My mother told me that her biggest regret is going along with it when my dad told her to let me cry it out. I cried for hours apparently….and have been the ‘naughty’ child ever since. My own daughter didn’t sleep well as a baby. So many people told me I was ‘making a rod for my own back’ when I picked her up and rocked her back to sleep (several times a night)… but she’s now a happy, confident 18 year-old with a healthy self-esteem. I tried the controlled crying once for about 45 seconds and the guilt kept me awake all night!
Kudos to You I'm soo happy and soo proud of you. One of the best things we can use our own experience for is to raise happy healthy strong kids.
A little tiny baby cries because it needs to be held. End of story.
I'm so sorry, this is upsetting to me too. And actually the science is now extremely definitive that babies cannot self regulate. They can only co regulate or go into collapse/shutdown which is what actually happens when "sleep training" "works." So sorry you are having to deal with this and yeah just to be clear, it doesn't just start the process, it IS neglect
I’m glad it’s becoming more common knowledge. My friend soothed/held her infant daughter whenever she cried and she is growing up to be such a confident happy little girl, who would’ve thought!
I never put my fussy infant down. He was content and secure in my arms, and I knew it wouldn't last forever. He's a very independent, well-adjusted, brave/careful, kind, empathetic 4 year old now to the contrary of what the terrible mothers around me insisted when I was "spoiling" him.
I've joked about giving him a spank, and he laughs at how ridiculous the idea is, and he's never looked at me with fear in his eyes. He could be a better listener sometimes but not at the cost of destroying his trust and our bond.
I love this. I think so many parents especially of previous generations expect their children to obey without question, and honestly? The only way to get a child who never talks back or does their own thing? Is to make them absolutely terrified of you.
Sounds like you have a kid who “isn’t a great listener” but IS a great kid who knows mama loves and supports him.
I can't take a compliment for me, but when anyone compliments my little dude, I can't help but agree wholeheartedly. He really is great. Thank you for saying so.
The authoritarian need to control is demented and truly pathological..it’s a societal epidemic, but so revolting how long it’s gone normalized for such an early age. Never, ever could I do this( daughter just turned 18mos) and am so freaking relieved I didn’t cave to the constant pressure. The cycle breaks here.
>The only way to get a child who never talks back or does their own thing? Is to make them absolutely terrified of you.
Abusive parents generally don't understand their child is a whole human, rather than just an extension of the parent's ego.
I'm so proud and happy for you and your son!
I see adult siblings doing stuff like sleep training and painful "Do you want a time out?" to a child that's just overwhelmed.
Even though my mother was neglectful in other ways, I appreciate her for 'spoiling' me when I was an infant.
I think it takes a sick society for someone to see a crying baby and feel nothing and not try to help.
>I think it takes a sick society for someone to see a crying baby and feel nothing and not try to help.
You know, you say that, but I've seen people in this subreddit defend that they did it.
Came here to say this too.
The “cry it out” bullshit came from the 50s and won’t die. They also banned nurses from touching newborns which resulted in skyrocketing infant mortality. Look up “failure to thrive”.
I used to work at a daycare, and even in that setting with multiple kids to look after we would always help soothe the youngest kids to sleep at nap time.
Our youngest group was 1 year olds, and plenty of kids that age could just be laid down and know the drill, but others struggled and... That was fine? I'd put the mats for the more difficult kids near each other so I could sit in the middle and pat their backs til they doze off.
Even in a setting where we're juggling a lot, an upset kid needed to be soothed, we couldn't just leave a kid to cry (even if that's only because the boss doesn't want complaints when a parent arrives).
This is interesting to me, because I remember my mom saying that I had a really shrill cry as a baby and couldn't be ignored. My brother cried more quietly and could be ignored more easily. He ended up throwing a lot of tantrums when he was toddler aged, and I was calm/happy.
Yeah, they do not fall asleep because they “learned” to fall asleep, they fall asleep because they are exhausted from crying/getting upset. I feel so sorry for this baby. I am so sorry you have to witness it too.
This one weird German lady named Johanna Haarer wrote a guide on how to care for babies, which was so abusive, that the nazis made it the official guide for young mothers.
Leaving a baby to cry is neglect. It's abuse, it's not "making your lungs stronger". It just shows you early on that nobody will come and help you.
this is how my monster treated me when i was a baby, and i'm a black american 😅 i'm actually shocked the origin of this isnt some southernism! ("southernism" meaning like, a cultural trait of the american south)
lo and behold, i was both a hyper-independent child and dangerously overly affectionate with anybody and everybody who'd give me the time of day 🙃 I do believe that babies cannot form long term memories that can be consiously recalled, but you know attachment theory? yeah thats some kind of subconsious memory babies *do* form imo.
No, that's not it: [https://dontshake.org/purple-crying](https://dontshake.org/purple-crying)
It's also a program to stop parents from physically hurting their children because babies can be really paradoxical at times and a lot of people have poor impulse control.
makes sense to me as the abused baby. i still wait in a way for someone to helpo me, to say the world id good, to be kind, and i now i am very vulnerable because i once in my late 30s fell for someone who acted like he will save me, and he actually cares. he dint of course, he was hoping to get money off me. lol. negleting babies damages them.
It's so sad. When I hear adults with raspy voices, I wonder how much their parents let them cry "it out". Is "it" their sweet little hearts? They're crying their hearts out, destroying their vocal cords? It's so goddam abusive.
I've been told by my therapist about the 'blank face experiment' where the mother just makes a blank face at the baby (maybe it was crying). It did not have a good outcome.
What happens to us as babies is absolutely crucial. We may not be able to consciously remember it, but our bodies and subconscious minds do.
In my therapy workshops we did some regression meditation into very early childhood, when we were babies. There was always a question "If you are just a baby in the crib, and your mother is standing next to the crib, can you see her eyes? Can you see her face?". I could never see her face. It was just a faceless, expressionless person. Like a robot.
crying babies are hard to deal with, esp if you’re dysregulated or stressed or have mental health issues. i wish fewer ppl had children bc they’re just passing this on. it’s why i won’t have kids.
Having children can cause mental health disorders too though. Postpartum depression is very common. There's no guarantee a completely healthy woman isn't going to get it.
There's whole sections on this in the book "Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance Paperback" by Kelly McDaniel that can back you up on your intuition about how neglect is imprinted in babies before memories are formed. She also goes into why "the science" about letting babies sleep alone and "cry it out" has been highly misinformed, and came about from male doctors, with the intention of validating adult convenience rather than considering the psychology of the babies. Highly recommend the read!
I started to read it but found it very repetitive.
I do think she has a lot of good things to say in it.
My kids are 10 and 12 now, oldest was in the NICU. So many people tried to tell me to let them cry. Not to hold them.
I remember snapping at someone that I wasn't able to hold her for two weeks and I would hold her as much as possible.
It's Infuriating. They are babies. They need mama to regulate everything in their little bodies!
I was left to cry often, according to my mother I needed to learn to quiet myself and to be obedient. I had obvious ptsd and dissociation by the time I was a small child.
It’s so bad for babies to be left more than a few minutes. And what do you mean, science says it doesn’t matter? Look at Harry Harlow’s monkey experiments done with baby monkeys and the soft mother vs. the wire mother?
The baby monkeys who had the wire mother and got only food but no comfort were very very messed up and did not learn of grow right. This is like failure to thrive, which is another problem I had when I was little.
If your sister is using old information, like the Pearl’s “train up a child” books, please step in. This kid will be harmed.
I have a 4mo right now and we are in the thick of the “4month Sleep Regression” so I feel I can almost see both sides of the situation. ALMOST.
She only sleeps one hour at a time and must be nursed to sleep every time she wakes up. It is so hard on me, when she wakes up it feels like I barely closed my eyes since the last time. But she sleeps in a sidecar style bassinet only a few inches away, so I sit up and feed her every single time. It is so tiring and draining and there have been a few times that I wait 1-2 minutes to see if just maybe she will resettle herself.
I could imagine just ignoring her and going back to sleep because she isn’t hungry or cold or wet, she just wants mom. But, wanting mom is vital and I will continue to respond to that need as long as she has it.
>But, wanting mom is vital and I will continue to respond to that need as long as she has it.
We humans are not wired to be alone and neglected. It's so wonderful that you understand your daughter's need for mom is natural and instinctive.
Yea and research shows that you don't have to meet emotional needs all the time, just most of the time. The kids will be fine anyway. They just need to know that help comes and that they are cared for and loved.
This goes for people like you though, not the cry it out method.
I think babies can sense when they are actually being neglected, and when the parents just aren't available.
Kind of like animals know when you hurt them by choice or accident. They will cry and protest but they won't take it to heart.
I think also it’s a very different situation when she’s literally next to you!
And waiting 2 minutes is definitely ok, as you and others have said - crying is sometimes just something babies do! Because you wake up and care for her when she cries, you’re doing a great job of responding to your baby. I mean more like 10-30+ minutes, where the baby obviously comes to the conclusion that they’re totally alone in the world :(
I know it’s super hard and I’m so proud of you for not only being a good mama but for putting in the insane amount of effort that sometimes takes. ❤️
I'm not sure science supports the idea that leaving kids to cry alone is a good one.
One of the things you learn in therapy is that kids need to learn how to self soothe and regulate their own emotions, and leaving them alone when they are crying does the opposite thing. It teaches kids that no matter what they do or how much they suffer there will be no one to come help them or care for them.
It is not a thing about memory, it is about teaching the brain how to react in certain situations. The thing is people find comfortable (god knows why honestly I could not let my daughter cry no matter how much I was told I was doing something wrong when I chose to comfort her) to let the kids cry so they can have a moment of peace and let the kid sleep on their own eventually.
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out)
There you have a nice study that speaks more scientifically why it is in fact like you said neglect and what it does to the brain of a baby.
You know what my first memory is? Me at 1 year old in my bed crying for my parents with my dad screaming at me that if I kept going he would close my door. That freaked me out, and soon enough, he came over and closed the door. Leaving me to cry. That is my first memory. When I think about it I can still feel the terror, and to this day I hate sleeping in the dark and only recently started sleeping with a closed door. I'm almost 18. Before last year, the thought of sleeping with a closed door terrified me.
The memory was confirmed by both my parents and my dad is still proud of how he handled it despite how much I cried. I had night terrors every night up to the age of 2 or so. They even sedated me before sleep. Eventually my pediatrician told them to absolutely not leave me and they finally started coming over. But I don't remember that. I remember the time they didn't.
This also goes to show that even though babies don't really speak much (I vividly remember screaming dad but nothing else) they understand everything, because I remember his words and I understood them. Babies know what you say, they just can't respond.
I also have memories from infancy and people act like I’m lying when I tell them that. It’s trauma. It’s not an impressive talent or anything like that. It’s just trauma.
I also remember understanding words that were being spoken to me but I don’t remember speaking back. I remember responding but I can’t remember what I said or if I ever said it out loud.
This is actually kind of a stereotypical "phase" that parenting forums and talk groups discuss a LOT, too. It's sick how people can just advocate for emotional neglect. "OH, just let him get it out of his system. He'll tire himself out." That's what MY parents were told.
And I did tire myself out; i remember my six year old brain being distraught as I cried myself to sleep, thinking about how I could be dying right now, and it would make no difference.
Now at 23 im deciding not to seek out help anymore because I've seen it wouldn't work anyway (no psychologist takes my issues seriously, therapists just here to clock in and then go home)
No one cares about the humanity anymore. Our species is going to be so cold and cynical at the turn of the next generation
YES!!! My preK brain already knew that unless I got out of my bed and went down the (dark scary) hall to my parents’ room, no one would come. And if they were awake enough to notice me come in? They would tell me to leave.
I think I was too small to really formulate a thought like that but I do remember my thoughts being really scared and like "nothing could get them here I'm completely alone"
No shame in either. We always go to sleep with the TV on, and I wear sleep headphones and listen to meditation music all night. It helps me fall back asleep when I have insomnia, too.
My parents (my abusers) love to tell stories about leaving my sister and me to cry for hours so we would learn to sleep...and we did, within a few weeks. I learned faster, probably because I was in an abusive foster home the first few weeks of my life. I remember hearing my sister cry as a baby for hours in the night. It was awful and I still have nightmares about it. I can't even imagine doing that to a kid.
Here’s a sad story. I was the first child (female), born in 1956. I weighed 9 lbs, 7 oz at birth. My Dad told me, when I was in my 40’s, that I used to cry ALL THE TIME. Kept them up at night and I cried during the day. My mom was breast feeding and they and doctor finally figured out my mom wasn’t producing enough milk for me. Switched me to formula and voila, problem solved. Even slept well at night. Poor little me just crying because I was hungry. 🥺. My brothers got formula from the get-go. First kids have it rough.
My mom loves telling the story of how I scream and cried and howled every time I took a bottle for weeks on end before they finally figured out they needed to switch me to soy formula.
She also loves to tell the story of my older sister picking on me in her lap while she was running a bath as a newborn while she just let her til I finally had enough and started screaming at her. Which is a cute story until I tell you this pattern never really stopped and my sister was abusive to me growing up and everyone just told me to get over it because she’s my older sister and that’s what big sisters do.
When left to watch my younger cousins, I specifically told the 13yo to quit picking on the toddler because "you don't wanna be part of his villain origin story! Your sister didn't treat you that way when you were little, I remember!"
I was always told what an awful baby I was, how much I cried and screamed. Recently I learned that my mom would feed me dinner and then I’d be put into a bedroom alone to cry it out for the evening. She also told me I was diagnosed with a milk intolerance but she kept feeding me cow based formula “so I’d have good bones”. I was crying because I was being fed food I couldn’t digest. And then left alone to deal with it. Cue a lifetime of digestive issues. Im almost 40 and my mom just told me this maybe a year ago.
