What happens when babies are left to cry it out? • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by unity1001 » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:14 AM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #381

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 article makes fairly clear that sleep training under 6 months is not advised. Not to say that every baby will be ready at that point, but it becomes clear to most parents somewhere in the first year what cries from their baby express sincere needs - even psychological- and which are just gratuitous attention seeking. Once they have object permanence down, parenting changes.

> The article makes fairly clear that sleep training under 6 months is not advised

Beyond that - the close presence of parents near the infant until 2 years of age was discovered to be vital for the infant's development, social skills and especially being bold enough to experiment and learn new things. The lack of parents in close proximity in that period causes the infant to feel anxiety and hesitate from wandering around and trying out things and learning.

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

#492

Post by jjulius » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #482

[flagged]

It's French, too. See, "Le Pause".

And you're demonstrating a sheer amount of ignorance with your rush to judgement here. The children are not neglected and are checked in on and comforted by the parents during sleep training.

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

#493

Post by unity1001 » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

gsinclair wrote: post #474

fipar wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can add my anecdotal experience to yours. Co-sleeping seemed like the cheat code to getting baby boy to sleep through the night.

> Co-sleeping seemed like the cheat code to getting baby boy to sleep through the night

Naturally since the baby will feel the parents close by instead of being out hunting & gathering, with himself being in danger. Or worse - parents dead, potential predators around. Evolutionary traits.

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

#494

Post by jjulius » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #490

christophilus wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a parent, it is your evolutionary instinct to comfort a crying infant. My genes didn’t get the memo. My instinct is to say, “He’ll be fine, but if I don’t sleep, no one will be fine.”

> My genes didn’t get the memo Don't worry. Your gene pool will eventually select itself out via that mindset.

You need to chill out on your judgemental posts. You're coming into this thread fast and hot and it is not constructive. Your quick reactions are demonstrating your own ignorance on this subject.

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

#495

Post by shaklee3 » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

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…

why is something that is uncommon in other cultures obviously bad? there are many, many, many counterexamples to things kind this. just because something is commonplace doesn't mean it's the best way.

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

#496

Post by unity1001 » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

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.

> The fact that you are getting enraged is a huge part of the problem. Keep your own morality to yourself and your own family.

How about you people keep your destructive practice to yourself and stop advocating it, less, rationalizing it and pushing it to mainstream. And with 'you people', i mean the US, because the only place where this thing seems to be a 'thing' and is even being advocated by 'professionals' is the US. The place where individualism and consumerism hails from and the people load up on prozac to survive.

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

#497

Post by gsinclair » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #122

Patrol8394 wrote: post #104

My wife and I did not sleep trained our kids. They co-slept with us, they were happy we were able to sleep through the night. Eventually they transitioned into their own bed no problem. Our neighbors will let their baby cry like forever, it was excruciating and imo pointless.

I think parenting is the worst possible space for N=1 anecdotes. I have two sets of friends who did what you did and have never slept alone or through the night for coming up on five years. For our oldest, also coming up on five years, we did like one night of sleep training at 18 months and immediately started sleeping through the night like magic. For our youngest, we never had to do anything, he just always slept…

N=1 anecdotes are exactly the things that give new parents a range of ideas to mentally try out and see what fits.

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

#498

Post by Der_Einzige » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #123

metabagel wrote: post #110

Having read "The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog", which goes into a fair amount of detail regarding attachment and attachment disorders, letting an infant "cry it out" strikes me as child abuse. Infants have no control over their environment, and crying is almost their only way to communicate. I'm not enthusiastic about sleep training either - the gradual, controlled removal of sleep time emotional support by the parent…

Not regarding a human child, but my spouse thought leaving our rescue dog, still a youngster only a few months old, in a cage in another room overnight was somehow proper, which frankly incensed me as cruel and abusive nonsense, because it's not the way of the wild, not what any of us were evolved for. And I'd lived with and worked with rescue animals for decades, so felt strongly about this. (i put my foot down and…

Don't worry, crate training is indeed illegal in many western European nations.

Americans who do this are deluded into thinking it's okay. I had the misfortune of living with a person who did this with their two dogs and I saw the impacts it had on the dog first hand.

No, 10000 years ago, when the dog fell asleep in the den with its "owners", the den door was NOT closed. It is abusive as fuck to crate train.

I'm also very happy to have seen states like California take a stand against usage of small crates within factory farming techniques with chicken and veal. There's still far more to be done on this front, but there will be an end to this practice eventually.

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

#499

Post by unity1001 » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:19 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #247

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…

On the other hand if infants were this fragile to be long term affected by something like that humanity would survive 3 generation tops. At some point synaptic prunning comes and the child is rid of nearly all indignities it suffered up to that point.

> On the other hand if infants were this fragile to be long term affected by something like that humanity would survive 3 generation tops.

The infants that were this fragile eventually selected themselves out of the gene pool by neglectful parents, or by behavioral disorders causing them to not be able to reproduce as much as others. Which is why almost every baby cries.

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

#500

Post by Der_Einzige » Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 5:19 AM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #166

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…

good point. we left her crate set up with door open, which she could use as a "fort", and she did like that for napping. i guessed partly in the sense she doesn't have to stay partially awake worrying about being stepped on.

If only every owner would keep the damn door open.