I let my first child “cry it out”. I’m guilty.
We waited the recommended 4-6 months before ever letting a cry go unanswered, and then we implemented sleep training. He was already sleeping through the night, he just still needed to nurse to fall asleep initially. We did our nighttime routine, left him awake in the crib, walked out for 2 minutes to hear ear piercing screaming, came back in and soothed him (although we did pick him up and calm him down, otherwise it was pointless), and repeated at increasing intervals. It took an hour the first night. And after 3 night of this, he successfully taught him self how to soothe himself to sleep. I felt conflicted about this method the first time I read about it. Every night I was in tears, and I didn’t feel any amazing sense of accomplishment once it worked.
When I found out I was pregnant with my second, one of the first things I started questioning was if I would do the “cry it out” method again. Recently there have been many studies and new findings suggesting that this method is much more harmful than helpful for a child. Articles like this and this (and plenty more) claim the traumatic crying for such a young baby can kill brain cells, thus resulting in several problems later in life such as ADHD, antisocial behavior, and lower IQ.
I’m not saying I agree with these articles. I’m not saying I agree with the “cry it out” method. I’m trying to figure out where I stand, although I’m thinking I’m leaning more towards finding a different method for this next baby. I have been questioning ever since I had my first baby if it is really that terrible to rock, nurser, or sing an infant to sleep every night. Somehow our society teaches us it is. Why should we lose sleep just because these babies of ours need things like comfort?
What do you believe about sleep training and crying it out? Is it really as harmful at it seems or is it beneficial to teach our children good sleep habits? Where do you stand?
Here are my two “arguments” against CIO.
First off, how many adults or even children (non-babies and toddlers) who still need to nurse, rock, etc. to sleep? Everyone eventually learns to get to sleep themselves. We learn that sleep isn’t scary, but nice actually.
Secondly, no one ever shuts me in a room for an indeterminable amount of time for an unknown reason, etc. so why should I submit my baby to that? Adults, children, have reasoning skills, babies have none. For all they know, you’re never coming back.
ha, we used to joke that my son would be 17 and still need to listen to Jewel lullaby CD and nurse to sleep.
I am torn on this as well. My husband really feels a strong conviction from the Lord that for us with our daughter cry it out is not the right way to go. Sometimes I feel at a loss though because going in there to nurse her back to sleep is a lot. She’s 11 months and has always been an awesome sleeper for the most part. Around 7 or 8 months she started to wake up between 4 and 5:30 for an early morning feed, even though she’d been sleeping till 6 or 7 or even 8 prior to that. I’ve just nursed her and gone back to bed. I’m torn as to what to do now that I’m thinking about weening though. I’ll prob still nurse her once or twice a day until either she refuses or she’s 2. But in “weening” I’m thinking we need to drop this feed… just not sure how to do that without crying it out. The last two mornings though she slept till 7:30, so I’m hoping this problem will solve itself…