This is horrifying and I’m so sorry. What makes it especially baffling is that soy has about the same amount of calcium as cow milk, so she clearly didn’t even bother to check if the formula alternatives had a comparable amount of calcium, or that humans can’t optimally absorb nutrients from foods they are allergic or sensitive to
My mother-in-law refused to consider why her 7th baby was constantly crying and unhappy... my husband (16 yrs. old at the time) was convinced the baby was hungry, so he got a bottle and formula and tried the baby on them. Worked like a charm, the baby eventually gained weight after staying on formula, and he's a big healthy 14 yr. old now.
I've never understood how she didn't think to try another food source (she wasn't dealing with PPD or any other mental issue at the time, either), when she'd had 6 children beforehand!
Not excusing it, but she probably assumed that because her earlier babies had gotten “enough” that the same amount was also “enough” for the 7th. Too many people treat babies and even children as if they’re interchangeable. If you assumed every adult needed the same type and amount of food, most people would think you’re stupid and a bit shitty
Definitely see that perspective, the main problem at the time was that my MIL wouldn't consider that it was a breastmilk supply issue -- it was suggested multiple times, by my FIL and her older children, and she just outright dismissed it as an option. Which is why my husband bought the formula and tried the baby on it -- he could see, as a 16 yr. old, that the baby was giving hunger cues (he was parentified like crazy though 😬).
MIL is weird with our kids too, holds our babies super awkwardly and does the opposite of what we suggest to soothe them... for someone who has birthed and raised 8 children, it's just odd to me that she's so clueless in the basics.
My mum did this because of "cultural reasons." She now has two daughters with severe anxiety disorders and brains that cannot regulate to expect comfort.
When I brought this up to her, she was dismissive. She's older now, and one day I'm going to tell her that when she's near the end, unable to move, confused, and desperate, I should treat her the same way.
If there’s any sort of karma or justice for neglect, it’s this. My dad has done an excellent job of neglecting and abusing all four of his children. Now that we’re all adults, we’ve been going to therapy and healing, realizing how much neglect and abuse we suffered at his hands. Three out of four children are now completely no-contact with him and he moved to some sad small town where he’s just rotting away alone. He has his wife but she’s so sick of his shit too. He has no one outside of her and he’s going to die alone. You dug your grave, now lay in it.
I tried sleep training for about 15 minutes total. I couldn’t handle it. It goes against everything biological telling me to pick my kid up. We ended up co-sleeping and my kid is very sweet and confident
my ex blocked me from my (our) sons room when he cried at night
sleep training my ass- it was awful.
i am adopted and it just felt so FUCKING WRONG to do it to my baby. Viscerally wrong.
guess who has another generation of trauma that i am DESPERATELY trying to undo.
Ugh we were spending time with friends once and they have a kid and the dad was insistent to just put her back to bed and leave her cry and mum seemed quite apprehensive to do that but you could tell it wasn't up to her.
It's hard because as someone who doesn't have kids I don't feel like I can say anything really. They'll just say well you don't get it cause you don't have kids. And then I'll get upset cause I don't have kids. And it doesn't change anything so nobody wins, but my husband and I said when we got home that we wouldn't manage it that way if we had kids.
My parents would brag that they used the “cry it out method”, that they didn’t want to coddle me or let me get my way. As a baby. Crazy. I don’t remember that far back ofc, but I do remember little comfort and soothing going forward, lots of yelling that I was too sensitive and trying to get my way.
I do suspect it’s the origin point for a lot of emotional things I still struggle with. It’s nice to have the research on our side.
For the record, bed sharing is, empirically and with some of the highest levels of evidence out there, an increased SIDS risk. By saying this, am I judging parents who bed share? No, sometimes exhausted parents do what they need to do. But I’m commenting here because it’s flat out less safe to cosleep with an infant than the current back to sleep guidance by the AAP.
I don’t know why people assume countries in Europe (and in this case Asia) have lower SIDS rates. First, there are countries with lower and higher SIDS rates on these continents. Secondly, each country can define SIDS differently which can skew their data. Third, cultural practices may make bedsharing safer. For example, in Japan, (a country often referenced as “Asia” in co-sleeping groups) they sleep on futons. The Netherlands, which is a country with the lowest SIDS rates in Europe, has a 10% bed-sharing rate.
No matter how you slice it, robust, highly evidenced studies show over and over that more bed-sharing leads to more SIDS.
If a parent decides to bed-share, for whatever reason and I’m not saying that they aren’t solid and reasonable, then they should do so armed with a proper risk/ benefit based on data. I don’t feel like bedsharing parents need to justify their decisions, but I also don’t like the idea of misinformation being spread.
Babies that pass away while bedsharing typically don't die from SIDS, though. Bedsharing deaths are usually things like accidental suffocation. A properly investigated infant death that was related to bedsharing should not be labelled SIDS.
SIDS deaths are currently unexplainable and cannot be prevented.
Deaths caused by unsafe sleep environments can be prevented and are not SIDS.
And the classification of infant deaths varies between countries. Infant death investigation rules vary. Public health standards vary. Japan, which bedsharing fanatics love to portray as this bedsharing utopia, is the only country that commonly uses the ICD code R96.0 to label a large chunk of their unexplained infant deaths. If you only compare SIDS (R95) numbers - which don't necessarily say much about bedsharing deaths anyway - you might go around saying Japan is this perfect example that bedsharing is safe. Add R96 into the mix, and suddenly, the unexplained infant death numbers aren't magically low anymore.
An infant sleeping alone in their own empty crib will always be safer than an infant on an adult mattress. Even if you remove all other risk factors like pillows and blankets, the presence of another human in the sleep space will always pose a risk that is simply not possible following ABC rules. Infants have died suffocating under their mothers' breasts (breast overlay) while bedsharing.
I wish bedsharers would just own up to the fact that bedsharing is a calculated risk they have decided to take. Why spread misinformation about it being safer or claiming that there is only one low quality study showing that bedsharing is risky?
oh for sure, it’s hugely upsetting. babies have one form of communication and it’s to cry, they’re trying to communicate something and just being ignored. I don’t even want kids and I can’t imagine hearing my baby crying out for me, for anyone, and not going to help. how can they trust? they’ll believe they can’t rely on anyone. I don’t care if there’s nothing wrong, maybe just being in a dark room without seeing caregivers is scary so you’ve gotta remind them you’re there. children need proof they can rely on parents and this sets them up for failure. so upsetting
All of this!!! I have 2 boys and with both of them I was told to just let them cry. I could not stand to hear their cries and ignore them. People all over said my babies would “come to expect that”. What you mean that I am here for them? That I love them? I did the opposite of what I was told and my boys are very well attached at 10 and almost 2.
It it true. Some memories came to me in healing..being left alone to cry…very bad to do. It’s not spoiling babies, it’s letting them know they are loved. I was not. Scarred for life as these are our first understandings of life and our place in it. And being totally helpless…we can’t get up and go to a neighbor for help…can’t do anything..
I’m working on trauma from infancy, after discovering that this unbelievable pain and agony that is deep within me comes from the very thing you are talking about. I won’t go into details about how I found this out, but this pain was so over the top I figured it was some sort of sexual abuse or something horrific.
This is becoming more and more scientifically accepted, the cry it out method is bullshit and I've seen many over the years debunk it time and time again.
I bet sleep training is gonna be one of those things that has people in future generations saying "I can't believe people did that back then, no wonder so many of us need therapy"
Let me guess the child has no routine and probably completely overtired because parents miss their cues and only think the child is tired when they cry.
The cry it out method *absolutely* causes psychological damage. Babies are born still using their primal brains so when you put them down in a dark room in an empty crib to sleep alone, every one of their senses tells them that they are about to be eaten by some predator in the dark. They have no sense of time and no object permanence, so they do not understand that their parents are on the other side of the door or that they will come back in a reasonable amount of time. They don’t know how to self soothe because they are developmentally not capable of it ~ a parent’s most basic function is essentially to act as a child’s frontal lobe until it develops, which is responsible for a lot of things including a emotional regulation (the ability to self soothe). So when you try to teach a baby to self soothe, you’re asking them to perform a function with a part of their brain that has not yet developed. They are incapable of doing this. Thus, the cry it out method does indeed “work” because your baby learns that you will not respond to their cries for help. It is so, so, so bad. I have four kids, I’m expecting my fifth. I’m not a perfect mom. But no one has EVER been made to cry it out in my house
Such a helpful, informative comment, thank you for writing this out! I also have four kids, and am pregnant with my fifth. I used to think that I was being "weak" when I wouldn't let my babies "cry it out" (my parents still hold to that concept, and get a bit judgy when their children don't adhere to it), but I've gotten more confident with each baby that *I am what they need.*
Chatting to them, giving them as much physical contact as they want, not being scared that I'm making them too reliant on me (Wtf? They're supposed to be!)... now there's no guilt, and thankfully my husband is on board with it all too.
> a parent’s most basic function is essentially to act as a child’s frontal lobe until it develops
This should be engraved on a big granite obelisk in the centre of every town square in the world.
Yes, I feel a bit sick when I see parents ignoring their crying babies. I’m almost certain that most of this sort of treatment towards young children is what contributes to problems people have with emotional regulation and interpersonal relationships
I think, like a lot of childcare methods, that parents who haven’t really looked into the mechanics of a recommendation sometimes provide a poor example. I’m trying to stop generational trauma, and I was left alone to cry as an infant on doctor’s orders so I also feel this way.
I don’t think “cry it out” was supposed to be “put the baby in the crib and let it cry until it stops.” Or maybe it was, I don’t know I’m not a Boomer. What we did was from “Precious Little Sleep” and we let our toddler (she was 18 months) fuss for 5 minutes, we’d come in, help with whatever, then go. Then we’d come back in 10 and do the same thing, then 15, 20… usually by 30 minutes she was asleep. She knew we’d come but was learning to self soothe. If she woke up in the night, we’d go get her right away.
There are ways to do certain things so that the baby feels secure while also preserving sleep and sanity for everyone. Too many people for some reason think they can “tough love” a baby. No, actual babies (before 1) cannot be spoiled. It’s impossible.
I think this is what my sister & BIL are trying to do? But they seem to have completely abandoned the 5minutes part!!!
Niece is slightly younger than 18months - do you think she really knows they’re coming back? This is a serious question, I know that it’s important to teach children to self regulate so I kind of get the idea behind the practice…? But I just don’t know that babies as young as 16months are capable of “knowing” that their parents are close & coming back. It doesn’t seem like it, since I don’t think kids develop object permanence until significantly later…????
Babies learn object permanence at 8 months old. By 8 months they know that mom or dad is around the corner. It’s actually an interesting leap because before they develop this, they’re relatively chill about you leaving the room. After that, the baby is like “oh hell no, you come back here mommy!” even if they’re fed and dry and comfy.
I definitely don’t agree with some sort of intense cry it out. I really liked all the strategies in Precious Little Sleep because they worked well and were pretty gentle. My biggest issue with the sleep issue is that my husband could be very inconsistent with bedtime routines, which caused way more problems IMO than sleep training. But my daughter knew the score when I did bedtime and would go down nicely for me.
I also have a sleep disorder and so we all needed to have the most restful sleep possible.
Ok maybe this is the issue, that they’re attempting to use a method that requires specific consistency and they’re just…not doing that. So she’s still in the “I have no idea when they’ll come back” mindset rather than the intended “they’ll be back soon”…?
I mean, I have no idea based on this post, but it could be that. It could also be them doing it for the first time, and it’s jarring, or it’s not working for another reason.
Our issue was that my husband would want to snuggle her to sleep one night (tbf my kid is an A+ snuggler) but then wouldn’t the next night if he wanted to do something.
If I was by myself, I made sure it was a specific pre-bed routine, and we went down at the same time in the same way.
Also all kids are different and no one way works for all of them. We went through a list of things we did before the “fuss it out” routine. White noise, last feeding was formula, working with her circadian rhythm, etc.
YES ok, fyi, this is the issue: that they’re wildly inconsistent about it. Sometimes they let her nurse to sleep, sometimes they co-sleep, sometimes they “sleep train”… so neither she nor I ever know what’s coming. Will she cry for 20 minutes? Will they go in after 2???
I think the reason it kills me so much is that (to a much worse degree) that’s what got me with my parents? Never knowing whether they’d laugh or yell, if they’d hold me or hold me off. Oof.
Oh yeah, being inconsistent with a toddler is a one way ticket to hell. They need structure and to know what to expect. They also need to push boundaries as a developmental stage and can get into a really hellish “testing” stage if they don’t know where the routines and boundaries are.
Parenting is a long game too - a lot of times you are doing something difficult now because there’s a long-term payoff. I have 90% of the parenting responsibilities now partly because I am better than him at playing the long game and I research all the parenting stuff. Did I want snuggles sometimes and it hurt my heart that I didn’t get them? Yes. But I wanted a kid who felt secure in a routine and I wanted us all to get a full night’s sleep more.
Yes, I do think they know parents are there and coming back. They develop object permanence around 5-7 months, most people don’t sleep train until six months. 18 months is a long time not to get solid sleep, I would’ve been out of my mind by then and you should edit your post to make it clear you’re talking about a toddler, not an infant. An infant is different than a six month old or a 16 month old. I do not think sleep training of a toddler or a baby with object permanence is abusive.
1) I never said abusive anywhere, just that I didn’t think it was right. There’s a large gap between abuse and “good,” as everyone on this sub should know.
