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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?

#321

Post by pnutjam »

weakfortress wrote: post #250
pnutjam wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced most of the issues with rolling on babies is people who take medication or drink. Maybe I'm wrong. SIDS is totally different.

You would be wrong. I suppose it's anecdata but a member of my family who works in pedatrics sees this regularly unfortunately. Usually it's these new-age parents that think co-sleeping is somehow beneficial. You fall into a deep enough sleep, it takes almost no time at all to seriously injure or kill your child. Frankly, co-sleeping with a baby is irresponsibility of the highest form. It may have worked for the GP b…

I coslept with all 7 of my children.

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

#322

Post by alach11 »

unit_circle wrote: post #301

I haven't seen a single top level comment that demonstrated a complete reading and understanding. Some even willingly admit an inability to process the information. Funny, because I thought this was actually remarkably good scientific journalism! I guess this demonstrates why this technical reporting is rare. It took my wife and I about an hour to read and discuss the entire article. My main takeaway is the low fidel…

Collection and processing of audio/video data has become much cheaper, especially with advances in deep learning. Hopefully we can see some larger sample-size studies taking advantage of newer tech.

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

#324

Post by ak217 »

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…

Your comment and others in this thread illustrate a different problem. Discourse around this topic (and some other parenting topics like breastfeeding) is out of control and not recognized as such. Regardless of your experience, it's not your place (nor anyone else's aside from maybe their physician), to tell parents what to do - and most of the time these admonitions are misinterpreted anyway because you're trying to boil down a complex set of behaviors and constraints to a rule that you propped up using some moral framework that you religiously believe in. People may well try to apply your rule in a different set of circumstances and get disastrous outcomes. To be clear, there are plenty of irrationally strong opinions on the opposite side of each of these issues too.

The researchers in the article were conducting an actual RCT, they are the only ones who should be speaking to this. Anyone else's anecdotal opinion should be discounted just as much as things like religious fundamentalist views on contraception.

Just let parents be. Stop with the admonitions. If something worked well or poorly for you, you're free to relate that without passing judgment.

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

#325

Post by AYBABTME »

unit_circle wrote: post #301

I haven't seen a single top level comment that demonstrated a complete reading and understanding. Some even willingly admit an inability to process the information. Funny, because I thought this was actually remarkably good scientific journalism! I guess this demonstrates why this technical reporting is rare. It took my wife and I about an hour to read and discuss the entire article. My main takeaway is the low fidel…

I quit midway because I found the article overly rambling and failing to get to the point.

Also the presentation is distracting. Various fonts, styles, mixed with pointless medias, large quotes, a very high noise floor. In the content, too much mixing of reported speech with data. It makes it a hassle to remember who is being quoted, what their role is, why they're relevant, what the data means in the context. Not enough summarized tabular data. Too much verbiage.

And overall I feel like I got the gist: crying it out is probably bad. The article doesn't motivate me to power through it and waste a lot of mental energy getting the finer points.

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

#326

Post by jnwatson »

agumonkey wrote: post #290
epolanski wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can't be heard every single time, the usual example of a parent driving, he can't just stop the car and start soothing the baby ignoring the rest of the world, logistics or obligations. That's just not feasible nor it can't be 100% an obligation to always respond every single crying. I think the article does a good job pointing out that after 6 months and definitely after 12 you do need to start let the baby…

Sure, I can't be absolutist. But whenever I can, I do something. Respond. For the car, you might not be able to reach, but emit something that convey concern and care.

You’ve successfully expressed the “parent in whatever mechanism makes me emotionally fulfilled” style. Many others take a more scientific viewpoint more oriented around child outcomes.

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

#327

Post by thaumasiotes »

ineptech wrote: post #272
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…

That evolutionary instinct came from a time when humans lived in communal support networks and new parents had help from extended family, and does not translate well to a world where Mom has to work 9-5 in an office a few months after birth. You might as well express shock that suburbanites don't supplement their diets by foraging for fruit and mushrooms. Besides, it's not like parents 10K years ago had the option to…

> so does "Babies cry because it gets them more nutrition by keeping Mom so sleep-deprived that she delays her next pregnancy."

Babies do delay their mothers' next pregnancy.

But sleep has nothing to do with it. And really, neither do the babies. Nursing mothers inhibit their own pregnancy; that is why the normal interval between births is two years instead of one year.

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

#328

Post by metabagel »

awillen wrote: post #300
ineptech wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That evolutionary instinct came from a time when humans lived in communal support networks and new parents had help from extended family, and does not translate well to a world where Mom has to work 9-5 in an office a few months after birth. You might as well express shock that suburbanites don't supplement their diets by foraging for fruit and mushrooms. Besides, it's not like parents 10K years ago had the option to…

It's astounding to me that so many people on HN, a place where folks generally profess to be driven by science and data, are in this thread just casually throwing around anecdotes and comments about evolutionary instinct while completely ignoring the actual science and data. Doubly so when so many of the comments are pretty vicious towards people who sleep train their babies.

https://www.attachmentparenting.org/ensure-safe-sleep-physic...

>>Parents who are frustrated with frequent waking or who are sleep deprived may be tempted to try sleep training techniques that recommend letting a baby cry in an effort to "teach" him to "self-soothe".

>>Research shows us that an infant is not neurologically or developmentally capable of calming or soothing himself to sleep in a way that is healthy. The part of the brain that helps with self-soothing isn't well developed until the child is two and a half to three years of age. Until that time, a child depends on his parents to help him calm down and learn to regulate his intense feelings.

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

#329

Post by benshoemaker »

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…

[dead]

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

#330

Post by metabagel »

awillen wrote: post #300
ineptech wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That evolutionary instinct came from a time when humans lived in communal support networks and new parents had help from extended family, and does not translate well to a world where Mom has to work 9-5 in an office a few months after birth. You might as well express shock that suburbanites don't supplement their diets by foraging for fruit and mushrooms. Besides, it's not like parents 10K years ago had the option to…

It's astounding to me that so many people on HN, a place where folks generally profess to be driven by science and data, are in this thread just casually throwing around anecdotes and comments about evolutionary instinct while completely ignoring the actual science and data. Doubly so when so many of the comments are pretty vicious towards people who sleep train their babies.

Read everything you can by this guy:

https://www.attachmentparenting.org/bruce-perry

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