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What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

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101–110 of 644 posts

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

#101

Didn't sleep train and now our 9yo expects to come to our bed every damned night. Big regret.

We didn't sleep train our daughter - our organisation was pretty messy to be honest - and although she did sleep in another room from a reasonable age, sleep was incredibly patchy and broken for years. Which broke us too! Something clicked when she was around 7.5 years old, and her sleep has been pretty fine since then. I know you say yours is 9, but I write this to hopefully offer some solace that things do change, even if you don't feel like you didn't do the right things. (And which 12-year-old wants to sleep in their parents' bed?! So although it may feel a long way off, it won't last forever...)

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

#102

Didn't sleep train and now our 9yo expects to come to our bed every damned night. Big regret.

This is my fear as well. Coworkers have mentioned similar where their wives co-sleep well into elementary school. I’ve met some of those kids, and they just don’t seem well adjusted — as in, during the day they don’t play by themselves unless a parent is nearby. My wife is in the same camp and just cannot bear our kids (1 and 3) crying, so it sabotages any attempt at training them to be independent at night. I finall…

There are billions of children/people around the world that cosleep/coslept simply because having your own bed/sleeping mat/space is a luxury most do not have.

Kids cosleep in my parents’ villages in their home country because most families are living in a single room, but those kids are out playing all day while their parents work the fields or wherever.

I imagine a relatively recent luxury (by itself) available to relatively few people in the world is not a causal factor in people being “well adjusted”.

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

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree, but I disagree with your statement about being way safe.

Research doesn't account for what happens when baby is in the crib and it doesn't sleep.

So sure, you might have avoided SIDS, but the baby might die because the parent fell asleep while standing with the baby in their arms.

P. S. Again sorry for my tone, I'm super angry for how the entire medicine treats Co-sleeping like a horrific thing

So the research from my perspective is highly insufficient to prove anything.

And yes, you can sleep while standing in the subway, by the way.

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

#104
My wife and I did not sleep trained our kids. They co-slept with us, they were happy we were able to sleep through the night. Eventually they transitioned into their own bed no problem. Our neighbors will let their baby cry like forever, it was excruciating and imo pointless.

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

#105
The silence overwhelmed Mary Carlson when she visited row upon row of swaddled babies in a Romanian orphanage. No babbling, no crying, not even a whimper.

``The children are just lying there. You don’t hear crying, even in a room full of infants,″ Carlson said.

The orphanages are terribly overcrowded and understaffed, leaving little chance for the attention babies need. Not even mealtime offers a chance to cuddle: bottles are propped in the cribs.

https://apnews.com/article/a6cec231a453aa20429cef7f8694beb6

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

#106
Have a read what Gabor Mate has to say about sleep training

“ The implicit message an infant receives from having her cries ignored is that the world — as represented by her caregivers — is indifferent to her feelings. That is not at all what loving parents intend.”

https://drgabormate.com/no-longer-believe-babies-cry-sleep/

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

#107
post #55

Cry it out is not the only sleep training technique. My wife and I have been able to implement a gradual reduction of supports in an effort to successfully sleep train our daughter. We started at four months by making situations that she sleeps easily a little harder: for example she would fall asleep while drinking so we started putting her sleeping bag on after she drank. As most people say, it won't fully click un…

Yeah, “sleep train” does not mean “cry it out”

My kids slept through the night by four months, with other techniques.

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

#108
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.…

We started co-sleeping with our son at first wake at around 8 months, and have been doing that continuously for the past 7 months or so (basically he sleeps with us in bed between 2 and 6ish AM). I've enjoyed the arrangement but my wife is tired of it, due to getting kicked and punched all night long. On top of that, she's 32 weeks pregnant and really needs the sleep.

Does your wife share your enthusiasm for co-sleeping?

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

#110
Having read "The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog", which goes into a fair amount of detail regarding attachment and attachment disorders, letting an infant "cry it out" strikes me as child abuse. Infants have no control over their environment, and crying is almost their only way to communicate.

I'm not enthusiastic about sleep training either - the gradual, controlled removal of sleep time emotional support by the parent. I would suggest to be very conservative and cautious if you want to take that route, and as the article states, definitely not before the age of 6 months.

Edit: I saw another comment which talked about "checking in" on the infant during sleep training. I think there is some middle ground I would be comfortable with after 6 months of age, where you don't rock the child to sleep for an hour, but you check in on them, gently touch them, talk to them soothingly for a little bit, and then you leave them for a little while. Come back in a little bit and briefly soothe them, and then leave again for a little while. As long as they know you are there. And you could stretch those periods out to see how the child does. But, again I would suggest to be very conservative and cautious and don't try this at too early of an age.

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