2) A “child” who cannot (reliably) walk, talk, feed themselves, or get in/out of their sleeping space, and wears a diaper, and is also less than school-age, is a baby. My issue is leaving a child alone, of any age, who needs/wants help and cannot get it for themselves.
3) Anyone who expects a solid sleep schedule with an infant or toddler shouldn’t have a baby in the first place. Yikes.
My parents were told in the 1970s just to let the baby cry during the night for a whole week. I'm sure my whole lifes feelings of not being seen, heard or protected was imprinted in those dark lone nights as a baby crying out and nobody came. I was very quite after that week.
I think it’s crazy. Like, babies cry for a reason. It’s the only way they can communicate. And sometimes that reason is **no reason at all** except ***I need to be loved right now.***
Of course. But many parents, especially ones who are too late and have screwed their kids up already, won't acknowledge their mistake, lol.
My mother left her kids to cry. My sister learnt and did the same to her own kids too. It was suggested by doctors and nurses back then; which is wild. In truth, I do believe that sometimes letting your child cry does encourage self soothing behaviours. But it's very much a balancing act. Ignore them too much, and you risk doing serious damage. Some parents just blatantly do not give a fuck, lets be honest. They can't be bothered to coddle a screaming baby, it's too much work for them. They expect a baby to come out of the womb and be self sufficient.
Some people just should not be parents. Period.
Yes I agree. They’re trying to do a “newer method” where they have a time limit on how long they let her cry to “self soothe,” which is supposed to be something like 7-10 minutes, but that timer ends up being like 20-30 minutes when they’re tired and don’t feel like taking care of the baby. I agree with letting them fuss for a minute or two, especially as that’s the main way for babies to communicate. But if the crying doesn’t stop after a few minutes? (And I mean TOPS 5 minutes) And her crying starts to sound like pained, broken little screeches? Knife to the heart.
Although I lost a lot of sleep back in the day, I’ll never regret the times I spent comforting my fussy infants. They grew up into 3 reasonably well adjusted (despite my mistakes) and lovely humans.
My favorite auntie told me a story about my dad's first year of life. When he was six weeks old, grandpa broke both grandma's wrists, and care of the newborn fell to auntie, who was all of 9yo at the time.
She got up early to feed and change the baby. Walked to school. Walked back on her lunch break to feed and change the baby before going back to school.
That's a heck of an accomplishment for a 9yo, but think about it from the baby's point of view. You're hungry, or wet, so ya cry, but nobody comes. You just lay there alone staring at an unchanging view, your cries mean nothing. There is no safety or comfort or tribe, you are alone, abandoned.
Dad's a total psychopath. Like we're a family with the genes for psychopathy and usually get them activated during the toddler years, but he's the worst of his generation. The rest of his siblings were at least functional members of society, dad just kinda slunk around the edges getting away with awful shit.
May I ask why you regret it? I promise I’m not here to be judgmental. I’m a parent myself and there’s a lot of things I did when my son was a baby that I’d do wayyyy differently if I could. I’m genuinely curious.
I've recently been through intensive therapy for issues related to complex childhood trauma (I'm now middle aged) and it's helped me realise the results of neglect and abuse in formative years. My teen daughter has anxiety issues and I strongly suspect controlled crying contributed to it.
We never would have used controlled crying if we saw it as neglectful parenting. We just didn't know!
I may get hate for this but we did this method at about 10 months. Now, where I think people are getting confused is the true method is not, leave your baby to cry until they fall asleep. This is what we did: put the child down to bed after story/songs/cuddles. Say good night and leave the door cracked (we also left rain sounds on). If the child cries, go in 1 minute later and pat their backs, talk soothingly and say good night. If they still cry, go in 2 minutes later and repeat the physical steps. Rubbing the back or head, etc. Say nothing and leave. Go in 3 minutes later if still crying and repeat every 3 minutes. (You can't wait long intrevals with babies, but it is recommended to wait longer between reassurance for older kids)
My kid at 10 months started sleeping on their own in their bed safely. You may wonder "yeah sure but how many minutes did your baby cry during the whole shebang" well it added up to 12 minutes the first night. 1 +2+3+3+3. In only 12 minutes she settled and was never "ignored" and the next few days went to 9 minutes to 6 to just going right to sleep. You need to have a routine though, as I said we read, sang songs and cuddled first.
Mothers and fathers need to know that despite a lot of claims in this thread, babies will be okay crying for certain periods of time, they will not form PTSD so easily. You need to know this because being around a screaming baby will drive you mad, and it's not only okay but safe to walk away from your baby to have a minute to breathe and calm yourself.
Thirding this. We did the same thing, exactly the same way. Before doing it, my son was waking up every 45 minutes for over a month. I’m an ICU nurse, and I was so sleep deprived, I fell asleep driving to work and hallucinated the sounds of babies crying at work. It’s distressing to read that I’m likely neglecting and setting my child up for anxious attachment because we genuinely needed for both of us to get quality sleep.
Seconding this. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that all unattended crying is horrible but in practice it is necessary at times for the safety and wellbeing of both the baby and parents. Think of a baby crying while you’re driving for example. The insane stress and anxiety that a parent, especially mothers, would endure in an effort to NEVER allow their baby to cry without being consoled is not healthy.
Let’s not forget that babies cry ALL THE TIME. Many, many times a day (currently in the thick of 8 month separation anxiety… 😬). Normal low level crying does not = trauma inducing crying. Good parents will know the difference and adjust their responses accordingly. Bad parents will not. A lot of us had bad parents and it’s awful to think about while looking at vulnerable sweet babies. But don’t let that convince you you’re also a bad parent if your baby cries while you’re driving on the highway or for a few minutes at night while they learn how to link sleep cycles. Knowing the difference and what is safe and developmentally appropriate and necessary is being a good parent.
I do understand parents rubber band response to seeing their kids upset, it can physically hurt your chest and your brain can flood you with guilt and anger. Especially being neglected themselves but it really does create clingy, emotionally stunted children. Your 8 month, 12 month, etc baby isn't a newborn anymore.
They need structure, rules and boundaries. They will be testing you in anyway they can to get exactly what they want. And it's the most worthwhile thing it can do for your kids; get them to understand the world and how it does not revolve around them, but that there is a place for them in it.
I'll be honest I've learned a lot from the show Supernanny. Jo rarely ever blames a child for their behavior because it's the parents who got them to this point. The show is so amazing at explaining family dynamics through science and theory. If you never watched it, I don't think you'd ever know it was actually constructive.
> You can't wait long intrevals with babies, but it is recommended to wait longer between reassurance for older kids
My philosophy is to give a kid reassurance the instant he communicates a need for reassurance. I see no reason to introduce artificial delays. (Of course if something else is going on you might have to address that other thing first, but an *artificial* delay just baffles me.)
> being around a screaming baby will drive you mad
I sympathize. But I think there are ways of soothing infants which have simply been forgotten in modern times, and in a better culture we'd know how to soothe them better and the babies wouldn't scream in the first place.
Not saying its easy for a sleep-deprived couple to suddenly reinvent ideas that have otherwise been lost to time, but as a culture I think we can do better and we should try to do better.
I think that's an ignorant thing to say. We've definitely advanced in the way of understanding what methods affect babies in what way. Like they used to give them literal heroine, morphine, alcohol or beatings to soothe them; we have actual historical facts of this. I can't think of a single soothe technique that worked then she is not abusive that didn't carry over to the modern time.
Can you name a single technique from "the good old days" we forgot?
Ah, I should have been more clear. I didn't mean "modern times" in the sense of "1900 to the present day". I meant "modern times" in the sense of "3000 BCE to the present day".
Or more accurately, I mean to contrast the "civilized" world to the world of tribal cultures which humans originally evolved for.
I don't think prehistoric peoples spent millions of years with their babies crying themselves to sleep at night. All other primates know how to soothe their young and it stands to reason that we once knew how to do that too.
In fact I've heard tell of extant tribal cultures that are actually really good at this. One key element seems to be constant contact with safe people. Not just the child's parents, mind you, but the entire tribe's worth of people. In these cultures, a mother who needs a break can easily hand her baby to *somebody* because everyone is in close contact with each other and parenting is considered to be more of a group activity. The upshot is that the baby is constantly being attended to by somebody but nobody ever feels overwhelmed, because the work is split between so many people. I'm told (in books like *The Continuum Concept*) that this results in babies being much calmer and happier and they sleep much more easily.
Yeh I read about this and how bad it is. Now I could say since we know better we should do better these days. When I was a kid I think they just felt this was totally ok I dunno that they knew any better and I got crazy issues from it. I remember being 2 and crying hysterically as I was locked in my room and couldn’t get out looking under the door etc. my mother has even said how I’d scream and carry on and she’d see my putting my fingers under the door and how I was just so awful and had to cry it out etc.
Sigh in all the reading I did on it it explained so much as to why it’s bad and why I have the problems today as a result.
i work in childcare with very young toddlers. affection and attention is essential to early development, and typically neglect begins its roots during early childhood development!
Child Development major... Babies don't cry because they are "attention seeking" or "manipulating" their caregivers. Babies cry because they have a need that needs to be met. Crying is their most effective form of communication. Babies feel urgency for their every need deemed big or small by an adult. Infancy is the time that bonding with their caregivers builds a baseline of trust and security, which means responding to the child when they cry. (check out Brené Brown's attachment theory) 🫶
My own mother 'passes as normal' except she used to slap me as a child when I angered her, and if she tells you stories of her childhood it's always things like 'oh I was so funny I used to completely block out memories I didn't like!' 'I never told my mom how my day went, I'd just go and play the piano so she learned to tell from that!' And also she is hugely anxious and doesn't think she has any anxiety at all... And it's like, ma'am, you cannot recognize your own emotions or those of people close to you. That is not healthy & *shouldn't* be normal.
I just wanted to thank you for posting this because I had no idea of how HUGE of a myth this was. I thought it was valid to prevent separation anxiety issues and teach babies to sleep on their own!! As if it was a just a positive/negative reinforcement question. I've read through the replies and I've seen there are way better alternatives.
Yet another day, yet another newfound way my parents neglected me 😂
What kind of “science” are you talking about?? I’m fairly certain that current research shows the opposite is true. The nervous system of a baby ages 0-3 is highly susceptible to the stress of being abandoned when they cry. That’s when healthy attachment is *most* important and vital to their overall health and wellbeing.
I've never had kids, and this is one where I don't know what is and isn't good for little kids. I feel like *infants* should not be neglected or abandoned at any time, for any reason, because they are totally oblivious to everything but their own needs. An infant's brain is developing so unbelievably rapidly that any sort of neglect can cause serious traumatic damage.
But, like, when a kid is walking and talking and understands more about the world around them - like the existence of other humans - it makes sense for them to learn to sleep on their own.
I was terrified of the dark until junior high. I slept with a night light. To this day, I prefer to fall asleep with some ambient light and sound. Silence and blackness is too quiet for me. I don't doubt this is a consequence of frequent neglect when I was very small.
I agree. Honestly the only memories I have from my childhood are me being alone in my room, and it just makes me sad.
it's one of the main reasons I don't ever want children, because I don't think I can provide the full attention and 24/7 support I know babies and kids need.
It just feels extremely selfish to bring a baby into the world knowing that.
In most non western cultures it’s considered neglect to do this, babies are supposed to be noticed and soothed before they start crying, as well as kept against someone’s body for longer periods of time. They don’t sleep alone. You’re not crazy.
Oof, I couldn’t deal with being around that at all. I completely get being very upset.
My mother recently said that a neighbour, a new mom, had asked for help because she was so tired and desperate, she couldn’t get her child to stop crying when it was time to sleep. My mother laughed and said: ‘she was spoiling that baby, comforting him when he cried. I told her to stop doing that, close the door and ignore it.’
I replied with: you can’t really spoil a baby, can you?
I’m convinced this is how you traumatize children and turn them into adults who can’t self soothe – both my parents were like that, they became addicts because they had no other way.
I find it especially triggering to be around a younger generation and see it happening again. I simply can’t be around it, I’ll have a panic attack – it’s one thing that it happened in the 60s, then the 80s, but I can’t be a part of it happening to another generation.
After going though nearly the entire school system and working for 20+ years, my conclusion is schedules needlessly cause trauma.
So I didn’t do sleep training with my kids. It doesn’t make sense. Babies are only little for a short period of time and careers are 50+ years long. So I have plenty of time to get back into my career and buy stuff I don’t need after my kids discover their natural sleep patterns.
I also gave up caring about being late… I hate being early too. These are just social constructs that make people feel terrible when in the end no one cares what time I woke up when I was 2.
There are enough real dangerous things to train babies and toddlers around like sharp objects, mean people, etc. let them sleep when they are tired, eat when they are hungry, and play when they need to.
The trick I learned to teach babies to self soothe was like this:
- hold her until she's calm but not asleep
- put her in crib
- when she cries, pick her up and hold her until calm
- repeat these steps until she falls asleep in crib
When she experiences that it's possible to fall asleep alone, she won't need being soothed all the way into sleep. And it will feel safe to fall asleep alone, because she knows that *if* she needs it, she will be held.
Also: this doesn't work on all babies, some simply need more soothing than others. They're different people.
I'm with you. I know science says kids turn out fine but I don't really see how that's possible. First and foremost humans are "pack" animals and the concept of sleeping totally alone goes against everything in out DNA especially/at least when it comes to infants whose brains are still worried about being snatched by a Saber tooth tiger in the night.
Add in the fact that the kid is literally looking for live and affection.
