Crying it out posts---moved out of stickied thread

[MrsMoon880]

I am so glad this came up...I knew in my heart letting my baby cry it out wasn't right but everyone kept saying I had to do it! Thank you so much for the articles.

[bec]

Originally Posted by MrsMoon880

I am so glad this came up...I knew in my heart letting my baby cry it out wasn't right but everyone kept saying I had to do it! Thank you so much for the articles.

Good for you! Your baby is only going to be little for such a short amount of time. Hold her while you can!


Bec

[kylewilliamsmom]

Thank you so much for taking the time to compile this information and making it available. I really appreciate it.

[SabraMamma]

Thanks for the links to the articles. I can not let my baby CIO even though so many people, including my own mother, wish that I would. However, it seems as though by age 9 months my DS should be sleeping for longer stretches than he does. He used to sleep much longer at a much younger age. He wakes soooo frequently now. Any articles on nightfeeding and nightwaking at older ages- as opposed to infants??

[SabraMamma]

Thanks Raven. I am printing them to read later.

[madsandandy]

thanks for all of these links...i've went thru and bookmarked them all so i can send them to friends as needed or show them to dh next time he says we should let ds CIO.

beth

[littleteapot]

Quillian -




I added almost all of those to my massive set of bookmarks - some I'd never seen before! Great links. Some don't seem to work, though.

[bird song]

thank you all

I have been looking for guidance on this topic. thanks for all the references.

[dswmom]

These are awesome! Thanks for all the work that went into this

Do any of you find yourself wanting to take these articles with you everywhere you go and hand them out to momma's who mention anything about CIO???!!! Ok, good. I was hoping I wasn't the only one obsessed with educating people about this.

[medaroge]

Thank you

A big thank you to you!
My husband and I were firm in our thoughts that we would not let our son cry it out. However, now that he is 4 months, my husband thinks it is time for him to start crying it out!

[jempd]

Wow, a veritable link-o-rama. Impressive when you see it in bulk.

This fall, just before Halloween, I was out at dinner at a restaurant with dh, his parents, and his two sisters to celebrate a couple of family birthdays. SIL1 had had a baby in July and SIL2 has a 19-month-old. They began talking to each other re: sleep training and SIL1 said, Oh I think she's ready to begin sleep training now. I sat there perplexed and upset as to what to say or do. Dh has a strong desire to avoid conflict in his family and to make him happy I try to comply (also I want to please and get along with everyone) but then I thought of my poor niece, only 3 and half months old. She's never breastfed. So I excused myself abruptly and went to the bathroom. I wish I had read a lot of these links just before so that I could quote from them and then send them to her the next day. They would certainly have viewed it is pushy and weird, but they think that of me anyway. (Got into fairlyheated attachment-parenting-related argument with MIL already.) At least I would have felt SOMEONE stuck up for that baby, even if it didn't accomplish anything. Next time something like this happens, I'm going to do exactly that.

[richella]

Couldn't you still send the links to her anyway?
I only read a couple of the articles, but it gives me chills to think about a baby crying alone without comfort . . . .

[Kate522]

Sleep

I don't remember where I read this. Maybe it was from Dr. Sears, but it sure helped me relax about "sleeping through the night" .

No matter what you do, babies/children do not reliably sleep through the night until they are four years old.

Think about that. It's not developmentally appropriate for them to sleep RELIABLY through the night until four. Plus, sleeping through the night is defined as five hours straight through. Heck, I don't sleep reliably through the night. I check the clock, I use the bathroom, I get a drink. There's so much unrealistic pressure on these children. Sigh.

[Belle]

Thank you so much for this thread. I've been co-sleeping and demand feeding and I love it. But everyone I know BF for less than two months and never let their children sleep with them. As soon as she was born people were asking me if she was sleeping through the night yet. I don't get a lot of supporrt for my parenting practices outside of LLL. Before my dd was born my Step-Mom gave me a book called Babywise that she picked up at a garage sale for $1. I left it to collect dust on my shelf for awhile. Last week I was looking for something new to read so I dusted it off and read the first three chapters. That was enough. I threw it in the garbage can. It so plainly stated that everything I was doing was wrong. It didn't have any basis for this other than "common sense". No medcal basis. But it made me doubt myself. I tried to explain the book to my dh and ended up in tears. It upset me so much that other members of my family let their children CIO.

[InochiZo]

Sending a host of these off to my MIL we'll be visiting in a few weeks...

[cinna-mum]

Love this thread...

thanks ladies... more ammo for me!!

[j_thurm]

crying it out

I too don't believe in cry it out but I tried lately as all my advice being given to me was that "I needed to teach my dd how to sleep on her own and that she just needed to cry to do that". Now when I lay my dd in her bed she looks at me panicked and her eyes start darting everywhere because she is afraid I am going to walk out. Because as soon as I walk out she starts to scream. No more of that theory but I really could use some help!

[aliaspice]

Sorry to whine...

But has anyone actually read Solving your Child's Sleep Problems(Dr. Richard Ferber). I have heard lots of people dissing his technique-not necesarily on this site or anything-just a general observation... It is not "crying it out". His method's purpose is to minimize the crying so that baby knows that you are there, he is safe, and you are just outside the door (or across the room). If you read the whole book, not just what you hear, it makes a lot of sense. I would never let my son just "cry it out". You have to be very consistent and follow the guidelines (increasing intervals of time between comforting baby)...he strongly advises against just shutting the door and letting them cry for hours. Anyway, I'm sorry if I've babbled. We luckily haven't had to use the method (yet) and I am reading the book right now, and I feel like he is misunderstood. I know it's worked for a lot of my friend's children, and they are secure, happy children. Who fall right asleep and stay there!

[allgirls]

yes I have read the book and I disagree...in fact in some ways it is even worse than the ones that spout leaving them alone and crying...it makes cio somehow seem ok if it's just a bit at a time etc. etc...regular intervals...and so on...to me just as damaging but more dangerous because parents think "I can do this" whereas they can't do the "cry for as long as it takes method"

[velcromom]

Babies aren't supposed to fall right asleep and stay there. I may have missed it but I didn't see any links to James McKenna's research yet, don't have them on this computer (anyone else have some?) but gives very clear evidance that there are good biological reasons for children to remain easily aroused from sleep during the first two years of life.

Even if there weren't a mountain of evidence that deep prolonged sleep isn't healthy for babies, think of needing help desperately, sobbing, and your partner just standing beside you... doing nothing. No matter what you said or how hard you cried. Would that be soothing? make you feel safe? Why do that to a child?

You can easily find the website for James McKenna's mother-child sleep lab by googling, if I can later I'll add the link if someone else doesn't beat me to it.