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What happens when babies are left to cry it out?

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601–610 of 644 posts

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

#601

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…

My favorite is “babies cry because the quiet ones got forgotten”

I mean that's literally true. Also why babies are so cute. The ones that weren't got put in the bin.

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

#602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are the odds that the rest of the world and entire history of humankind were mistaken the whole time, until some behaviorists came along and figured it all out in the last century? There are many cases where all of humanity has been doing something that we only recently decided was wrong. For instance, slavery. Certainly the odds aren't good that this is true of everything humans do, but the odds that some of…

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This attitude, like that children shouldn't sleep with parents at all costs, or should be forced to stay crying to fall asleep, is shocking to see from ex-USSR. I used to think it was our militarized culture, where parents and grand parents were obsessed with "discipline" right from birth. "Don't spoil him taking so much care", or "you'll make him a handheld child if you pick him up every time he cries" -- these are real phrases.

I thought it comes from high modernism of early XX century.

Hopping here around the comments, I see some mention that mothers start working again when the child is 3 m.o. This is very very much similar to what the USSR wanted from factory worker families -- to have the worker woman go back to the factory machine ASAP and work, work, work.

The similarity is shocking to me.

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

#603
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's curious years of good nights of sleep and a happy child enrages you. We sleep trained our son at 7 months. He cried for 90 minutes the first night, then slept soundly until 7 am. The second night he cried for 45 minutes then slept until 7 am. He didn't cry the third night. Every night since he's slept peacefully from 8 PM until 7 AM and asks to go to bed when he gets tired. He's happy during the day unless somet…

What enrages me is how it's become accepted as 'the right way' for parents in my culture, along with other "techniques" like feeding schedules, where many people end up essentially starving their child without realizing it, and then wonder why they can't sleep through the night. What I know to be true is that infants are completely dependent on their caretaker/s, and they cry to communicate what they need when they n…

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

#604

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…

USSR in early decades wanted people back to work ASAP (and social security in 1920-30-s was almost non-existent in the country), so the attitude towards bearing a child and towards children was the same: force everyone to follow strict schedule, no matter what.

The narrative behind this was different, more like militarized: teach them to sooth themselves, don't devote too much time, or they'll grow up handheld children, and then be spoiled slackers, etc.

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

#605
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's curious years of good nights of sleep and a happy child enrages you. We sleep trained our son at 7 months. He cried for 90 minutes the first night, then slept soundly until 7 am. The second night he cried for 45 minutes then slept until 7 am. He didn't cry the third night. Every night since he's slept peacefully from 8 PM until 7 AM and asks to go to bed when he gets tired. He's happy during the day unless somet…

What enrages me is how it's become accepted as 'the right way' for parents in my culture, along with other "techniques" like feeding schedules, where many people end up essentially starving their child without realizing it, and then wonder why they can't sleep through the night. What I know to be true is that infants are completely dependent on their caretaker/s, and they cry to communicate what they need when they n…

Your judgement of other parents is the problem, both in this thread and in our broader culture of parenting in the United States today.

Feeding schedules aren’t starving children.

Please focus on what yields the best outcome for your family, and assume other families are doing the same without judgement.

Try replacing your rage with curiosity about all the factors of modern parenting.

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

#606
> Longer-term, the Australian study found that any parent-reported improvements in sleep from sleep training disappeared by age two.

> > What we found when the children were six was no difference to their sleep and no difference to their behaviour – Harriet Hiscock

It's not about long-term effects. It's about the parents getting to actually sleep.

We did sleep training as per What to Expect the First Year. Others we know spoiled their babies so much that now that their babies are toddlers, the "babies" still sleep with the parents -- I'm talking about people for whom it was not a cultural thing to let their children sleep with them, nor necessary due to lack of space or anything.

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

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not how it works, the first year is horrible. (...) things will get better when the kid grows older. Except when they won't. Our older daughter started having real sleep issues around when she was 1.5 years old. From that point on, every night was one of "those nights nothing works". Her sleeping schedule became quite consistent: roughly 21:00 - 05:00 if she didn't nap during the day, or 23:30 - 05:00 if she…

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

The primary concern is its (potential) effect on natural production. Most human hormone production is governed by the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. Internal feedback loops suppress natural production for extended periods of time if exogenous hormones are introduced.

One of the most common examples of this is exogenous testosterone. If you take it long enough, the LH/FSH feedback hormones drop, the leydig cells in your testes atrophy and go dormant, and your natural production could be suppressed forever. Nearly all retired bodybuilders (and other athletes who use gear) are dependent on TRT for life, for this reason.

The open question is whether introducing exogenous melatonin to patients whose natural production is already very high (as it tends to be in children) could lead to lifelong dependency on it. That's the concern.

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

#608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very hard to get a diagnosis pre 6/7 but of course we can see behaviors and project our thoughts. I feel you on the fear and knowing it’s going to be a tougher life. Same with me at ADHD diagnosis.

> It is very hard to get a diagnosis pre 6/7 but of course we can see behaviors and project our thoughts. We're not planning to get an early diagnosis. I feel it's really too early to tell for sure. We are observing carefully though, and carefully listening to feedback we get from daycare/kindergarten and various child development specialists. So far, we haven't heard anything that isn't somewhat common with children…

I have 2 with ADHD. One with impulsive and dyslexia and the other with inattentive. The dyslexia plus impulsive is quite a challenge but early identification is key. If we hadn’t made all the changes and waited till 10 onwards we would be in a totally different situation.

Keep going, try not to over analyze and courage!!!

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

#609

Is American kids abandoning their parents in old age homes revenge for their parents sleep training them and not co-sleeping?

American's sense of independence and boot-strap mentality doesn't end just because you get old; we have a second master bedroom in our house and both my and my wife's parents have turned down offers to live there.

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

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article mentions, the research is amateurish. The experimental designs wouldn't pass muster at any tech company.

except there's no better research to contradict it

Without valid research in any direction, we should fall back on our prior, which is that ignoring crying infants at night is no less detrimental than ignoring crying during the day.
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