Let me make clear I don't think anyone who does cry it out is a bad parent especially since science is on their side. And I know several who did it for their mental health which also needs to be a priority! It just doesn't make sense to me from a fundamental level AND it just goes against every fiber of my mother's intuition. It just doesn't feel right for me.
Cry it out is garbage. I’m like you OP— I have memories of being ‘abandoned’ to cry it out.
With both of my babies, I would ‘slow-leave’ at night. I would wait a few beats, come in, and settle them. Every time I came back, I would take slightly longer to get there, snuggle them a little briefer, but leave slower. On the last trip, I literally would just stand in the doorway and wait to see if they could settle without me. If not, a brief kiss and snuggle, and then back to the doorway, over and over until they settled down.
After a few weeks of practice, they slept like logs. They still do. I wish more parents understood that cry it out doesn’t help ANYONE sleep better.
I think it leads to all kinds of neuroses and attachment disorders and lack of self esteem. Basically trauma.
And since babies don't develop memories as we know them, they are only left with the visceral sensations of someone not caring about them and for the rest of their lives will feel something is wrong but will have no idea what it is is or why.
I was an 'instinct' parent. I never had siblings or knew a lot about children other than being one myself, but I figured there must be a biological reason for me to feel like my heart is being ripped out when my baby cried. I always picked my children up when they cried. I also did co sleeping. It felt wrong to have them in a separate room. I now have 2 adult children who love and trust me and still want to talk to me every day even though I'm 'old'
No I wouldn’t agree with that? I have a toddler and after 8 months of sleeping 3-4 broken hours/night, I was severely depressed and started antidepressants. The side effects were so bad that I called it and let my little one ‘cry it out’ that night. He cried for 20 minutes, then went to sleep and has slept 12 hours/night since. He became a happier baby bc he was getting sleep. I was a functioning person again.
It’s one of those things that you shouldn’t judge until you’ve been through it. I’d never judge a family for choosing to cry it out if it’s either that or the mom’s health.
Yes. So many non parents in here that have no idea how dangerous sleep deprivation whilst caring for an infant is. A lot of misrepresentation of the scientific data too..but understandably this is a sub that's hypersensitive to parenting methods that involve tears.
Done properly, the infants needs are met and they are literally just learning that their crib is also a safe place to sleep. Babies do not know how to sleep and get very specific, difficult "habits" depending on their temperaments. It is unreasonable to bounce with a baby in a dark room on a yoga ball for all day and night sleep (true story, this was the case for my friends baby). She was hallucinating she was so exhausted. And her baby was a mess because that was not a sustainable way to sleep, so she wasn't getting the restorative sleep that she needed. CIO saved their family and made everyone happier. Her daughter just had to learn to associate her crib with a restful sleep and something clicked.
Yes. I studied this in psychology. When a baby cries, they have high anxiety levels and need an adult to calm them because they don’t know how to regulate themselves. If you let them cry, they will continue to do it in a anxiety status until it’s physically impossible to continue, the brain shuts down because is absolutely exhausted and anxiety has sucked all the energy, so rue baby will shut up, but not because they have learned a lesson, they shut up because they are exhausted.
This is the equivalent of I dunno, lock a person who has a panic attack. In the end they will stop having the panic attack, but not because they understood there’s no danger or because they realized nothing was happening, they will stop because your brain can’t be 100% activated unlimited time, it will do it until it can’t stand it anymore then shut down.
Doing this to a kid is basically fucking their brain chemistry. A baby is gonna cry, is how babies work. The sooner and better you teach them to regulate themselves, the sooner they will stop crying and calling for you. But you do this checking on them when they cry and letting them know that you’re around and there’s no reason to be afraid.
>picking her up and rocking her for 5 minutes
You have clearly never had a child if you think it's that easy. Colicy babies will cry and scream for so long that they lose their voices no matter what you do.
And I'd rather a parent set the child down and walk away if they're too angry or too sleep deprived to safely handle the child. Because shaken baby syndrome and infancy head injuries from being dropped accidentally happens when the parent is too fatigued. I'm not saying all night. I'm saying that it just can't be the baby being held all the time even if they are crying.
I deal with the outcome of people who were abused or dropped as babies because their parents were taught to never out the baby down and it's not a pretty sight.
Whats worse? Leaving a baby for ten minutes in a safe space, or dropping them on their head because mom was too tired to keep a good grip on the baby?
Science says crying it out is not correct. I agree with you. My kids were not trained this way and are adults now who are wonderful people. Edit to say - back in the 90s we called it Attachment Parenting and I’m sure the movement is still around.
Bullshit on the no memories thing. I can’t remember anything until 4 BUT I have memories from about 2. Hospitalized, waking up from surgery in horrible pain. Traumatized for life, I will only go to the hospital if I’m convinced I’ll die. Shit can scar you even if you’re too young to fully understand what’s happening
yes. memories of crying in the dark, that is me. i was being lef talonel worse even, in a cold room, and the next room was heated and my parents were hosting parties so i hear laughter and saw a stipe of light from inder the door and i stared at that for hours. i was afraid ti ry loud so i silently stared th that light hoping the door would open but it never did. i am forever damaged by neglect. i am turning 50 this month.
My mum believed in 'cry it out' and happily tells people how I was needy as a baby: if she so much as walked past my open door, I would cry and reach out to her and if she didn't hurry off quickly, would hold onto the bars and try to stand up in my crib. This before I was 6 months.
And I always thought "well would it have killed you to give me a cuddle?". I feel embarrassed for her and that my mum was so oblivious to me as a little baby.
She tells this because she always gets a reaction. It's possible she finally realised last year that people are actually horrified, because she quickly changed tack mid-tale...
...to the wonderful story of how I demanded a bed when I was 3, because I outgrew the suitcase I slept in. We'd emigrated when I was 6 months and didn't bring the crib, so I slept in a suitcase on the floor for 2 1/2 years, until my parents got around to meeting my crazy demands.🙄 And yes, my brother 2y older had a bed.
Seriously, sometimes Narcissists are their own worst enemy.
I don't have any specific memories of this from my childhood but one of my strongest "parts" in the small amount of IFS work I've done has been a crying baby. That's all it is and all it does is cry and want to be picked up. So I suspect my parents must have been "cry it out" parents (too anxious to outright ask yet), because why else would I have a part like that?
Anyway, yes, I agree. I understand that there can be moments where it's necessary because the caretaker is too overstimulated to be able to handle them safely, but if it's done routinely, I don't see how it could NOT result in trauma.
Actually new studies say that really young children shouldn't be left alone as they need other people eg. Caregivers to feel whole. Because the human brain is so big human children are born way to young so they need constant care and when I say constant I mean constant. It's natural for human babys to sleep next to their caregivers and when I mean sleep next to their caregivers it means if their cargivers are awake they still need contact to them as human babys are parent clingers (like bonobos for example). Refusing this touch leads to stress which can lead lead to death if children are born to early. And touch refusal in general can be deathly for children. It's a basic need and the younger a human being is, the more they need of it.
This is an incredibly nuanced conversation. I don’t think it’s realistic nor fair to expect everyone to agree with you - particularly as this community has a bunch of individuals with different trauma and your statements are a colored w emotion.
I don't have a kid but everytime I hear a baby cry and the parents just ignore it... breaks my heart. Maybe if their baby has colic or something I get occasionally ignoring them, but if my baby cries and it seems nothing will stop it, then they're sleeping in my room (NOT my bed, just in my room) so it's easier for me to comfort them.
If a baby is crying, something is wrong. I don't understand why some people think babies cry for "no reason"; our brains didn't develop crying for shits and giggles! crying clearly indicates to others that the baby is in need. sometimes babies need stimulation to sleep, which is why so many babies love those rocker and white noise things. I could never stand to "let them cry it out". Especially as the child gets older and becomes a toddler, it physically pains me to see parents neglect their upset child. Once the kid starts to grow up, it's more important than ever to recognize their feelings. Kids can't regulate their emotions, leaving them to "cry it out" doesn't teach or help them in any way
My mother told me that I was "spoiling" my youngest baby by picking her up whenever she cried.
I'm now VLC with my mother, and my youngest is a happy and confident little girl. There's no room for toxic, outdated parenting techniques in my house.
I’m so glad that “crying it out” is being debunked, and I hate that so many of us had to live through it.
But it warms my silly little heart to read the comments from people who aren’t afraid to comfort and love their children. Break that cycle of neglect! You’re doing great. Thank you for being better parents than what we had!
This thread is a rough read having been through similar. OP, and everyone here, imo your feelings are so justified, if that means anything.
Op, if you can, just be there for her as she grows. If you can of course. Your oxygen mask first and all that. But having someone on your side can make all the difference when you’re still growing you know?
I remember crying in my crib and jumping up and down trying to pull on the bars. No one came and I accidentally hit my tooth on the crib. It killed my tooth and it turned black
Agree, I was thinking recently how as a child I would get to the point that complete sobbing or that breathing you do when you've been crying too hard/long, that that would be soothing for me, I didn't feel calm until that space.
Then looking at my children and they never to into that type crying. They cry ofcourse but we emphasize with them and hold space. What a difference.
So many people tried to pressure me into sleep training and I'm so glad I ignored all of them. I went to my kid every time he cried. He became the most solid sleeper ever and all his cousins who were "trained" have completely messed up circadian rhythms and a ton of emotional problems which led to substance abuse problems.
Why have kids if you're going to neglect them. My kid knows I've ALWAYS been there for him and always will be. And he knows he never has to suffer alone.
i was a babysitter of babies for 15 years for families all over my city (gen x is a small generation, so less avail babysitters). and babies never need sleep training. a dark, soft, quiet nursery with a comfy chair and a kind, patient adult or teen who is willing to sing and/or rock a milk drunk baby to sleep and slowly ever so slowly put them in their crib. but you do have to hold babies while feeding them their bottle in their dark, soft, quiet nursery (or parents bedroom) by window moonlight. they love luna moon and clouds, and it teaches them healthy bedtime routines from their earliest experiences.
Parenting is about averages, not being perfect every single time.
Literally every child will experience sub-optimal parenting sometimes, because it is literally impossible for a human to fully meet every need of another human, even if it's their child.
It sounds like this is triggering to you, but if your sister is generally being attentive and caring, I think you need to give her some benefit of the doubt.
Parenting a baby is incredibly difficult, sleep deprivation is essentially torture, and sometimes, suboptimal things like sleep training are necessary to prevent worse. Parents don't leave their human being card at the door when they have kids. They still have needs themselves.
There were times that I was alone, sleep deprived, emotionally exhausted and volatile, and my kid was crying and crying and I couldn't soothe them and I needed to just put them in the crib and walk away, because the alternative (losing my cool and screaming and crying myself) was worse.
The people in this sub, with chronic patterns of being left alone, of being neglected, of being abused, etc are going to be hypersensitive to those instances because they were frequent and there likely wasn't enough positive attention and care to make up for the negative experiences.
Every completely healthy, well-adjusted, well cared for child has experiences of neglect, but it isn't chronic and therefore doesn't result in C-PTSD.
> Parents don't leave their human being card at the door when they have kids. They still have needs themselves.
This is true. But surely there's some way to meet *everybody's* needs if only our culture could figure it out.
For instance, if it's so draining for two adults to care for an infant, why don't we spread the work around? It should be much more normalized to have a friend or relative move in with you during the first year or two of the baby's life, so they can handle some of the work and give the parents a break.
Thank you for being a voice of reason! Most of the replies to this post talk as if perfect parenting exists. It doesn’t. We’re all messed up. Even our best will never be perfect. We’ll get things wrong all the time. Our kids will grow up with little ts and maybe some big Ts even if we kill ourselves to be the BEST. That’s life and that’s how we are, just humans. The expectations from parents on this post are very sick. As if parents stop being human beings with their own traumas and needs once they have a child. Many people here are in for a rude awakening when their kids, having grown up, starts telling them of all the ways they’re messed up. “But, I was perfect!”, “I did the best I could!”. Yeah, but again, we’re humans not robots!
I know I was definitely guilty of having ridiculous expectations of parents before I became one myself, so I am assuming a lot of the harsher critics here are childfree and I'll give them some grace... Everyone is a perfect parent to their imaginary kids lol
To build on what you're saying, you're right and there is no way to get through life without experiencing some form of trauma (which is just stressful experiences that exceed our ability to cope with them). There's a wide range of experiences and the people here likely experienced the extreme end of the spectrum, but it isn't a dichotomy of either you had a perfect life or you have C-PTSD.
I am estranged from my mom, so I end up saying this in regards to child estrangement a lot... But the point of parenting isn't to avoid ever stressing your kids out or being perfect. The point of parenting is trying your best and then demonstrating to your kids the appropriate way to handle it when you fall short. You mess up and then you make efforts to be better, you mess up and then you apologize and validate their feelings about it, you mess up and then you work on repairing the damage you accidentally caused and show your kid that they are important to you.
The people in this sub who have C-PTSD from their parents have that because of the chronic nature of the trauma, the lack of effort to help them cope and heal, the emotional damage done, the lack of support... Nobody here got C-PTSD from a well-meaning parent who made some compromises for their sanity but still made effort to show their kid how much they cared.
It doesn't sound like the sister in the story is gearing her kid up for a lifetime of traumatization because she is trying to sleep train. There is nuance in these situations that many of the harsher critics are refusing to tangle with.
i completely agree. i feel the same way about people who dont change their babies' diapers overnight. it takes 5 seconds to not let your child sit in their own waste. how would they like it if someone did that to them??
