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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?

#361

Post by thaumasiotes »

jjulius wrote: post #81
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.…

Forgive me here; I'm approaching this from a place of ignorance and curiosity, and I hope I don't overstep any personal boundaries - both for you and myself! My wife and I had many reasons for why we ultimately chose not to co-sleep. One of those reasons was our sex life. I don't pretend to know what the "norm"/average is, but it's frequent for us, 3-4 times per week, and at the risk of TMI, it can be fairly... invol…

A Beautiful Mistake ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00KUBZGT4/ ) is a tragedy set in a Chinese village during the cultural revolution.

Of relevance here, it depicts a married couple co-sleeping with their small school-age son. They have sex while he's asleep in the bed with them.

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

#362

Post by metabagel »

remote_phone wrote: post #246
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…

The fact that you are getting enraged is a huge part of the problem. Keep your own morality to yourself and your own family. If you don’t want to use cry it out, then that’s your decision. The fact you project onto others is the problem and it’s none of your business. Cry it out is effective and works wonders for families and it has no side effects, as mentioned in the article itself.

If you read Dr. Bruce Perry's books, you'll find that some children are able to withstand childhood trauma, while others are deeply affected by it.

"Keep your own morality to yourself and your own family."

That's not a real solid code of ethics to have.

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

#363

Post by TeMPOraL »

mike1o1 wrote: post #284
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…

Agreed 100%. I feel like sleep training is for the parents, not necessarily for the babies. Most parents in the USA need to work, so they are the ones that need the sleep.

Obviously. But you're saying it like the parents are being selfish here.

Babies need to be fed, protected, cared for and loved. Fulfillment of those needs is, for most people on the planet in the last century or so, directly dependent on the parents' ability to hold a job and earn enough income to pay for housing, food and creature comforts.

Even if sleep training is hard for some kids, their parents losing their jobs or breaking up due to sleep deprivation would be much, much worse for those kids.

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

#364

Post by metabagel »

0xEFF wrote: post #352
lern_too_spel wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothesis: the parent, by forcing themselves to sleep train, conditions themselves to ignore more of the infant's emotions; and the infant, observing no reaction to their emotions, learns the same behavior, leading to higher incidence of autism. Typically (aside from some neurological disorders), there is an underlying reason for the infant to be crying. They could be hungry or wanting to urinate or defecate (many c…

Research shows no long term effects after age 6, positive or negative, of sleep training, so the research doesn't support your hypothesis. Research shows many positive effects before age 6, both for the child and the family.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34179412

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

#365

Post by thaumasiotes »

mrjh wrote: post #359
thaumasiotes wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

“Nursing mothers inhibit their own pregnancy” It’s an interesting theory, but having my second kid appear 12 months after the first — in spite of the breastfeeding — makes me very sceptical of its reliability.

It is very reliable indeed, but there's still variation.

Compare https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3726904/ :

> Data that were collected prospectively from a child health study conducted in Gaza show a strong relationship between breastfeeding and two major components of birth intervals, the postpartum anovulatory period and the waiting time [from resumption of menstruation] to conception.

> The finding of a strong positive association between breastfeeding and the length of postpartum amenorrhea is as expected from numerous other studies.

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

#366

Post by metabagel »

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…

Yeah, I think they should rather look for behavioral issues.

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

#367

Post by [deleted] »

metabagel wrote: post #362
remote_phone wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you are getting enraged is a huge part of the problem. Keep your own morality to yourself and your own family. If you don’t want to use cry it out, then that’s your decision. The fact you project onto others is the problem and it’s none of your business. Cry it out is effective and works wonders for families and it has no side effects, as mentioned in the article itself.

If you read Dr. Bruce Perry's books, you'll find that some children are able to withstand childhood trauma, while others are deeply affected by it. "Keep your own morality to yourself and your own family." That's not a real solid code of ethics to have.

[deleted]

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

#368

Post by TeMPOraL »

mrjh wrote: post #359
thaumasiotes wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

“Nursing mothers inhibit their own pregnancy” It’s an interesting theory, but having my second kid appear 12 months after the first — in spite of the breastfeeding — makes me very sceptical of its reliability.

My wife and I were warned about this by nurses. The effect is real, but it's absolutely not reliable as a contraception method, as it can easily break down for various reasons, including the mother not following a strict and consistent regimen of frequent breastfeeding. And, as it turns out, consistent and frequent breastfeeding is much harder to achieve than popular media would had you believe.

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

#369

Post by Insanity »

retrac wrote: post #208
Insanity wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crate training is a good thing (imo) but should be done properly. Not just sticking them in a crate overnight in another room and ignoring them. Our dog is crate trained, which makes travelling with him way easier for example. (He is 1 year old now, so at night he just walks into his crate whenever he feels tired. We don’t have to put him in his crate anymore). You have to make sure they associate positive experience…

We picked up a young stray. Too rambunctious to be left out overnight. Well-behaved generally but around 3 am he jumps on top of us and wants to play. Not working. A crate though? Seems barbaric. But we did it gently, in slowly increasing increments. If he became distressed, we let him out. I think that's probably key. Oh, sleepy time? Let's try to get him to do it in the crate for an hour. Then a few hours. Now, aro…

Yes, your final paragraph should be understood by all dog owners. Crates are not for punishment!

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

#370

Post by sanderjd »

metabagel wrote: post #328
awillen wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Th…

It's so weird to me that you're throwing around attachmentparenting.org links like they are the final objective word on the subject. It would be like linking to the American Enterprise Institute in a discussion on economics. They are smart and well read on the subject, but they are pushing their own point of view, which is far from being the only one.
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