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

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

#641

Post by rendall » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

balfirevic wrote: post #634

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.

Nope. She, being an intuitively good mom, understood that crying is literally a cry for help.

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

#642

Post by anon291 » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 4:13 AM UTC

voisin wrote: post #59

anon291 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you and your spouse are of healthy weight and the mother breastfeeds all night and the bed is stripped of heavy bedding and pillows this is unlikely. I wish doctors would give parents this advice because what happens now is that many American parents will cosleep without admitting it and don't know what to do when they engage in it. In many traditional cultures, the baby is breastfed all night and the bed is strip…

In British Columbia, Canada, new mothers are given material that talks about how to co-sleep in a safe manner, just as you say. Ensuring the mother has not had alcohol or drugs, covers and pillows are kept away and that the mother isn’t falling asleep exhausted (easier said than done, but going to bed early and not being up all night are key). Source: new baby last month.

That's great! We need that here in the US

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

#643

Post by anon291 » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 10:07 AM UTC

brink wrote: post #54

anon291 wrote: post #6

Part of this is that Americans have an obsession with babies sleeping in another room and in another bed. My family immigrated here and no one ever did that. Children sleep with their parents.

> have an obsession I'm so tired of the condescending tone that is usually taken for granted when talking about traditional American culture. Can we please stop this? It's just a cultural difference.

> I'm so tired of the condescending tone that is usually taken for granted when talking about traditional American culture. Can we please stop this? It's just a cultural difference.

This is not a traditional American cultural value. Traditionally, Americans sleep with their kids. In fact, large portions still do. Putting children in a crib was turned into an American cultural value by various associations, not by some cultural development.

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

#644

Post by ghostpepper » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 5:04 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #470

ghostpepper wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And, as it turns out, consistent and frequent breastfeeding is much harder to achieve than popular media would had you believe. This myth is a huge cause of depression in new moms

There are massive issues with hiding the real challenges with children from potential mothers and fathers. I suspect it's a combination of: 1) Prior/older parents worried about embarrassment or being shamed for going through what they did - a lot of it things that no one likes to talk about. 2) Folks worried (potentially correctly) that many folks would opt to not have kids, which is already a population problem, if…

I think 1 could also be parents actively forgetting how hard it was. I think I even read a theory that the mother's brain releases chemicals during childbirth that help her remember it as "not so bad"

I also suspect that older generations were less isolated socially and it was much more common to have parents/grandparents/cousins/etc in the same house who could care for the baby for an hour while mom caught up on sleep. It takes a village to raise a child but we have no more villages, so people try to do it on their own and discover it's incredibly difficult.