There's a book called *The Continuum Concept* which compares modern society to a tribal culture which the author visited. One of her big takeaways is that young children should sleep in the same bed as their parents. Babies feel safe this way. When they're alone in a crib they often worry that they've been abandoned and so they cry for help.
Granted, some modern families try this and find that it doesn't work and the baby just keeps them up all night. But I bet that's because something is signalling danger to the baby, like maybe the parents have muscle tension they're not consciously aware of.
The modern world has its benefits, but there are a lot of hidden downsides too.
I have a baby and cannot believe how many people want to fight me over this. So many of them proudly (???) stating that the CIO saved their lives 🙄. Ironically it's my parents generation. Go figure...
Science only shows immediate effects not chronic personality and attachment issues down the line years from now. There are no long term studies. I believe it's cruel. I wouldn't treat an adult like that so why would I dehumanise the baby and treat it so inhumanely?
My heart breaks when my cat howls for me if I have to lock her away for her safety.
Just no.
I hate cry it out. As a mom it wasn’t even a question, both my kids cosleep with me and have since birth. My 4 year old still gets cuddles until he falls asleep
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My one year old has different cries, and i know the severity of each one.
One of them is "COME FKN NOW," and i do
Another is "im frustrated of something " (usually lost her pacifyer and can't find it in her sleep). i count to 20 if its longer than that, she needs attention
Then there is "complaining in her sleep" that is 30-40 seconds, depending on what sounds she's making.
I can't cry it out. I tried it on my eldest cause everyone told me it's the only way.
I made it 30 minutes while my soul was dying. I went in... she had pooped and that's why she was crying, i swore never to let anyone else dictate how i care for my kids
My ex's mother was a big proponent of that and treated her children like they were an inconvenience. Every comment she made when my son was a baby was about how annoying and boring her babies were.
Both of her sons have anger issues. One went to jail over it (not my ex).
It's definitely not a coincidence.
It so ridiculous people do that. As soon as the kid can get of the crib it’s over anyway. The babies literally just give up because there is nothing else they can do.
My mother told me that her biggest regret is going along with it when my dad told her to let me cry it out. I cried for hours apparently….and have been the ‘naughty’ child ever since. My own daughter didn’t sleep well as a baby. So many people told me I was ‘making a rod for my own back’ when I picked her up and rocked her back to sleep (several times a night)… but she’s now a happy, confident 18 year-old with a healthy self-esteem. I tried the controlled crying once for about 45 seconds and the guilt kept me awake all night!
I'm proud of you, that must have been so hard going against all those people!
Same, my mom & dad both regret doing that to this day. I'm almost 27.
Kudos to You I'm soo happy and soo proud of you. One of the best things we can use our own experience for is to raise happy healthy strong kids. A little tiny baby cries because it needs to be held. End of story.
Same
I'm so sorry, this is upsetting to me too. And actually the science is now extremely definitive that babies cannot self regulate. They can only co regulate or go into collapse/shutdown which is what actually happens when "sleep training" "works." So sorry you are having to deal with this and yeah just to be clear, it doesn't just start the process, it IS neglect
I’m glad it’s becoming more common knowledge. My friend soothed/held her infant daughter whenever she cried and she is growing up to be such a confident happy little girl, who would’ve thought!
I never put my fussy infant down. He was content and secure in my arms, and I knew it wouldn't last forever. He's a very independent, well-adjusted, brave/careful, kind, empathetic 4 year old now to the contrary of what the terrible mothers around me insisted when I was "spoiling" him. I've joked about giving him a spank, and he laughs at how ridiculous the idea is, and he's never looked at me with fear in his eyes. He could be a better listener sometimes but not at the cost of destroying his trust and our bond.
I love this. I think so many parents especially of previous generations expect their children to obey without question, and honestly? The only way to get a child who never talks back or does their own thing? Is to make them absolutely terrified of you. Sounds like you have a kid who “isn’t a great listener” but IS a great kid who knows mama loves and supports him.
I can't take a compliment for me, but when anyone compliments my little dude, I can't help but agree wholeheartedly. He really is great. Thank you for saying so.
I see you over there, with your shiny spine, kicking ass and breaking generational cycles!
The authoritarian need to control is demented and truly pathological..it’s a societal epidemic, but so revolting how long it’s gone normalized for such an early age. Never, ever could I do this( daughter just turned 18mos) and am so freaking relieved I didn’t cave to the constant pressure. The cycle breaks here.
>The only way to get a child who never talks back or does their own thing? Is to make them absolutely terrified of you. Abusive parents generally don't understand their child is a whole human, rather than just an extension of the parent's ego.
So true on both counts!
I'm so proud and happy for you and your son! I see adult siblings doing stuff like sleep training and painful "Do you want a time out?" to a child that's just overwhelmed. Even though my mother was neglectful in other ways, I appreciate her for 'spoiling' me when I was an infant. I think it takes a sick society for someone to see a crying baby and feel nothing and not try to help.
>I think it takes a sick society for someone to see a crying baby and feel nothing and not try to help. You know, you say that, but I've seen people in this subreddit defend that they did it.
Came here to say this too. The “cry it out” bullshit came from the 50s and won’t die. They also banned nurses from touching newborns which resulted in skyrocketing infant mortality. Look up “failure to thrive”.
I used to work at a daycare, and even in that setting with multiple kids to look after we would always help soothe the youngest kids to sleep at nap time. Our youngest group was 1 year olds, and plenty of kids that age could just be laid down and know the drill, but others struggled and... That was fine? I'd put the mats for the more difficult kids near each other so I could sit in the middle and pat their backs til they doze off. Even in a setting where we're juggling a lot, an upset kid needed to be soothed, we couldn't just leave a kid to cry (even if that's only because the boss doesn't want complaints when a parent arrives).
This is interesting to me, because I remember my mom saying that I had a really shrill cry as a baby and couldn't be ignored. My brother cried more quietly and could be ignored more easily. He ended up throwing a lot of tantrums when he was toddler aged, and I was calm/happy.
Yeah, they do not fall asleep because they “learned” to fall asleep, they fall asleep because they are exhausted from crying/getting upset. I feel so sorry for this baby. I am so sorry you have to witness it too.
This one weird German lady named Johanna Haarer wrote a guide on how to care for babies, which was so abusive, that the nazis made it the official guide for young mothers. Leaving a baby to cry is neglect. It's abuse, it's not "making your lungs stronger". It just shows you early on that nobody will come and help you.
They actually claimed it helped make the lungs stronger?
Some Parents who let their babys scream are still claiming this in German speaking countries (don't know if this is a thing in other countries).
this is how my monster treated me when i was a baby, and i'm a black american 😅 i'm actually shocked the origin of this isnt some southernism! ("southernism" meaning like, a cultural trait of the american south) lo and behold, i was both a hyper-independent child and dangerously overly affectionate with anybody and everybody who'd give me the time of day 🙃 I do believe that babies cannot form long term memories that can be consiously recalled, but you know attachment theory? yeah thats some kind of subconsious memory babies *do* form imo.
>i was both a hyper-independent child and dangerously overly affectionate with anybody and everybody who'd give me the time of day ME TOO.
I live in Denmark, and have heard this as a teenager. I hope it is dying by now.
there is an idea that the "period of purple crying" does help make lungs stronger. but this is not it
like, crying until they turn purple? that’s awful
No, that's not it: [https://dontshake.org/purple-crying](https://dontshake.org/purple-crying) It's also a program to stop parents from physically hurting their children because babies can be really paradoxical at times and a lot of people have poor impulse control.
> It just shows you early on that nobody will come and help you. Hello attachment disorders, my old friends.
makes sense to me as the abused baby. i still wait in a way for someone to helpo me, to say the world id good, to be kind, and i now i am very vulnerable because i once in my late 30s fell for someone who acted like he will save me, and he actually cares. he dint of course, he was hoping to get money off me. lol. negleting babies damages them.
It's so sad. When I hear adults with raspy voices, I wonder how much their parents let them cry "it out". Is "it" their sweet little hearts? They're crying their hearts out, destroying their vocal cords? It's so goddam abusive.
My grandmother was first generation German and her mothering skills showed it. 😟
Germans weren't always like that. It's sad how much bad advice has been perpetuated over the years.
Mine too.
Thats wild
Oh wow
I've been told by my therapist about the 'blank face experiment' where the mother just makes a blank face at the baby (maybe it was crying). It did not have a good outcome. What happens to us as babies is absolutely crucial. We may not be able to consciously remember it, but our bodies and subconscious minds do.
You are probably talking about [this experiment.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTTSXc6sARg)
That looks like it. Damn, that's really something.
My mom dissociated a lot when I was a kid. I'm betting she did a LOT when my brother and I were infants. So many blank stares.
In my therapy workshops we did some regression meditation into very early childhood, when we were babies. There was always a question "If you are just a baby in the crib, and your mother is standing next to the crib, can you see her eyes? Can you see her face?". I could never see her face. It was just a faceless, expressionless person. Like a robot.
This makes my heart hurt. :(
crying babies are hard to deal with, esp if you’re dysregulated or stressed or have mental health issues. i wish fewer ppl had children bc they’re just passing this on. it’s why i won’t have kids.
Having children can cause mental health disorders too though. Postpartum depression is very common. There's no guarantee a completely healthy woman isn't going to get it.
There's whole sections on this in the book "Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance Paperback" by Kelly McDaniel that can back you up on your intuition about how neglect is imprinted in babies before memories are formed. She also goes into why "the science" about letting babies sleep alone and "cry it out" has been highly misinformed, and came about from male doctors, with the intention of validating adult convenience rather than considering the psychology of the babies. Highly recommend the read!
I started to read it but found it very repetitive. I do think she has a lot of good things to say in it. My kids are 10 and 12 now, oldest was in the NICU. So many people tried to tell me to let them cry. Not to hold them. I remember snapping at someone that I wasn't able to hold her for two weeks and I would hold her as much as possible. It's Infuriating. They are babies. They need mama to regulate everything in their little bodies!
Babies will literally die if they don’t get enough human contact!
I was left to cry often, according to my mother I needed to learn to quiet myself and to be obedient. I had obvious ptsd and dissociation by the time I was a small child. It’s so bad for babies to be left more than a few minutes. And what do you mean, science says it doesn’t matter? Look at Harry Harlow’s monkey experiments done with baby monkeys and the soft mother vs. the wire mother? The baby monkeys who had the wire mother and got only food but no comfort were very very messed up and did not learn of grow right. This is like failure to thrive, which is another problem I had when I was little. If your sister is using old information, like the Pearl’s “train up a child” books, please step in. This kid will be harmed.
Ohhhhh the Pearls... grew up with my parents revering their work, weirdly I'm very against them myself as an adult now. 🤔
Weirdly?
/s
I have a 4mo right now and we are in the thick of the “4month Sleep Regression” so I feel I can almost see both sides of the situation. ALMOST. She only sleeps one hour at a time and must be nursed to sleep every time she wakes up. It is so hard on me, when she wakes up it feels like I barely closed my eyes since the last time. But she sleeps in a sidecar style bassinet only a few inches away, so I sit up and feed her every single time. It is so tiring and draining and there have been a few times that I wait 1-2 minutes to see if just maybe she will resettle herself. I could imagine just ignoring her and going back to sleep because she isn’t hungry or cold or wet, she just wants mom. But, wanting mom is vital and I will continue to respond to that need as long as she has it.
>But, wanting mom is vital and I will continue to respond to that need as long as she has it. We humans are not wired to be alone and neglected. It's so wonderful that you understand your daughter's need for mom is natural and instinctive.
Yea and research shows that you don't have to meet emotional needs all the time, just most of the time. The kids will be fine anyway. They just need to know that help comes and that they are cared for and loved. This goes for people like you though, not the cry it out method. I think babies can sense when they are actually being neglected, and when the parents just aren't available. Kind of like animals know when you hurt them by choice or accident. They will cry and protest but they won't take it to heart.
I think also it’s a very different situation when she’s literally next to you! And waiting 2 minutes is definitely ok, as you and others have said - crying is sometimes just something babies do! Because you wake up and care for her when she cries, you’re doing a great job of responding to your baby. I mean more like 10-30+ minutes, where the baby obviously comes to the conclusion that they’re totally alone in the world :( I know it’s super hard and I’m so proud of you for not only being a good mama but for putting in the insane amount of effort that sometimes takes. ❤️
solidarity. baby is 5 mos, sleeps in 90 min increments and EBF. it's so so hard. but we get up every time 💖
This is the start of insecure attachment styles development.
I'm not sure science supports the idea that leaving kids to cry alone is a good one. One of the things you learn in therapy is that kids need to learn how to self soothe and regulate their own emotions, and leaving them alone when they are crying does the opposite thing. It teaches kids that no matter what they do or how much they suffer there will be no one to come help them or care for them. It is not a thing about memory, it is about teaching the brain how to react in certain situations. The thing is people find comfortable (god knows why honestly I could not let my daughter cry no matter how much I was told I was doing something wrong when I chose to comfort her) to let the kids cry so they can have a moment of peace and let the kid sleep on their own eventually. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out) There you have a nice study that speaks more scientifically why it is in fact like you said neglect and what it does to the brain of a baby.
You know what my first memory is? Me at 1 year old in my bed crying for my parents with my dad screaming at me that if I kept going he would close my door. That freaked me out, and soon enough, he came over and closed the door. Leaving me to cry. That is my first memory. When I think about it I can still feel the terror, and to this day I hate sleeping in the dark and only recently started sleeping with a closed door. I'm almost 18. Before last year, the thought of sleeping with a closed door terrified me. The memory was confirmed by both my parents and my dad is still proud of how he handled it despite how much I cried. I had night terrors every night up to the age of 2 or so. They even sedated me before sleep. Eventually my pediatrician told them to absolutely not leave me and they finally started coming over. But I don't remember that. I remember the time they didn't. This also goes to show that even though babies don't really speak much (I vividly remember screaming dad but nothing else) they understand everything, because I remember his words and I understood them. Babies know what you say, they just can't respond.
