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What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

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Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#81
post #8

Co-sleeping has much more of a basis in human history. The challenge is transitioning.

My wife and I co-sleep with our kids (2 & 4). I get just about a full sleep every night. If the kids wake up I imagine it's much less work to roll over and cuddle with them as opposed to getting out of bed, going to a separate room and then comforting them. Co-sleeping gets bonus points for giving me just a little extra sweet time with my kids, because before I know it they will be older and wanting their own space.…

Forgive me here; I'm approaching this from a place of ignorance and curiosity, and I hope I don't overstep any personal boundaries - both for you and myself!

My wife and I had many reasons for why we ultimately chose not to co-sleep. One of those reasons was our sex life. I don't pretend to know what the "norm"/average is, but it's frequent for us, 3-4 times per week, and at the risk of TMI, it can be fairly... involved. We know a few couples who co-sleep and I've always been curious how, or hell, even if, it has impacted their sexual relationships. Clearly it works for them (and you) and that's great! I would just be interested, if you're comfortable sharing, to hear what your experience has been here.

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#82
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as long as it works well for the family? It's easier for the family when the child is in the room with the parents. At least in the same way it is easier to have a master bathroom rather than one on the other side of the house. > is it an "obsession" or simply a cultural difference? It was an imposed cultural difference. American parents were told they would hurt their children if they slept in the same room with t…

SIDS data shows a (relatively) high occurrence of kids dying by having parents roll over on them, or them getting entrapped/suffocated in bedding. In traditional cultures, this usually gets covered up. Additionally, it’s much harder for the parents or kids to get consistent sleep (often already causing a lot of difficulties during this time), when toddler age kids are in the same area, due to differing schedules. In…

As far as I'm aware, rolling over and suffocating is NOT SIDS. With SIDS, the cause is undetermined.

This is also a weird presumption: go to bed when the kids go to sleep and wake up early. You get the same amount of sleep and a free morning.

> SIDS: A disorder marked by the sudden and unexpected death of a healthy child who is younger than one year old, usually during sleep. The cause of sudden infant death syndrome is not known. Also called crib death and SIDS

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#83
post #59
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you and your spouse are of healthy weight and the mother breastfeeds all night and the bed is stripped of heavy bedding and pillows this is unlikely. I wish doctors would give parents this advice because what happens now is that many American parents will cosleep without admitting it and don't know what to do when they engage in it. In many traditional cultures, the baby is breastfed all night and the bed is strip…

In British Columbia, Canada, new mothers are given material that talks about how to co-sleep in a safe manner, just as you say. Ensuring the mother has not had alcohol or drugs, covers and pillows are kept away and that the mother isn’t falling asleep exhausted (easier said than done, but going to bed early and not being up all night are key). Source: new baby last month.

We are in BC but it was still treated poorly: kinda not talked about, poorly represented on news (kid died because family was Co-sleeping!), in the hospital they strictly avoided it. We were lucky with a great prenatal course though.

Made a huge difference, since our baby didn't sleep for more than 1 hour without a human body until she was age 2. Now if she's tired, she naturally fall asleep.

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#84
post #12

I'm more interested in the long-term psychological effects of sleep training and how it affects a child's perception of "secure attachment" [1]. We sleep trained our oldest and did not our youngest and their personalities couldn't be more different. Of course, this may be entirely unrelated, but it's still something my wife and I have wondered about as we've learned more about it. [1] https://www.betterhelp.com/advic…

It's important to understand that the attachment theory was developed to explain why children of drug addicts are so messed up. It was then expanded to children who suffered other kinds of abuse.

When you try to expand attachment theory to try to understand healthy kids in non abusive situations the effect size is usually smaller than the experimental noise.

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#85
post #6

Part of this is that Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. My family immigrated here and no one ever did that. Children sleep with their parents.

I slept with both my babies for maybe two nights. Nights where I slept an hour or less because I would wake with every little sound they made. Then I put them in their own rooms, with a baby monitor set to a reasonable threshold. I got a solid 3-4 hours a night. The babies got fed, cleaned, cuddled etc. Win-win.

This goes away after a few days, it's explained in the Co-sleeping section of the course they should give you: your body is attuning to the baby. That's also how you don't roll over them and how they wake up if it's too hot

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even cats have wildly different personalities so I don't think sleep training human babies have anything to do with their personalities.

Did you sleep train the cats?

That's not necessary. Cats are expert sleepers!

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#87
post #54
post #6

Part of this is that Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. My family immigrated here and no one ever did that. Children sleep with their parents.

> have an obsession I'm so tired of the condescending tone that is usually taken for granted when talking about traditional American culture. Can we please stop this? It's just a cultural difference.

This is what you get when you treat everybody else in the same way, by telling them cosleeping is evil. I'm very bitter of the opposite, we have been taught it's wrong to co-sleep the entire time. Lucky, mother nature gave us some help.

After we co-slept for 3 years with our baby, on the second one they wanted to take the baby off my wife the night in the hospital (baby sleeps on mom's chest). I understand the concern, but this is the second baby, we know the drill.

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#88
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same happens regularly without sleep training too, so ymmv obviously. One thing I will note - if the kid doesn’t sleep and wakes up the adults for years, that impact pretty clearly ruins the adults, and has severe impacts on the kids too.

Haven't slept in ten years, can confirm: am ruined.

[deleted]

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#89
post #5
post #2

[flagged]

>Babies cry for a reason (to get their needs met). Yep. Including, "I woke up and I don't yet know how to put myself back to sleep," which is where "sleep training" helps. I, too, would be curious as someone else asked, if you have children.

Or co-sleeping, where they don't cry before or after

Re: What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

#90
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And SIDS.

Co-sleeping and SIDS data is highly mangled. I will not trust medicine on this. It's just too vague and enough babies have been killed because "sleeping face down is better". If one of the strongest parental instinct is sleeping with your baby, I'll trust mother nature this time. Sorry, I'm particularly bitter about this. We have been pushed away from Co-sleeping due to poor education and when we did, we got from 2 h…

It's mangled because humans are complex. A lot of the risks are from activities or issues that cause sleep problems -- alcohol, drugs, sleep apnea. What is the likelihood that a baby gets smothered? These all factor in. The risk decreases with age.

Co-sleeping, generally, is much more dangerous than sleeping on their own in a proper crib. If it works for you, great. Some people take extraordinary steps to ensure it's safe, like removing pillows or fluffy comforters. It should not be generally recommended though.

Any parent knows that nothing is entirely binary.

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