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

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

#631

Post by bennysonething » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #581

bennysonething wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does she still have to take them?

Occasionally. Her sleeping patterns have regularized now - though off the drops, she's somewhat more prone to wake around 03:00 seemingly recharged, only to fall back to sleep around 06:00 and then be near-impossible to wake up an hour later - but at 3.5 y.o., we have some success in talking her back into sleep, so it's no longer a big issue. The drops still come in handy in specific situations that we know will disr…

That's a coincidence, my daughter is 3.5 years old too!

The reason I'm interested is my wife is pregnant with our second. First four months our daughter slept all the time. 5 to 11 months was an nightmare. Then it settled down and she sleeps 8 to 6.30 most nights. I think we were lucky, especially after reading what you went through!

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

#632

Post by profstasiak » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

omnibrain wrote: post #283

ineptech wrote: post #272

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…

> a world where Mom has to work 9-5 in an office a few months after birth That's a cultural problem itself.

is this true in USA? Wow

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

#633

Post by naasking » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #627

naasking wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Invoking evolutionary biology is not the strong point you seem to think it is. Humans have plenty of characteristics and behaviours that are not present in other mammals, even characteristics that seem to be shared among all other mammals. Our shared heritage with cats didn't lead to our sophisticated language or take us to the moon. Furthermore, if letting babies cry it out were truly as atrocious a practice as you…

> Invoking evolutionary biology is not the strong point you seem to think it is. Humans have plenty of characteristics and behaviours that are not present in other mammals Yes, but co-sleeping, rearing children, co-habitation, touching, grooming, infants depending on their parents are present in all mammal species. More sophisticated and derived behaviors may not be. But these, are. And the repression of some of thes…

> And the repression of some of these in modern humans causes considerable psychological distress and anxiety.

Literally pure conjecture, as there's no conclusive evidence of this claim, which is the whole point of this article.

Furthermore, the only change we're discussing is eliminating a specific type of co-sleeping. All of the other behaviours common to all mammals remain the same. The odds of this one change being significantly damaging are small, and considering we see no strong signal in the data we do have, I don't see this claim standing the test of time.

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

#634

Post by balfirevic » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

rendall wrote: post #409

This appears to be an Anglosphere thing. I, being American, tried to introduce this to my baby son's European mother. She was not having it. "If he's crying, he wants to be held. This 'crying it out' will lead to lack of trust." And the baby slept in the same bed with us for about 3 months. And, I am glad she was so adamant. She was right.

> This 'crying it out' will lead to lack of trust

> She was right.

She wasn't, she just made that up.

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

#635

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 7:53 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #626

dang wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You turned large parts of this thread into nationalistic flamewars and broke the site guidelines in countless egregious ways. That's vandalism and abuse. We ban accounts that wreck threads like this. I appreciate that child-rearing is an intensely emotional topic and that standards differ between countries, but that doesn't make it ok to pour dozens of flamewar comments into a thread about it. Please see https://news…

> You turned large parts of this thread into nationalistic flamewars As I said, I dont see anything 'nationalistic' about criticism of US-endemic policies and trends. With that logic, we would need to flag anyone who critices the US imperialism of the last 40 years and its overseas wars since it would also evaluate to being nationalistic with the same logic. Additionally, I didnt name any specific nation to elevate i…

Ok, you make some fair points and I'm not hung up on the 'nationalistic' part of this, so let's not argue about that. What's much more important is that you broke the site guidelines extremely egregiously in the dozens of comments you posted in this thread. That's unacceptable, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again.

I have no problem with your views about babies. But there was a huge problem with the aggressive comments you posted. That is a direct contribution to destroying this place, and we can't allow that.

Moreover, it wasn't in your interest to argue this way. I understand how emotional the topic is—and rightly so—but attacking and putting other people down is not only not going to persuade them, it's going to harden them in their wrong (or what you consider to be wrong) position. By doing this you provided lots of fresh justification to dismiss your point of view—after all, look at how the people defending it behave! Assuming your position is true, then what you achieve by doing this is to discredit the truth (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Not only is that not in your interest, it hurts everybody.

I know that other people also behaved badly in this thread and I scolded some of them, but I'm sad to say that your posts were the worst by a significant margin. Since you don't have a history of conducting yourself this way on HN (at least not from the old comments I skimmed through), I'm sure you can avoid this in the future. If you'd please do that, and also make sure you're up on the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, we'd appreciate it.

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

#636

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 8:03 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #624

dang wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of flamewar abuse is a bannable offense on HN. The last thing we need here is nationalistic hell. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34194158 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34194145 , and please don't do this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There is nothing 'nationalist' about this. The past 40 years have seen an immense amount of trends that were manufactured for profit originating from the US. From privatization of social services to reduction of labor protections. From atomization of social life down to individuals because 'individualism was better' to having those individuals subsist on prozac to keep their resulting depression under control. From s…

You've replied to me three times and responded only about the 'nationalistic' aspect. From this I see that I did a poor job of explaining why your comments were so abusive of HN. Even if we accept your definition of the word 'nationalistic', it ought to be clear that you broke the site guidelines extremely badly.