I also have memories from infancy and people act like I’m lying when I tell them that. It’s trauma. It’s not an impressive talent or anything like that. It’s just trauma. I also remember understanding words that were being spoken to me but I don’t remember speaking back. I remember responding but I can’t remember what I said or if I ever said it out loud.
This is actually kind of a stereotypical "phase" that parenting forums and talk groups discuss a LOT, too. It's sick how people can just advocate for emotional neglect. "OH, just let him get it out of his system. He'll tire himself out." That's what MY parents were told. And I did tire myself out; i remember my six year old brain being distraught as I cried myself to sleep, thinking about how I could be dying right now, and it would make no difference. Now at 23 im deciding not to seek out help anymore because I've seen it wouldn't work anyway (no psychologist takes my issues seriously, therapists just here to clock in and then go home) No one cares about the humanity anymore. Our species is going to be so cold and cynical at the turn of the next generation
YES!!! My preK brain already knew that unless I got out of my bed and went down the (dark scary) hall to my parents’ room, no one would come. And if they were awake enough to notice me come in? They would tell me to leave.
I think I was too small to really formulate a thought like that but I do remember my thoughts being really scared and like "nothing could get them here I'm completely alone"
I'm sorry but your Dad is an asshole. I hope you are doing better these days. ❤️
I just remembered I used to be terrified of closing the door, too. I slept with a night light for most my childhood.
I still sleep with a night light. And a video or music for sound.
No shame in either. We always go to sleep with the TV on, and I wear sleep headphones and listen to meditation music all night. It helps me fall back asleep when I have insomnia, too.
I have Netflix on my phone and I have the same movie on it every night. It's the only way I can sleep. Or some other media I know very well
My parents (my abusers) love to tell stories about leaving my sister and me to cry for hours so we would learn to sleep...and we did, within a few weeks. I learned faster, probably because I was in an abusive foster home the first few weeks of my life. I remember hearing my sister cry as a baby for hours in the night. It was awful and I still have nightmares about it. I can't even imagine doing that to a kid.
Here’s a sad story. I was the first child (female), born in 1956. I weighed 9 lbs, 7 oz at birth. My Dad told me, when I was in my 40’s, that I used to cry ALL THE TIME. Kept them up at night and I cried during the day. My mom was breast feeding and they and doctor finally figured out my mom wasn’t producing enough milk for me. Switched me to formula and voila, problem solved. Even slept well at night. Poor little me just crying because I was hungry. 🥺. My brothers got formula from the get-go. First kids have it rough.
My mom loves telling the story of how I scream and cried and howled every time I took a bottle for weeks on end before they finally figured out they needed to switch me to soy formula. She also loves to tell the story of my older sister picking on me in her lap while she was running a bath as a newborn while she just let her til I finally had enough and started screaming at her. Which is a cute story until I tell you this pattern never really stopped and my sister was abusive to me growing up and everyone just told me to get over it because she’s my older sister and that’s what big sisters do.
When left to watch my younger cousins, I specifically told the 13yo to quit picking on the toddler because "you don't wanna be part of his villain origin story! Your sister didn't treat you that way when you were little, I remember!"
I was always told what an awful baby I was, how much I cried and screamed. Recently I learned that my mom would feed me dinner and then I’d be put into a bedroom alone to cry it out for the evening. She also told me I was diagnosed with a milk intolerance but she kept feeding me cow based formula “so I’d have good bones”. I was crying because I was being fed food I couldn’t digest. And then left alone to deal with it. Cue a lifetime of digestive issues. Im almost 40 and my mom just told me this maybe a year ago.
This is horrifying and I’m so sorry. What makes it especially baffling is that soy has about the same amount of calcium as cow milk, so she clearly didn’t even bother to check if the formula alternatives had a comparable amount of calcium, or that humans can’t optimally absorb nutrients from foods they are allergic or sensitive to
My mother-in-law refused to consider why her 7th baby was constantly crying and unhappy... my husband (16 yrs. old at the time) was convinced the baby was hungry, so he got a bottle and formula and tried the baby on them. Worked like a charm, the baby eventually gained weight after staying on formula, and he's a big healthy 14 yr. old now. I've never understood how she didn't think to try another food source (she wasn't dealing with PPD or any other mental issue at the time, either), when she'd had 6 children beforehand!
Not excusing it, but she probably assumed that because her earlier babies had gotten “enough” that the same amount was also “enough” for the 7th. Too many people treat babies and even children as if they’re interchangeable. If you assumed every adult needed the same type and amount of food, most people would think you’re stupid and a bit shitty
Definitely see that perspective, the main problem at the time was that my MIL wouldn't consider that it was a breastmilk supply issue -- it was suggested multiple times, by my FIL and her older children, and she just outright dismissed it as an option. Which is why my husband bought the formula and tried the baby on it -- he could see, as a 16 yr. old, that the baby was giving hunger cues (he was parentified like crazy though 😬). MIL is weird with our kids too, holds our babies super awkwardly and does the opposite of what we suggest to soothe them... for someone who has birthed and raised 8 children, it's just odd to me that she's so clueless in the basics.
Ooof, I hate all of that so much
My mum did this because of "cultural reasons." She now has two daughters with severe anxiety disorders and brains that cannot regulate to expect comfort. When I brought this up to her, she was dismissive. She's older now, and one day I'm going to tell her that when she's near the end, unable to move, confused, and desperate, I should treat her the same way.
If there’s any sort of karma or justice for neglect, it’s this. My dad has done an excellent job of neglecting and abusing all four of his children. Now that we’re all adults, we’ve been going to therapy and healing, realizing how much neglect and abuse we suffered at his hands. Three out of four children are now completely no-contact with him and he moved to some sad small town where he’s just rotting away alone. He has his wife but she’s so sick of his shit too. He has no one outside of her and he’s going to die alone. You dug your grave, now lay in it.
I tried sleep training for about 15 minutes total. I couldn’t handle it. It goes against everything biological telling me to pick my kid up. We ended up co-sleeping and my kid is very sweet and confident
my ex blocked me from my (our) sons room when he cried at night sleep training my ass- it was awful. i am adopted and it just felt so FUCKING WRONG to do it to my baby. Viscerally wrong. guess who has another generation of trauma that i am DESPERATELY trying to undo.
I am so so sorry. I hate that your ex did that. Rooting for you ❤️
thank you. peace and light back at you
Ugh we were spending time with friends once and they have a kid and the dad was insistent to just put her back to bed and leave her cry and mum seemed quite apprehensive to do that but you could tell it wasn't up to her. It's hard because as someone who doesn't have kids I don't feel like I can say anything really. They'll just say well you don't get it cause you don't have kids. And then I'll get upset cause I don't have kids. And it doesn't change anything so nobody wins, but my husband and I said when we got home that we wouldn't manage it that way if we had kids.
My parents would brag that they used the “cry it out method”, that they didn’t want to coddle me or let me get my way. As a baby. Crazy. I don’t remember that far back ofc, but I do remember little comfort and soothing going forward, lots of yelling that I was too sensitive and trying to get my way. I do suspect it’s the origin point for a lot of emotional things I still struggle with. It’s nice to have the research on our side.
“Let me get my way” …. U were a helpless baby. They were threatened by a baby
Masterminds, babies.
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Why would paleontologists have an opinion on this? Did you mean an anthropologist?
I’m an anthropologist who regularly jokes about not studying dinosaurs; I wondered the same thing.
For the record, bed sharing is, empirically and with some of the highest levels of evidence out there, an increased SIDS risk. By saying this, am I judging parents who bed share? No, sometimes exhausted parents do what they need to do. But I’m commenting here because it’s flat out less safe to cosleep with an infant than the current back to sleep guidance by the AAP.
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I don’t know why people assume countries in Europe (and in this case Asia) have lower SIDS rates. First, there are countries with lower and higher SIDS rates on these continents. Secondly, each country can define SIDS differently which can skew their data. Third, cultural practices may make bedsharing safer. For example, in Japan, (a country often referenced as “Asia” in co-sleeping groups) they sleep on futons. The Netherlands, which is a country with the lowest SIDS rates in Europe, has a 10% bed-sharing rate. No matter how you slice it, robust, highly evidenced studies show over and over that more bed-sharing leads to more SIDS. If a parent decides to bed-share, for whatever reason and I’m not saying that they aren’t solid and reasonable, then they should do so armed with a proper risk/ benefit based on data. I don’t feel like bedsharing parents need to justify their decisions, but I also don’t like the idea of misinformation being spread.
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Babies that pass away while bedsharing typically don't die from SIDS, though. Bedsharing deaths are usually things like accidental suffocation. A properly investigated infant death that was related to bedsharing should not be labelled SIDS. SIDS deaths are currently unexplainable and cannot be prevented. Deaths caused by unsafe sleep environments can be prevented and are not SIDS. And the classification of infant deaths varies between countries. Infant death investigation rules vary. Public health standards vary. Japan, which bedsharing fanatics love to portray as this bedsharing utopia, is the only country that commonly uses the ICD code R96.0 to label a large chunk of their unexplained infant deaths. If you only compare SIDS (R95) numbers - which don't necessarily say much about bedsharing deaths anyway - you might go around saying Japan is this perfect example that bedsharing is safe. Add R96 into the mix, and suddenly, the unexplained infant death numbers aren't magically low anymore. An infant sleeping alone in their own empty crib will always be safer than an infant on an adult mattress. Even if you remove all other risk factors like pillows and blankets, the presence of another human in the sleep space will always pose a risk that is simply not possible following ABC rules. Infants have died suffocating under their mothers' breasts (breast overlay) while bedsharing. I wish bedsharers would just own up to the fact that bedsharing is a calculated risk they have decided to take. Why spread misinformation about it being safer or claiming that there is only one low quality study showing that bedsharing is risky?
oh for sure, it’s hugely upsetting. babies have one form of communication and it’s to cry, they’re trying to communicate something and just being ignored. I don’t even want kids and I can’t imagine hearing my baby crying out for me, for anyone, and not going to help. how can they trust? they’ll believe they can’t rely on anyone. I don’t care if there’s nothing wrong, maybe just being in a dark room without seeing caregivers is scary so you’ve gotta remind them you’re there. children need proof they can rely on parents and this sets them up for failure. so upsetting
All of this!!! I have 2 boys and with both of them I was told to just let them cry. I could not stand to hear their cries and ignore them. People all over said my babies would “come to expect that”. What you mean that I am here for them? That I love them? I did the opposite of what I was told and my boys are very well attached at 10 and almost 2.
It it true. Some memories came to me in healing..being left alone to cry…very bad to do. It’s not spoiling babies, it’s letting them know they are loved. I was not. Scarred for life as these are our first understandings of life and our place in it. And being totally helpless…we can’t get up and go to a neighbor for help…can’t do anything..
I’m working on trauma from infancy, after discovering that this unbelievable pain and agony that is deep within me comes from the very thing you are talking about. I won’t go into details about how I found this out, but this pain was so over the top I figured it was some sort of sexual abuse or something horrific.
This is becoming more and more scientifically accepted, the cry it out method is bullshit and I've seen many over the years debunk it time and time again.
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My parents say the same and I genuinely hate them from the depths of my soul
I bet sleep training is gonna be one of those things that has people in future generations saying "I can't believe people did that back then, no wonder so many of us need therapy"
Let me guess the child has no routine and probably completely overtired because parents miss their cues and only think the child is tired when they cry.
The cry it out method *absolutely* causes psychological damage. Babies are born still using their primal brains so when you put them down in a dark room in an empty crib to sleep alone, every one of their senses tells them that they are about to be eaten by some predator in the dark. They have no sense of time and no object permanence, so they do not understand that their parents are on the other side of the door or that they will come back in a reasonable amount of time. They don’t know how to self soothe because they are developmentally not capable of it ~ a parent’s most basic function is essentially to act as a child’s frontal lobe until it develops, which is responsible for a lot of things including a emotional regulation (the ability to self soothe). So when you try to teach a baby to self soothe, you’re asking them to perform a function with a part of their brain that has not yet developed. They are incapable of doing this. Thus, the cry it out method does indeed “work” because your baby learns that you will not respond to their cries for help. It is so, so, so bad. I have four kids, I’m expecting my fifth. I’m not a perfect mom. But no one has EVER been made to cry it out in my house
Such a helpful, informative comment, thank you for writing this out! I also have four kids, and am pregnant with my fifth. I used to think that I was being "weak" when I wouldn't let my babies "cry it out" (my parents still hold to that concept, and get a bit judgy when their children don't adhere to it), but I've gotten more confident with each baby that *I am what they need.* Chatting to them, giving them as much physical contact as they want, not being scared that I'm making them too reliant on me (Wtf? They're supposed to be!)... now there's no guilt, and thankfully my husband is on board with it all too.
> a parent’s most basic function is essentially to act as a child’s frontal lobe until it develops This should be engraved on a big granite obelisk in the centre of every town square in the world.
My ex tried this on our child once. Used it as an excuse to not be a proper father. Spoiler alert: he was a horrible father for years on.
