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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?

#331

Post by metabagel »

benshoemaker wrote: post #329
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]

Not in this case. It's actually an appeal to rigorously question changing something which has obvious evolutionary roots and benefits.

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

#332

Post by russdill »

darrmit wrote: 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…

I would be somewhat shocked if two siblings had matching personalities.

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

#333

Post by jasonhansel »

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…

> It is very much possible to co-sleep and then gradually transition them to their own bed.

Isn't co-sleeping (as in bed-sharing) discouraged in the US, at least for newborns, because of the risk of SIDS?

To quote the AAP:

> AAP recommends that parents sleep in the same room – but not in the same bed as a baby, preferably for at least the first six months.

Source: https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/news-releases/aap/2022/amer...

To quote the CDC:

> Sharing a room with your baby is much safer than bed sharing and may decrease the risk of SIDS by as much as 50%.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/features/baby-safe-sl...

From a recent meta-analysis:

> The combined OR for SIDS in all bed sharing versus non-bed sharing infants was 2.89 (95% CI, 1.99-4.18).

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21868032/

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

#334

Post by fipar »

rcpt wrote: post #299
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…

> co-sleep Suffocation risk is real. Don't do this.

Our pediatricians told us risk from suffocation is associated with bad co-sleep practices, not "just with" co-sleep (in our country, not the US, and I'm quoting "just with" because I don't know how to put that better, I'm trying to make the point that if bad practices aren't followed, the risk of SIDS is comparable to babies that sleep alone). This includes co-sleeping when at least one of the parents is a smoker, or is under the influence of alcohol or other drugs (legal or otherwise), having pillows, stuffed animals, or other soft loose things in bed, the bed being too soft, the baby being able to cover their face, etc.

But he did tell us it was safe to do this if we wanted to taking some precautions, and it worked great for us with our two kids.

Yes, sure, our two cases are anecdotic evidence, but I still trust what the doctor said, and I think you shouldn't be making blanket statements against the practice.

The truth is that SIDS is always a possibility and, to be honest, neither my wife nor myself slept well until both our kids were well beyond the age where the statistics show there's a higher chance from this (roughly 1 year old). I guess this helped make co-sleep safe, as we were always very alert (to the detriment of our own wellbeing, something I don't regret since a few years of this is a drop in the water compared with a lifetime, to us anyway).

One thing safe co-sleep requires is commitment and agreement from both parents, and a fair sharing of parental duties too.

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

#335

Post by metabagel »

epolanski wrote: post #310
agumonkey wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if that approach of over protecting brings up a future lazy, spoiled, weak willed adult that will conduct miserable lives because up to 36 months all their brain saw is that crying always got them attentions and everything they wanted? You don't know whether your approach is the best one, I don't, speak with as many professionals you can.

Children under the age of three aren't capable of self-soothing. If they're quiet when you abandon them, it's because they've given up hope.

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

#336

Post by firemanx »

Read the article, and many of the comments here. I have a hard time squaring a lot of the hard and fast rules against my own experience. Certainly one persons life can’t detract from large scale statistics. However, I have 6 children. They have all responded to methods of behavioral training in wildly different ways.

My oldest two could not do sleep training. 10 months of trying for almost every night and they did not just adapt. My middle daughter embraced it after a single night. My adopted middle son didn’t need it at all and was naturally “good” at sleeping. My youngest daughter and son will fall asleep right away if around someone, but otherwise will stay up for hours (but never cried about it).

Again, one family experience but each child has their own needs and responses. I’ve never found a single method that works universally in any aspect of parenting.

Except ice cream. They all seem to love that.

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

#337

Post by metabagel »

sanderjd wrote: post #271
oskarpearson wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > For others, it can be hours of crying, even to the point of vomiting (common enough to be a frequent topic of conversation on sleep-training forums and addressed by baby sleep books including Ferber's The article also includes a reference to 2-3 hours.

Fair enough. I'm not supportive of letting kids cry for 2-3 hours even to the point of vomiting. But even then, I'm sympathetic to it if the parents have tried everything else and they have a kid that just won't sleep. I'm not like an absolutist or anything, I just think parents should have space to try to figure out what works for their own families without random strangers calling them abusive.

It's abusive to abandon an infant.

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

"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?

#338

Post by TeMPOraL »

sanderjd wrote: post #292
mirsadm wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that has always bothered me is parents trying to justify sleep training as a positive for the child. The reason parents do it is for their own benefit.

So, it's both, for real. Waking up and crying five or six times a night really isn't good for infants and is even worse for toddlers. They need to be well rested for all the learning they do during their days. But it's also the case that anything that is bad for parents is bad for children. Especially when it comes to sleep deprivation. I'm completely convinced that in my almost-five year old's entire life, the most…

> But driving isn't the only problem. Parents are more irritable, less present, and just generally worse, when they aren't sleeping.

This.

It's hard to not laugh at a remark like "the reason parents do it is for their own benefit". Of course we do it for our own benefit. Because our benefit is the benefit of the child as well.

Temporary attachment or emotional issues, if they happen, can be fixed. Worst case, the parents may need some external guidance from a specialist in children psychology and emotional development. Keeping the parents sleep-deprived for months can cause them to become depressed (or exacerbate mother's postpartum depression - a very important topic that's not being talked about enough), or lose their jobs, or make them hate their own child, or hate each other and ultimately lead to divorce/broken family. All these consequences are orders of magnitude worse for future prospects of a child than anything a botched sleep training can cause.

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

#339

Post by agumonkey »

epolanski wrote: post #310
agumonkey wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if that approach of over protecting brings up a future lazy, spoiled, weak willed adult that will conduct miserable lives because up to 36 months all their brain saw is that crying always got them attentions and everything they wanted? You don't know whether your approach is the best one, I don't, speak with as many professionals you can.

I approach it the other way. I wouldn't succumb to every tantrum. I try to build a solid emotional bridge so that the kid can stay grounded and relaxed as much as possible.

I'd love to speak with interesting professionals. So far I've met none.

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

#340

Post by russdill »

rdtsc wrote: post #267

> "Because early experiences of stress may program the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis to be more stress reactive, increasing risk of physical and mental health problems in later life, our results suggest that parenting in infant sleep contexts may play an important role in shaping how the child responds to stress across childhood," I never liked the "cry it out". suspecting something like that. It was hard…

Which child suffers more emotionally? The one that undergoes sleep training and has emotional distress for a few nights and afterwards occasionally wakes during the night and goes back to sleep on their own, or the child that for years, whenever they wake during the night undergoes emotional distress until their caregiver wakes, is able to get up, and get to the child?
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