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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?

#451
Cry it out is unnatural in my very humble opinion. It's a solution designed to get mothers back to work in a nuclear family. Children are a lot of work when little. It is extremely hard on the mother. There is also the big breast feeding mania - which while good will really not help the mother get back to work faster. I think we as a society need to make up our minds. Do we want more happy children and happy parents in a nuclear family or do we want mothers and fathers back to work as fast as possible with no regard to the children? It seems we're settling for the latter and making some bullshit pseudo-analysis that its the former.

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

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, only Europeans had slaves right? It is not like the entire world had them. In fact the word slave originates from Slavic people.. I don't think Asians ever had slaves in the history. The OP comment said " what are the odds that the rest of the world was wrong for a millenium and Americans figured it out in 100yrs" Edit: damn. non European had slaves. Didn't know it before. Wasn't definitely part of the history…

Is this parody/sarcasm/troll? At a minimum, Africans and Muslims had slaves. Pretty sure the Incas and Aztecs did. I lack data on Asia.

Isn't it telling that you have to go back to Incas and Aztechs to find examples of slavery in non European countries?

The most recent form of slavery was conducted by Europeans and then as the century progressed they gave it up

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

#453
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this parody/sarcasm/troll? At a minimum, Africans and Muslims had slaves. Pretty sure the Incas and Aztecs did. I lack data on Asia.

It's not hard to find sources about slavery in Asia. "Slavery in Korea formally existed from antiquity up to the 20th century. Slavery was very important in medieval Korea; it was a major institution. [...] The Korean "nobi" system of slavery peaked between the 15th and 17th centuries and then declined in the 18th and 19th centuries." [1] "The Mongol Empire (1206-1368) had a tremendous impact on slavery across Eurasi…

Mongols weren't exactly 20th and 21st century were they?

I had no idea about Korean slavery that existed till the 20th century. Why aren't these parts included in history curriculum?

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

#454
post #324

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 t…

Your comment is excellent. But I think GP’s comment is fine too. It’s a strongly held opinion, fairly well expressed. I didn’t really read it as an admonition. Sure, some people may not like strong opinions on this topic, but on HN I like to read them, no matter the topic.

Anyway, my charitable reading of GP is not that parents should or shouldn’t do anything in particular, rather that the child’s needs, as expressed over a very long time, should not be forgotten just because we live in different times.

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

#455
My sample size is low, but I did cry it out with my son at 4 months old and he has slept amazing ever since. He is 16 months old now and he gets excited when I put him in his crib to sleep. He will often go to the crib unprompted around 7:30pm (his normal bedtime), as he is ready to sleep. I've had sleeping problems my whole life, so seeing him sleep so well is very satisfying to me. I will be doing the same with my second child.

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

#456

My sample size is low, but I did cry it out with my son at 4 months old and he has slept amazing ever since. He is 16 months old now and he gets excited when I put him in his crib to sleep. He will often go to the crib unprompted around 7:30pm (his normal bedtime), as he is ready to sleep. I've had sleeping problems my whole life, so seeing him sleep so well is very satisfying to me. I will be doing the same with my…

Wait until he gets an iPhone. /s

We did sleep training with ours, it took two days and a solid sleeper ever since. I don’t think cry it out always works. But the side hustle is that you have a schedule and stick to it.

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

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this parody/sarcasm/troll? At a minimum, Africans and Muslims had slaves. Pretty sure the Incas and Aztecs did. I lack data on Asia.

Isn't it telling that you have to go back to Incas and Aztechs to find examples of slavery in non European countries? The most recent form of slavery was conducted by Europeans and then as the century progressed they gave it up

You can still find slavery in Africa and the Middle East. So, no, not telling at all.

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

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teaching a child that their call for help will not be answered is unkind and damaging You don't know that, there is no evidence for it and it definitely depends on the age. Your post is drammatically different when speaking about a newborn, a 6 or a 12 or 18 months old. Babies absolutely need to learn to self soothe and that crying won't always meet attention too. The idea that unattending a crying baby here and th…

There's plenty of evidence for it. Read the books by Dr. Bruce Perry. Read about attachment theory. If you read his books, what you will also find is that children respond differently to trauma. So, some children may not be harmed at all by childhood trauma, while others may be deeply affected. The basic fallacy here is that children under the age of three can self-soothe. They cannot. This is all part of infant deve…

Yeah listen, you're not going to convince many people that their two year olds are incapable of soothing themselves! "Infant development" does not describe children between the ages of 1 and 3, who are not infants.

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

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAD, I don't have kids but I'm curious why melatonin properly dosed would be seen as worse than crying to sleep. From what I've learned about melatonin it seems to me you did the right thing

Because it's a chemical ! A hormone ! Because you're dosing your kid with a drug ! You're taking the easy way out! You're using a shortcut to cover for your inability to endure the first few days of ${sleep training method}! These and similar kinds of bullshit judgements.

Well, no. Melatonin does affect things other than sleep. That said, you do what you need to do as a parent. I would only (silently) judge someone if they jumped right to that and kept at it. Messing with hormones should be a last resort, even if it seems benign.

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

#460
Most threads cover anecdotal experiences and the summary is that many different strategies work.

I’m gonna go ahead and mention what I haven’t seen almost any thread say. Which is that any singular child’s early infant and toddler stages pale in comparison to the other 15 or 16 years+ that also determine your child’s habits, disposition and development.

Ignore the noise, partial studies and fads. Do what is best for you.

Dare I say if parents were less fixated on early sleep methods and actually being present and supportive (which also strongly correlates to having a healthy relationship with your partner and how your child sees you love them) throughout we would probably have better equipped and developed young adults.

We over index on sleep training when we lose sleep because it’s hard. But it’s a season.

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