to the dyad?
Neuronal interconnections are damaged. When the baby is greatly distressed,it creates conditions for damge to synapses, the network construction which is ongoing in the infant brain. The hormone cortisol is released. In excess, it's a neuron killer but its consequences many not be apparent immediately (Thomas et al. 2007). A full-term baby (40-42 weeks), with only 25% of its brain developed, is undergoing rapid brain growth. The brain grows on average three times as large by the end of the first year (and head size growth in the first year is a sign of intelligence, e.g., Gale et al., 2006). Who knows what neurons are not being connected or being wiped out during times of extreme stress? What deficits might show up years later from such regular distressful experience? (See my addendum below.)
Disordered stress reactivity can be established as a pattern for life not only in the brain with the stress response system (Bremmer et al, 1998), but also in the body through the vagus nerve, a nerve that affects functioning in multiple systems (e.g., digestion). For example, prolonged distress in early life, lack of responsive parenting, can result in a poorly functioning vagus nerve, which is related to various disorders as irritable bowel syndrome (Stam et al, 1997). See more about how early stress is toxic for lifelong health from the recent Harvard report, The Foundations of Lifelong Health are Built in Early Childhood).
Self-regulation is undermined. The baby is absolutely dependent on caregivers for learning how to self-regulate. Responsive care---meeting the baby's needs before he gets distressed---tunes the body and brain up for calmness. When a baby gets scared and a parent holds and comforts him, the baby builds expectations for soothing, which get integrated into the ability to self comfort. Babies don't self-comfort in isolation. If they are left to cry alone, they learn to shut down in face of extensive distress--stop growing, stop feeling, stop trusting (Henry & Wang, 1998)."