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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?

#141

Post by JamesSwift »

metabagel wrote: post #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…

Theres different levels of crying, and its easy to tell the difference as a parent. Theres regular, all-purpose crying which I'm in favor of allowing to run its course. Then theres actual panicked, full-on crying which is when I would say its time to intervene.

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

#142

Post by nicolas_t »

varjag wrote: post #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: bo…

The problem with citing the Romanian orphanage is that it's too extreme to be in any way relevant to sleep training. There's a huge difference between gradual extinction (with parents coming back regularly in the room), with a loving relationship during the day and children in the Romanian orphanage who were left with no warm human contact whatsoever.

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

#143

Post by martythemaniak »

metabagel wrote: post #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…

> 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

You just described the Ferber method, a very popular sleep training approach.

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

#144

Post by cycrutchfield »

coredog64 wrote: post #92
mrsubletbot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co-slept with all three kids and caught flak for it from the pediatrician. She was certain that one or both parents were going to roll over onto the kids and squish them. Very pleased we did it, but you may have to stand your ground with well-meaning but ignorant people.

Your pediatrician is ignorant about SIDS risks? They are much more likely to be informed about this matter than you, with your n=3 anecdote.

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

#145

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #136
jjtheblunt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not regarding a human child, but my spouse thought leaving our rescue dog, still a youngster only a few months old, in a cage in another room overnight was somehow proper, which frankly incensed me as cruel and abusive nonsense, because it's not the way of the wild, not what any of us were evolved for. And I'd lived with and worked with rescue animals for decades, so felt strongly about this. (i put my foot down and…

Crate training is pretty normal and not sure why you feel so weird about it. Is it “the way of the wild” to keep the dog in your house?

Docking tails and ears is normal too. Male circumcision is normal. Locking people in cages for possessing certain plants, extracts, chemicals is normal. War and all of the murder that goes on in it is normal. Burning coal is normal. Limiting rights of women is some countries is normal.

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

#146

Post by JamesSwift »

sanderjd wrote: post #122
Patrol8394 wrote: post #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.

I think parenting is the worst possible space for N=1 anecdotes. I have two sets of friends who did what you did and have never slept alone or through the night for coming up on five years. For our oldest, also coming up on five years, we did like one night of sleep training at 18 months and immediately started sleeping through the night like magic. For our youngest, we never had to do anything, he just always slept…

Yep, the thing I always tell new parents when asked about kids is that every single kid is different. Your kid might be a good eater and a bad sleeper. Maybe the reverse. They might be extremely needy or be completely chill and independent. This is especially obvious when you have multiple kids of your own. Some knowledge generalizes, but a lot of the personalized experience is different (e.g. what they respond to in terms of incentives or "training"). I was always about 10/90 in my opinions of nature vs nurture (90% nurture, 10% nature) but after having kids its so obvious nature is much higher than I thought. Not sure what the end ratio is, but I'd say at least 50% nature.

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

#147

Post by lazide »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #82
lazide wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

'Unexplained' is a large portion of SIDS deaths. Folks trying to protect parents and the family from blame for 'preventable' deaths is also a thing.

As SIDS is better understood, and categorization is changing (addressed in the paper I linked elsewhere) the graph showing proportions of accidental suffocation/strangulation during sleep is rising while SIDS is dropping - but both numbers are adding up to about the same. (see total SUID death rate, Figure 1)

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/1/e20220...

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

#148

Post by lazide »

voisin wrote: post #57
lazide wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> SIDS data shows a (relatively) high occurrence of kids dying by having parents roll over on them, or them getting entrapped/suffocated in bedding Source?

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/1/e20220...

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

#149

Post by cycrutchfield »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #125
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think hypotheticals are very useful. A sleep deprived parent is a risk in any scenario. It's a moot point. The only point I was making is that it is generally agreed upon that a crib is safe for babies to sleep in. They can't fall out, get smothered, etc. Medicine treats co-sleeping horrifically because, by any measure, it's less safe. Few medical professionals will recommend, generally, anything associated w…

That's what I'm disagreeing with: there is less risk of the baby dying IN THE CRIB, but there isn't less risk of the baby dying overall, that's not assessed (and it would be very hard to prove), but the reality is just that. Then again, the risk factors of Co-sleeping are known and can be eliminated: put the bed on the floor, remove extra pillows, use light covers or no blankets, set the room temperature to something…

Sorry, but you’re wrong. Not only wrong, but confidently and smugly wrong. You think you know best but haven’t bothered to actually do any real research on this topic.

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

#150

Post by conqueso »

The fact that this is so commonplace in my culture (USA) is frustrating and enrages me. As a parent, it is your evolutionary instinct to comfort a crying infant. They are quite literally helpless and look to caretakers for all their needs. There's a deep seated biological reason it feels bad to ignore it. The fact that it is so uncommon in other cultures should make this obvious. What are the odds that the rest of the world and entire history of humankind were mistaken the whole time, until some behaviorists came along and figured it all out in the last century? Talk about infants having "attachment issues" makes my blood boil. They are supposed to be attached to you. It is very much possible to co-sleep and then gradually transition them to their own bed. Yes, it is frustrating and will interfere with your sleep. This is one of the many sacrifices of parenthood.
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