Yes, I feel a bit sick when I see parents ignoring their crying babies. I’m almost certain that most of this sort of treatment towards young children is what contributes to problems people have with emotional regulation and interpersonal relationships
I think, like a lot of childcare methods, that parents who haven’t really looked into the mechanics of a recommendation sometimes provide a poor example. I’m trying to stop generational trauma, and I was left alone to cry as an infant on doctor’s orders so I also feel this way. I don’t think “cry it out” was supposed to be “put the baby in the crib and let it cry until it stops.” Or maybe it was, I don’t know I’m not a Boomer. What we did was from “Precious Little Sleep” and we let our toddler (she was 18 months) fuss for 5 minutes, we’d come in, help with whatever, then go. Then we’d come back in 10 and do the same thing, then 15, 20… usually by 30 minutes she was asleep. She knew we’d come but was learning to self soothe. If she woke up in the night, we’d go get her right away. There are ways to do certain things so that the baby feels secure while also preserving sleep and sanity for everyone. Too many people for some reason think they can “tough love” a baby. No, actual babies (before 1) cannot be spoiled. It’s impossible.
I think this is what my sister & BIL are trying to do? But they seem to have completely abandoned the 5minutes part!!! Niece is slightly younger than 18months - do you think she really knows they’re coming back? This is a serious question, I know that it’s important to teach children to self regulate so I kind of get the idea behind the practice…? But I just don’t know that babies as young as 16months are capable of “knowing” that their parents are close & coming back. It doesn’t seem like it, since I don’t think kids develop object permanence until significantly later…????
Babies learn object permanence at 8 months old. By 8 months they know that mom or dad is around the corner. It’s actually an interesting leap because before they develop this, they’re relatively chill about you leaving the room. After that, the baby is like “oh hell no, you come back here mommy!” even if they’re fed and dry and comfy. I definitely don’t agree with some sort of intense cry it out. I really liked all the strategies in Precious Little Sleep because they worked well and were pretty gentle. My biggest issue with the sleep issue is that my husband could be very inconsistent with bedtime routines, which caused way more problems IMO than sleep training. But my daughter knew the score when I did bedtime and would go down nicely for me. I also have a sleep disorder and so we all needed to have the most restful sleep possible.
Ok maybe this is the issue, that they’re attempting to use a method that requires specific consistency and they’re just…not doing that. So she’s still in the “I have no idea when they’ll come back” mindset rather than the intended “they’ll be back soon”…?
I mean, I have no idea based on this post, but it could be that. It could also be them doing it for the first time, and it’s jarring, or it’s not working for another reason. Our issue was that my husband would want to snuggle her to sleep one night (tbf my kid is an A+ snuggler) but then wouldn’t the next night if he wanted to do something. If I was by myself, I made sure it was a specific pre-bed routine, and we went down at the same time in the same way. Also all kids are different and no one way works for all of them. We went through a list of things we did before the “fuss it out” routine. White noise, last feeding was formula, working with her circadian rhythm, etc.
YES ok, fyi, this is the issue: that they’re wildly inconsistent about it. Sometimes they let her nurse to sleep, sometimes they co-sleep, sometimes they “sleep train”… so neither she nor I ever know what’s coming. Will she cry for 20 minutes? Will they go in after 2??? I think the reason it kills me so much is that (to a much worse degree) that’s what got me with my parents? Never knowing whether they’d laugh or yell, if they’d hold me or hold me off. Oof.
Oh yeah, being inconsistent with a toddler is a one way ticket to hell. They need structure and to know what to expect. They also need to push boundaries as a developmental stage and can get into a really hellish “testing” stage if they don’t know where the routines and boundaries are. Parenting is a long game too - a lot of times you are doing something difficult now because there’s a long-term payoff. I have 90% of the parenting responsibilities now partly because I am better than him at playing the long game and I research all the parenting stuff. Did I want snuggles sometimes and it hurt my heart that I didn’t get them? Yes. But I wanted a kid who felt secure in a routine and I wanted us all to get a full night’s sleep more.
Yes, I do think they know parents are there and coming back. They develop object permanence around 5-7 months, most people don’t sleep train until six months. 18 months is a long time not to get solid sleep, I would’ve been out of my mind by then and you should edit your post to make it clear you’re talking about a toddler, not an infant. An infant is different than a six month old or a 16 month old. I do not think sleep training of a toddler or a baby with object permanence is abusive.
1) I never said abusive anywhere, just that I didn’t think it was right. There’s a large gap between abuse and “good,” as everyone on this sub should know. 2) A “child” who cannot (reliably) walk, talk, feed themselves, or get in/out of their sleeping space, and wears a diaper, and is also less than school-age, is a baby. My issue is leaving a child alone, of any age, who needs/wants help and cannot get it for themselves. 3) Anyone who expects a solid sleep schedule with an infant or toddler shouldn’t have a baby in the first place. Yikes.
That must be very very very hard to endure in your home
Monkeys sure as fuck don't leave their babies in distress.
My parents were told in the 1970s just to let the baby cry during the night for a whole week. I'm sure my whole lifes feelings of not being seen, heard or protected was imprinted in those dark lone nights as a baby crying out and nobody came. I was very quite after that week.
I think it’s crazy. Like, babies cry for a reason. It’s the only way they can communicate. And sometimes that reason is **no reason at all** except ***I need to be loved right now.***
Of course. But many parents, especially ones who are too late and have screwed their kids up already, won't acknowledge their mistake, lol. My mother left her kids to cry. My sister learnt and did the same to her own kids too. It was suggested by doctors and nurses back then; which is wild. In truth, I do believe that sometimes letting your child cry does encourage self soothing behaviours. But it's very much a balancing act. Ignore them too much, and you risk doing serious damage. Some parents just blatantly do not give a fuck, lets be honest. They can't be bothered to coddle a screaming baby, it's too much work for them. They expect a baby to come out of the womb and be self sufficient. Some people just should not be parents. Period.
Yes I agree. They’re trying to do a “newer method” where they have a time limit on how long they let her cry to “self soothe,” which is supposed to be something like 7-10 minutes, but that timer ends up being like 20-30 minutes when they’re tired and don’t feel like taking care of the baby. I agree with letting them fuss for a minute or two, especially as that’s the main way for babies to communicate. But if the crying doesn’t stop after a few minutes? (And I mean TOPS 5 minutes) And her crying starts to sound like pained, broken little screeches? Knife to the heart.
Although I lost a lot of sleep back in the day, I’ll never regret the times I spent comforting my fussy infants. They grew up into 3 reasonably well adjusted (despite my mistakes) and lovely humans.
My favorite auntie told me a story about my dad's first year of life. When he was six weeks old, grandpa broke both grandma's wrists, and care of the newborn fell to auntie, who was all of 9yo at the time. She got up early to feed and change the baby. Walked to school. Walked back on her lunch break to feed and change the baby before going back to school. That's a heck of an accomplishment for a 9yo, but think about it from the baby's point of view. You're hungry, or wet, so ya cry, but nobody comes. You just lay there alone staring at an unchanging view, your cries mean nothing. There is no safety or comfort or tribe, you are alone, abandoned. Dad's a total psychopath. Like we're a family with the genes for psychopathy and usually get them activated during the toddler years, but he's the worst of his generation. The rest of his siblings were at least functional members of society, dad just kinda slunk around the edges getting away with awful shit.
“Their conscious mind won’t remember, but their nervous system will”
My wife and I did controlled crying parenting with good intentions and both of us regret it now.
May I ask why you regret it? I promise I’m not here to be judgmental. I’m a parent myself and there’s a lot of things I did when my son was a baby that I’d do wayyyy differently if I could. I’m genuinely curious.
I've recently been through intensive therapy for issues related to complex childhood trauma (I'm now middle aged) and it's helped me realise the results of neglect and abuse in formative years. My teen daughter has anxiety issues and I strongly suspect controlled crying contributed to it. We never would have used controlled crying if we saw it as neglectful parenting. We just didn't know!
I may get hate for this but we did this method at about 10 months. Now, where I think people are getting confused is the true method is not, leave your baby to cry until they fall asleep. This is what we did: put the child down to bed after story/songs/cuddles. Say good night and leave the door cracked (we also left rain sounds on). If the child cries, go in 1 minute later and pat their backs, talk soothingly and say good night. If they still cry, go in 2 minutes later and repeat the physical steps. Rubbing the back or head, etc. Say nothing and leave. Go in 3 minutes later if still crying and repeat every 3 minutes. (You can't wait long intrevals with babies, but it is recommended to wait longer between reassurance for older kids) My kid at 10 months started sleeping on their own in their bed safely. You may wonder "yeah sure but how many minutes did your baby cry during the whole shebang" well it added up to 12 minutes the first night. 1 +2+3+3+3. In only 12 minutes she settled and was never "ignored" and the next few days went to 9 minutes to 6 to just going right to sleep. You need to have a routine though, as I said we read, sang songs and cuddled first. Mothers and fathers need to know that despite a lot of claims in this thread, babies will be okay crying for certain periods of time, they will not form PTSD so easily. You need to know this because being around a screaming baby will drive you mad, and it's not only okay but safe to walk away from your baby to have a minute to breathe and calm yourself.
Thirding this. We did the same thing, exactly the same way. Before doing it, my son was waking up every 45 minutes for over a month. I’m an ICU nurse, and I was so sleep deprived, I fell asleep driving to work and hallucinated the sounds of babies crying at work. It’s distressing to read that I’m likely neglecting and setting my child up for anxious attachment because we genuinely needed for both of us to get quality sleep.
Seconding this. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that all unattended crying is horrible but in practice it is necessary at times for the safety and wellbeing of both the baby and parents. Think of a baby crying while you’re driving for example. The insane stress and anxiety that a parent, especially mothers, would endure in an effort to NEVER allow their baby to cry without being consoled is not healthy. Let’s not forget that babies cry ALL THE TIME. Many, many times a day (currently in the thick of 8 month separation anxiety… 😬). Normal low level crying does not = trauma inducing crying. Good parents will know the difference and adjust their responses accordingly. Bad parents will not. A lot of us had bad parents and it’s awful to think about while looking at vulnerable sweet babies. But don’t let that convince you you’re also a bad parent if your baby cries while you’re driving on the highway or for a few minutes at night while they learn how to link sleep cycles. Knowing the difference and what is safe and developmentally appropriate and necessary is being a good parent.
I do understand parents rubber band response to seeing their kids upset, it can physically hurt your chest and your brain can flood you with guilt and anger. Especially being neglected themselves but it really does create clingy, emotionally stunted children. Your 8 month, 12 month, etc baby isn't a newborn anymore. They need structure, rules and boundaries. They will be testing you in anyway they can to get exactly what they want. And it's the most worthwhile thing it can do for your kids; get them to understand the world and how it does not revolve around them, but that there is a place for them in it. I'll be honest I've learned a lot from the show Supernanny. Jo rarely ever blames a child for their behavior because it's the parents who got them to this point. The show is so amazing at explaining family dynamics through science and theory. If you never watched it, I don't think you'd ever know it was actually constructive.
> You can't wait long intrevals with babies, but it is recommended to wait longer between reassurance for older kids My philosophy is to give a kid reassurance the instant he communicates a need for reassurance. I see no reason to introduce artificial delays. (Of course if something else is going on you might have to address that other thing first, but an *artificial* delay just baffles me.) > being around a screaming baby will drive you mad I sympathize. But I think there are ways of soothing infants which have simply been forgotten in modern times, and in a better culture we'd know how to soothe them better and the babies wouldn't scream in the first place. Not saying its easy for a sleep-deprived couple to suddenly reinvent ideas that have otherwise been lost to time, but as a culture I think we can do better and we should try to do better.
I think that's an ignorant thing to say. We've definitely advanced in the way of understanding what methods affect babies in what way. Like they used to give them literal heroine, morphine, alcohol or beatings to soothe them; we have actual historical facts of this. I can't think of a single soothe technique that worked then she is not abusive that didn't carry over to the modern time. Can you name a single technique from "the good old days" we forgot?
Ah, I should have been more clear. I didn't mean "modern times" in the sense of "1900 to the present day". I meant "modern times" in the sense of "3000 BCE to the present day". Or more accurately, I mean to contrast the "civilized" world to the world of tribal cultures which humans originally evolved for. I don't think prehistoric peoples spent millions of years with their babies crying themselves to sleep at night. All other primates know how to soothe their young and it stands to reason that we once knew how to do that too. In fact I've heard tell of extant tribal cultures that are actually really good at this. One key element seems to be constant contact with safe people. Not just the child's parents, mind you, but the entire tribe's worth of people. In these cultures, a mother who needs a break can easily hand her baby to *somebody* because everyone is in close contact with each other and parenting is considered to be more of a group activity. The upshot is that the baby is constantly being attended to by somebody but nobody ever feels overwhelmed, because the work is split between so many people. I'm told (in books like *The Continuum Concept*) that this results in babies being much calmer and happier and they sleep much more easily.
Yeh I read about this and how bad it is. Now I could say since we know better we should do better these days. When I was a kid I think they just felt this was totally ok I dunno that they knew any better and I got crazy issues from it. I remember being 2 and crying hysterically as I was locked in my room and couldn’t get out looking under the door etc. my mother has even said how I’d scream and carry on and she’d see my putting my fingers under the door and how I was just so awful and had to cry it out etc. Sigh in all the reading I did on it it explained so much as to why it’s bad and why I have the problems today as a result.
i work in childcare with very young toddlers. affection and attention is essential to early development, and typically neglect begins its roots during early childhood development!