By nationalistic flamewar I simply mean the kind of flamewar that happens when people put down other countries on internet forums. It's a shallow, simple definition that doesn't have any nuance; nor should it, because internet hellfire doesn't have any nuance.

If you don't like that use of the word, that's fine—it's not the main point. The main point is that you started and perpetuated an aggressive flamewar that wrecked this thread, and moreover would completely wreck this forum if we allowed it to. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34200065 where I've explained this in more detail. You've been a good HN user otherwise, but we can't allow this kind of thing, so please don't do it again.

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

#637

Post by unity1001 » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 8:22 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #636

unity1001 wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing 'nationalist' about this. The past 40 years have seen an immense amount of trends that were manufactured for profit originating from the US. From privatization of social services to reduction of labor protections. From atomization of social life down to individuals because 'individualism was better' to having those individuals subsist on prozac to keep their resulting depression under control. From s…

You've replied to me three times and responded only about the 'nationalistic' aspect. From this I see that I did a poor job of explaining why your comments were so abusive of HN. Even if we accept your definition of the word 'nationalistic', it ought to be clear that you broke the site guidelines extremely badly. By nationalistic flamewar I simply mean the kind of flamewar that happens when people put down other coun…

> The main point is that you started and perpetuated an aggressive flamewar

That makes it clearer, thanks. I do understand the concern about flamewars. I moderated forums myself. However, how will the criticism about things that originate from a specific society, organization or country will even be possible in such an environment then. Any criticism by naming anything would amount to an assault against a group or country under that standard. Or, is it so that if such criticism is raised, but just the origin is not specifically named, that would be compatible with the guidelines?

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

#638

Post by unity1001 » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 8:32 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #635

unity1001 wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You turned large parts of this thread into nationalistic flamewars As I said, I dont see anything 'nationalistic' about criticism of US-endemic policies and trends. With that logic, we would need to flag anyone who critices the US imperialism of the last 40 years and its overseas wars since it would also evaluate to being nationalistic with the same logic. Additionally, I didnt name any specific nation to elevate i…

Ok, you make some fair points and I'm not hung up on the 'nationalistic' part of this, so let's not argue about that. What's much more important is that you broke the site guidelines extremely egregiously in the dozens of comments you posted in this thread. That's unacceptable, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again. I have no problem with your views about babies. But there was a huge problem wit…

Thanks for explaining the viewpoint of the HN moderation. I do understand your viewpoint. While I think that people should start raising their voice and expressing their thoughts and sentiments more directly to stop the current decline into hellhole, I do agree that an amicable discussion environment should be maintained. Ill follow the general format that everyone else at HN is using from this point on.

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

#639

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #638

dang wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you make some fair points and I'm not hung up on the 'nationalistic' part of this, so let's not argue about that. What's much more important is that you broke the site guidelines extremely egregiously in the dozens of comments you posted in this thread. That's unacceptable, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again. I have no problem with your views about babies. But there was a huge problem wit…

Thanks for explaining the viewpoint of the HN moderation. I do understand your viewpoint. While I think that people should start raising their voice and expressing their thoughts and sentiments more directly to stop the current decline into hellhole, I do agree that an amicable discussion environment should be maintained. Ill follow the general format that everyone else at HN is using from this point on.

Appreciated!

I think a narrow space exists in which one can raise one's voice but do it in a way that connects with the people one is talking to, rather than alienating them. It's not easy to find that narrow space, but that's what HN is trying to be about.

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

#640

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

unity1001 wrote: post #637

dang wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've replied to me three times and responded only about the 'nationalistic' aspect. From this I see that I did a poor job of explaining why your comments were so abusive of HN. Even if we accept your definition of the word 'nationalistic', it ought to be clear that you broke the site guidelines extremely badly. By nationalistic flamewar I simply mean the kind of flamewar that happens when people put down other coun…

> The main point is that you started and perpetuated an aggressive flamewar That makes it clearer, thanks. I do understand the concern about flamewars. I moderated forums myself. However, how will the criticism about things that originate from a specific society, organization or country will even be possible in such an environment then. Any criticism by naming anything would amount to an assault against a group or co…

Thanks for these kind replies—I really appreciate it.

I think it is safer to make one's case on $topic without attributing it to a source that many people are likely to be identified with (e.g. national origin or whatever it is). Any time someone feels pressure against a place of identity, it feels like they're being attacked, and at that point the driver of discussion ceases to be $topic and starts activating survival circuitry. The only responses at that point are defensiveness or counterattack (or both). Curious conversation, which is the raison d'être of this place, becomes impossible.

If, however, the argument makes no sense without that attribution, I would try to do it in a way that includes lots of reassurance that one isn't disrespecting or putting down the identity (e.g. nationality or whatever it is), and make a point of explaining the connection to $topic in a limited and respectful way.

It's necessary to err on the side of doing it this way, even if it feels excessive, because although you may know that you're not attacking someone's identity, they don't have any way of knowing that up front. We all have a lot more context in their heads than we include in our internet comments. Readers don't have any of that information unless we explicitly include it. That's one reason why it's so easy for people to misread others' intent on the internet - I've written about this in various places, e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....