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What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

bbc.com

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

#191

Post by spookthesunset »

jjulius wrote: post #5
jbirer wrote: 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.

When we sleep trained our kids, this was exactly our interpretation as well. You are literally training them how to sleep on their own. Yes they will be uncomfortable for a little while and yes they will cry because it is a new situation but it's truly for their own good. You are giving your kid the gift of being able to know how to sleep and fall back asleep.

You can do such training without being a cruel hard ass about it either. You know your kid best and know their limits and when you should go into their room to comfort them... but you have to know why you are doing it--you are teaching them how to sleep. The only way they can learn that is by themselves (at least at an early age).

Sleep training our daughter was one of the best decisions we made early on. But every kid and every parent is different. There is no one single way to raise a kid...

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

#192

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #153
fallingfrog wrote: post #128

Human infants are not meant to sleep alone, and human parents are not meant to care for babies all by themselves- especially not one exhausted mother all on her own. Evolutionarily speaking we are supposed to be surrounded by extended family, who can hold the baby and give mom and dad a chance to sleep . It's just the cruelty of modern industrial society that makes people resort to such things as leaving a baby all a…

This line of reasoning is absurd. We do a lot of things we aren’t “meant” to do evolutionarily. Babies can and do sleep alone just fine. Sorry it didn’t work out in your case, but don’t try to appeal to Evolution to rationalize it to yourself.

Is it absurd? I think your statement is a bit too strong given what the OP has described: that seems a really painful experience for a parent.

There is the possibility that it is an evolutionary trait of some subset of the population: some children might not be able to sustain sleep training and others might be. So your statement is extreme too: it's entirely possible that some human beings are not made for that and others are. The only certainty we have is that humans need physical contact when they are babies, we don't know how much is enough from a scientific point though (and I doubt we would be able to do any experiment related to that ever again)

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

#193

Post by spookthesunset »

PeterisP wrote: post #44
jbirer wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Sometimes the reason a baby cries is literally the unmet need for sleep - they are very tired, feel awful because of that, and cry. And then they can't fall asleep easily because they're cranky about being too tired.

> And then they can't fall asleep easily because they're cranky about being too tired.

... And worse they are tired and don't know how to fall asleep. Hence why I'm a fan of sleep training. You are giving your little one the gift of being able to put themselves to sleep on their own.

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

#194

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #182
spookthesunset wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they are very educated about SIDS. But their job is to give you enough information on the pros and cons so you can make a well informed decision yourself. It isn't the job of any expert to tell you if you should or should not do something. Humans have been cosleeping with their infants since time began. Clearly there are some serious pros to it. An expert who is truly good will never tell you what to do. The…

>Humans have been cosleeping with their infants since time began. Take a look at a graph of infant mortality rates since time began, chief. Appealing to "this is how things have always been" does not really work in this case.

"Slept with parents, eaten by a sabertooth-tiger"

Sorry the statement is not wrong, but it made me laugh a bit, the rates are probably all messy across the years.

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

#195

Post by temporary22 »

andrewclunn wrote: post #127
lars512 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother and his wife did not sleep train their boy and co-slept with him. They had endless issues with sleep that continued past 2y old, were constantly exhausted, and eventually alternated who slept with him. We sleep trained our boy, same age, had very few issues even from very young. Children are so different, from so early, it's not at all obvious what outcome for a particular kid is because of different strat…

The SIDS risk being parents rolling on top of and crushing / asphyxiating the baby. We just gloss over most of this sort of death by calling it SIDS to avoid having to charge the parents with a crime.

parents ARE charged with a crime when they crush / axphyxiate the baby to death.

SIDS happens also when baby is alone in bed. You relating it to parents rolling on baby tell me you don't know much about the argument.

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

#196

Post by spookthesunset »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #182
spookthesunset wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they are very educated about SIDS. But their job is to give you enough information on the pros and cons so you can make a well informed decision yourself. It isn't the job of any expert to tell you if you should or should not do something. Humans have been cosleeping with their infants since time began. Clearly there are some serious pros to it. An expert who is truly good will never tell you what to do. The…

>Humans have been cosleeping with their infants since time began. Take a look at a graph of infant mortality rates since time began, chief. Appealing to "this is how things have always been" does not really work in this case.

> Take a look at a graph of infant mortality rates since time began, chief

Thats cool. I have. But we co-slept anyway because for us the benefits outweighed the risks. Especially while breastfeeding... Raw facts and data alone are not the only things required to make an informed decision on any subject. They only serve as inputs.

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

#197

Post by jjtheblunt »

illegalsmile wrote: post #161
cycrutchfield wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't get it either. Our shelter dogs were always crated overnight since they weren't allowed in the bedrooms and they would go there when it was bed time with no problem. Occasionally they'd go to their crate to take naps or seek refuge there during storms. I guess if a dog willingly going into a crate to sleep while everyone else slept is cruel and abusive I don't know what they'd think about actual abuse. Our do…

I think what we did is much more similar to what you describe, with the crate door left open, so she didn't feel isolated when the other pets and humans were in other rooms. we moved the crate upstairs and left the door to it open, and she took a liking to it as her own space, and would choose to go sleep in it like it was her bedroom (or whatever), but having it at the distant end of the house clearly alone for the sake of isolating her is what I found counterproductive.

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

#198

Post by snordgren »

justapassenger wrote: post #181

To people bringing anecdotes of their neighbors/friends kids crying forever and calling it an abuse, just one very important note. Sleep training is lasting 1-2 weeks. If kid is crying forever, what you hear is not a sleep training.

The article also quoted one researcher who said that if the baby was crying for more than 5 minutes, then it is probably not yet at a stage of development where it can learn to self-soothe. I think that is a good rule of thumb.

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

#199

Post by sanderjd »

afandian wrote: post #173
conqueso wrote: post #150

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 th…

My parents' generation (in the UK) were physically beaten as children. It was a normal part of parenting and part of school. My hope is that one day we will consider this emotionally abusive behaviour as seriously as we we now look at physical abuse. Though I don't hold out much hope. Especially as there are still some people holding out for the right to hit their children even now.

Comparing a 9-month-old spending 15 minutes calming themselves down before falling asleep to physical abuse is laughably absurd.

A big problem with this "debate" is that people conjure images of newborn babies being left to cry for hours, when what is actually predominantly practiced is older infants 6-12 months old being allowed to cry for less than half an hour.

After being fed and given a clean diaper and a safe place to sleep, being rocked to sleep just isn't a "need" for an older infant; they are crying because they want to be soothed to sleep. And it's fine to do that if you want to as a parent (which pretty much all parents do!), but it's also fine for them to learn to soothe themselves instead. It isn't "emotional abuse".

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

#200

Post by pc86 »

vmilner wrote: post #184
afandian wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents' generation (in the UK) were physically beaten as children. It was a normal part of parenting and part of school. My hope is that one day we will consider this emotionally abusive behaviour as seriously as we we now look at physical abuse. Though I don't hold out much hope. Especially as there are still some people holding out for the right to hit their children even now.

My Uk school was still doing collective punishment beatings (“Who spoke?” (No-one replies) (30 boys get caned) ) in the early 80s.

Abuse in a school setting 40+ years ago is not all that surprising.
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