take heart - interesting story re: mother who advocates CIO

[poppy'smama]

Thought I would share this with you all as it might give some tired
and fed up mothers hope!


I know a couple of mothers who I met as part of a new mother and baby
group and we still meet up occasionally - we went out for a meal on
friday night and were all talking about babies/sleep etc. We all have
differing ways of parenting, (none of them practise attachment
parenting though, apart from me), but I was being very honest about
DD's current sleeping problems and talking about the steps we'd been
taking to try and improve things. One of the other mother's was
relieved to hear me say this as she 'confessed' that her DS still
woke at 1am very night and came into their bed for the rest of the
night, and she always got him off to sleep in her arms before putting
him down, ( as far as I was aware no-one else in the group co-slept,
and I thought they all thought I was bit 'weird' for doing it, so
this was nice to find out!).

But one of the other mothers was proudly telling us how her dd sleeps
through the night and has done since 8 months. She said it was her
goal as soon as she was born to get her sleeping through the night,
so she put her on a very strict sleeping and eating schedule from day
1 - if she wasn't due her next feed she had to winge and wait, she
said, and she'd wake her if she was sleeping when it was time to take
a feed. And then she just left her to cry in her crib so she would
learn to sleep. (Interesting that despite all this it still took her
8 months to sleep through! This must give everyone on this board
hope.)

The thing is she said that it still takes her at least 20 mins of
crying at every nap and bedtime to go to sleep on her own. And she
then went on to tell us how when she leaves to go to work in the
morning her dd stands and screams at the window, that if she (the
mother) takes a bath dd stands and screams next to the bath, how they
left her at a nursery on holiday and she screamed every day for 2
hours. This sounds like a child that sleeps through the night but one
who is not very happy during the day to me. And the mother always
followed all of these stories with, 'oh she screamed away but she was
fine'. To her, her baby's cries mean nothing.

This has given me renewed impetus and energy to carry on with the
gentle ways of teaching my child to fall asleep with her mother's
help and love so she can be secure when I leave her to go out, or
take a bath, etc. I couldn't imagine becoming like this mother who
registered her child's cries as nothing more than an annoying quirk
rather than a meaningful desperate attempt to communicate her needs.

And it just goes to show CIO doesn't mean the baby necessarily learns
how to fall asleep without tears either!

amy, mama to poppy 14 months (last night I only woke 3 times and fed
only once at 2.45 am, hooray! Down from 12+ wakings a night, feeding sometimes as often as every half hour!)

(p.s we've been doing ncss for 2 months now in conjunction with pu/pd method from baby whisperer and are starting to see real progress)

[perditafoster]

Thanks for that story...very encouraging and unfortunately, soooooo true. My 23 month old niece "sleeps through the night" but I know for a fact that she goes to bed crying and wakes up several times (at least twice) crying during the night. DH and I were staying at DBIL and DSIL's house and heard her crying. Interestingly enough, her parents never, and I mean never, went into her room to comfort her when she cried. Not a single time. In fact, they acted like they didn't even hear her, although we were all sitting in the living room together. I even said something about my niece crying, and they just said, "She'll go back to sleep in a few minutes." DH and I didn't do anything (we don't feel comfortable interfering), but it was sad. Sad that parents can ignore their child to such a degree that a baby's cries don't move them at all, not even to go check on her. Of course, while all this was going on, our dd was running around the living room, up past any reasonable "bedtime," having a blast :) Sometimes it's tough being a nighttime parent, but so worth it. Anything that would make me ignore my baby is absolutely horrible, imo.

[mountain mom]

I wish that these parents could have the forsight to realize that this stage of awaking in the night and needing mom/dad is so short really in the whole game of it all. We are at 28 months now and dd sleeps through the night about 3 out of the 7 nights and the other 4 maybe she wakes about 2 times at most. I really don't notice the difference. She is a trusting calm and patient little girl with great spirit. She rarely screams or has upsets. She is very okay with me leaving for work, even waves out the window and blows kisses before she runs off to play with her friends.

What is established in the family bed applies to all aspects on ones life. The challenges and sacrificies that one makes now only will benefit the family. It is so amazing to see a child thrive in a environment with appropriate levels of learning and developement.

How sad that the mom is your story felt she had to disconnect her child from herself. It is so simbolic of our society in general.
Thanks for sharing.