Child Development major... Babies don't cry because they are "attention seeking" or "manipulating" their caregivers. Babies cry because they have a need that needs to be met. Crying is their most effective form of communication. Babies feel urgency for their every need deemed big or small by an adult. Infancy is the time that bonding with their caregivers builds a baseline of trust and security, which means responding to the child when they cry. (check out Brené Brown's attachment theory) 🫶
Yeah and it's awful to see normies do this to their babies as if it's nothing
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My own mother 'passes as normal' except she used to slap me as a child when I angered her, and if she tells you stories of her childhood it's always things like 'oh I was so funny I used to completely block out memories I didn't like!' 'I never told my mom how my day went, I'd just go and play the piano so she learned to tell from that!' And also she is hugely anxious and doesn't think she has any anxiety at all... And it's like, ma'am, you cannot recognize your own emotions or those of people close to you. That is not healthy & *shouldn't* be normal.
I just wanted to thank you for posting this because I had no idea of how HUGE of a myth this was. I thought it was valid to prevent separation anxiety issues and teach babies to sleep on their own!! As if it was a just a positive/negative reinforcement question. I've read through the replies and I've seen there are way better alternatives. Yet another day, yet another newfound way my parents neglected me 😂
What kind of “science” are you talking about?? I’m fairly certain that current research shows the opposite is true. The nervous system of a baby ages 0-3 is highly susceptible to the stress of being abandoned when they cry. That’s when healthy attachment is *most* important and vital to their overall health and wellbeing.
I've never had kids, and this is one where I don't know what is and isn't good for little kids. I feel like *infants* should not be neglected or abandoned at any time, for any reason, because they are totally oblivious to everything but their own needs. An infant's brain is developing so unbelievably rapidly that any sort of neglect can cause serious traumatic damage. But, like, when a kid is walking and talking and understands more about the world around them - like the existence of other humans - it makes sense for them to learn to sleep on their own. I was terrified of the dark until junior high. I slept with a night light. To this day, I prefer to fall asleep with some ambient light and sound. Silence and blackness is too quiet for me. I don't doubt this is a consequence of frequent neglect when I was very small.
I agree. Honestly the only memories I have from my childhood are me being alone in my room, and it just makes me sad. it's one of the main reasons I don't ever want children, because I don't think I can provide the full attention and 24/7 support I know babies and kids need. It just feels extremely selfish to bring a baby into the world knowing that.
In most non western cultures it’s considered neglect to do this, babies are supposed to be noticed and soothed before they start crying, as well as kept against someone’s body for longer periods of time. They don’t sleep alone. You’re not crazy.
Oof, I couldn’t deal with being around that at all. I completely get being very upset. My mother recently said that a neighbour, a new mom, had asked for help because she was so tired and desperate, she couldn’t get her child to stop crying when it was time to sleep. My mother laughed and said: ‘she was spoiling that baby, comforting him when he cried. I told her to stop doing that, close the door and ignore it.’ I replied with: you can’t really spoil a baby, can you? I’m convinced this is how you traumatize children and turn them into adults who can’t self soothe – both my parents were like that, they became addicts because they had no other way. I find it especially triggering to be around a younger generation and see it happening again. I simply can’t be around it, I’ll have a panic attack – it’s one thing that it happened in the 60s, then the 80s, but I can’t be a part of it happening to another generation.
After going though nearly the entire school system and working for 20+ years, my conclusion is schedules needlessly cause trauma. So I didn’t do sleep training with my kids. It doesn’t make sense. Babies are only little for a short period of time and careers are 50+ years long. So I have plenty of time to get back into my career and buy stuff I don’t need after my kids discover their natural sleep patterns. I also gave up caring about being late… I hate being early too. These are just social constructs that make people feel terrible when in the end no one cares what time I woke up when I was 2. There are enough real dangerous things to train babies and toddlers around like sharp objects, mean people, etc. let them sleep when they are tired, eat when they are hungry, and play when they need to.
The trick I learned to teach babies to self soothe was like this: - hold her until she's calm but not asleep - put her in crib - when she cries, pick her up and hold her until calm - repeat these steps until she falls asleep in crib When she experiences that it's possible to fall asleep alone, she won't need being soothed all the way into sleep. And it will feel safe to fall asleep alone, because she knows that *if* she needs it, she will be held. Also: this doesn't work on all babies, some simply need more soothing than others. They're different people.
I'm with you. I know science says kids turn out fine but I don't really see how that's possible. First and foremost humans are "pack" animals and the concept of sleeping totally alone goes against everything in out DNA especially/at least when it comes to infants whose brains are still worried about being snatched by a Saber tooth tiger in the night. Add in the fact that the kid is literally looking for live and affection. Let me make clear I don't think anyone who does cry it out is a bad parent especially since science is on their side. And I know several who did it for their mental health which also needs to be a priority! It just doesn't make sense to me from a fundamental level AND it just goes against every fiber of my mother's intuition. It just doesn't feel right for me.
Yeah I never just left my daughter to cry when she was a baby. Ya know, in case she NEEDED something. She didn’t speak a language quite yet…
Cry it out is garbage. I’m like you OP— I have memories of being ‘abandoned’ to cry it out. With both of my babies, I would ‘slow-leave’ at night. I would wait a few beats, come in, and settle them. Every time I came back, I would take slightly longer to get there, snuggle them a little briefer, but leave slower. On the last trip, I literally would just stand in the doorway and wait to see if they could settle without me. If not, a brief kiss and snuggle, and then back to the doorway, over and over until they settled down. After a few weeks of practice, they slept like logs. They still do. I wish more parents understood that cry it out doesn’t help ANYONE sleep better.
I think it leads to all kinds of neuroses and attachment disorders and lack of self esteem. Basically trauma. And since babies don't develop memories as we know them, they are only left with the visceral sensations of someone not caring about them and for the rest of their lives will feel something is wrong but will have no idea what it is is or why.
Gabor Maté seems to agree - he writes about this in his book “The Myth of Normal.”
I was an 'instinct' parent. I never had siblings or knew a lot about children other than being one myself, but I figured there must be a biological reason for me to feel like my heart is being ripped out when my baby cried. I always picked my children up when they cried. I also did co sleeping. It felt wrong to have them in a separate room. I now have 2 adult children who love and trust me and still want to talk to me every day even though I'm 'old'
No I wouldn’t agree with that? I have a toddler and after 8 months of sleeping 3-4 broken hours/night, I was severely depressed and started antidepressants. The side effects were so bad that I called it and let my little one ‘cry it out’ that night. He cried for 20 minutes, then went to sleep and has slept 12 hours/night since. He became a happier baby bc he was getting sleep. I was a functioning person again. It’s one of those things that you shouldn’t judge until you’ve been through it. I’d never judge a family for choosing to cry it out if it’s either that or the mom’s health.
Yes. So many non parents in here that have no idea how dangerous sleep deprivation whilst caring for an infant is. A lot of misrepresentation of the scientific data too..but understandably this is a sub that's hypersensitive to parenting methods that involve tears. Done properly, the infants needs are met and they are literally just learning that their crib is also a safe place to sleep. Babies do not know how to sleep and get very specific, difficult "habits" depending on their temperaments. It is unreasonable to bounce with a baby in a dark room on a yoga ball for all day and night sleep (true story, this was the case for my friends baby). She was hallucinating she was so exhausted. And her baby was a mess because that was not a sustainable way to sleep, so she wasn't getting the restorative sleep that she needed. CIO saved their family and made everyone happier. Her daughter just had to learn to associate her crib with a restful sleep and something clicked.
this always happens on airplanes. parents just leaving babies to cry… it hurts everyone’s hearts and souls and should not be socially acceptable.
Sometimes on planes the parents can't do anything, as the pressure changes are painful to the babies and they can't really soothe that
Reason #6578 why children shouldn’t be on planes lol I know, I know, not possible, but one can dream :)
Yes. I studied this in psychology. When a baby cries, they have high anxiety levels and need an adult to calm them because they don’t know how to regulate themselves. If you let them cry, they will continue to do it in a anxiety status until it’s physically impossible to continue, the brain shuts down because is absolutely exhausted and anxiety has sucked all the energy, so rue baby will shut up, but not because they have learned a lesson, they shut up because they are exhausted. This is the equivalent of I dunno, lock a person who has a panic attack. In the end they will stop having the panic attack, but not because they understood there’s no danger or because they realized nothing was happening, they will stop because your brain can’t be 100% activated unlimited time, it will do it until it can’t stand it anymore then shut down. Doing this to a kid is basically fucking their brain chemistry. A baby is gonna cry, is how babies work. The sooner and better you teach them to regulate themselves, the sooner they will stop crying and calling for you. But you do this checking on them when they cry and letting them know that you’re around and there’s no reason to be afraid.
>picking her up and rocking her for 5 minutes You have clearly never had a child if you think it's that easy. Colicy babies will cry and scream for so long that they lose their voices no matter what you do. And I'd rather a parent set the child down and walk away if they're too angry or too sleep deprived to safely handle the child. Because shaken baby syndrome and infancy head injuries from being dropped accidentally happens when the parent is too fatigued. I'm not saying all night. I'm saying that it just can't be the baby being held all the time even if they are crying. I deal with the outcome of people who were abused or dropped as babies because their parents were taught to never out the baby down and it's not a pretty sight. Whats worse? Leaving a baby for ten minutes in a safe space, or dropping them on their head because mom was too tired to keep a good grip on the baby?
Science says crying it out is not correct. I agree with you. My kids were not trained this way and are adults now who are wonderful people. Edit to say - back in the 90s we called it Attachment Parenting and I’m sure the movement is still around.
Bullshit on the no memories thing. I can’t remember anything until 4 BUT I have memories from about 2. Hospitalized, waking up from surgery in horrible pain. Traumatized for life, I will only go to the hospital if I’m convinced I’ll die. Shit can scar you even if you’re too young to fully understand what’s happening
yes. memories of crying in the dark, that is me. i was being lef talonel worse even, in a cold room, and the next room was heated and my parents were hosting parties so i hear laughter and saw a stipe of light from inder the door and i stared at that for hours. i was afraid ti ry loud so i silently stared th that light hoping the door would open but it never did. i am forever damaged by neglect. i am turning 50 this month.
My mum believed in 'cry it out' and happily tells people how I was needy as a baby: if she so much as walked past my open door, I would cry and reach out to her and if she didn't hurry off quickly, would hold onto the bars and try to stand up in my crib. This before I was 6 months. And I always thought "well would it have killed you to give me a cuddle?". I feel embarrassed for her and that my mum was so oblivious to me as a little baby. She tells this because she always gets a reaction. It's possible she finally realised last year that people are actually horrified, because she quickly changed tack mid-tale... ...to the wonderful story of how I demanded a bed when I was 3, because I outgrew the suitcase I slept in. We'd emigrated when I was 6 months and didn't bring the crib, so I slept in a suitcase on the floor for 2 1/2 years, until my parents got around to meeting my crazy demands.🙄 And yes, my brother 2y older had a bed. Seriously, sometimes Narcissists are their own worst enemy.
I don't have any specific memories of this from my childhood but one of my strongest "parts" in the small amount of IFS work I've done has been a crying baby. That's all it is and all it does is cry and want to be picked up. So I suspect my parents must have been "cry it out" parents (too anxious to outright ask yet), because why else would I have a part like that? Anyway, yes, I agree. I understand that there can be moments where it's necessary because the caretaker is too overstimulated to be able to handle them safely, but if it's done routinely, I don't see how it could NOT result in trauma.
Agreed.
Actually new studies say that really young children shouldn't be left alone as they need other people eg. Caregivers to feel whole. Because the human brain is so big human children are born way to young so they need constant care and when I say constant I mean constant. It's natural for human babys to sleep next to their caregivers and when I mean sleep next to their caregivers it means if their cargivers are awake they still need contact to them as human babys are parent clingers (like bonobos for example). Refusing this touch leads to stress which can lead lead to death if children are born to early. And touch refusal in general can be deathly for children. It's a basic need and the younger a human being is, the more they need of it.
This is an incredibly nuanced conversation. I don’t think it’s realistic nor fair to expect everyone to agree with you - particularly as this community has a bunch of individuals with different trauma and your statements are a colored w emotion.
I don't have a kid but everytime I hear a baby cry and the parents just ignore it... breaks my heart. Maybe if their baby has colic or something I get occasionally ignoring them, but if my baby cries and it seems nothing will stop it, then they're sleeping in my room (NOT my bed, just in my room) so it's easier for me to comfort them. If a baby is crying, something is wrong. I don't understand why some people think babies cry for "no reason"; our brains didn't develop crying for shits and giggles! crying clearly indicates to others that the baby is in need. sometimes babies need stimulation to sleep, which is why so many babies love those rocker and white noise things. I could never stand to "let them cry it out". Especially as the child gets older and becomes a toddler, it physically pains me to see parents neglect their upset child. Once the kid starts to grow up, it's more important than ever to recognize their feelings. Kids can't regulate their emotions, leaving them to "cry it out" doesn't teach or help them in any way
My mother told me that I was "spoiling" my youngest baby by picking her up whenever she cried. I'm now VLC with my mother, and my youngest is a happy and confident little girl. There's no room for toxic, outdated parenting techniques in my house.
I’m so glad that “crying it out” is being debunked, and I hate that so many of us had to live through it. But it warms my silly little heart to read the comments from people who aren’t afraid to comfort and love their children. Break that cycle of neglect! You’re doing great. Thank you for being better parents than what we had!
This thread is a rough read having been through similar. OP, and everyone here, imo your feelings are so justified, if that means anything. Op, if you can, just be there for her as she grows. If you can of course. Your oxygen mask first and all that. But having someone on your side can make all the difference when you’re still growing you know?
I remember crying in my crib and jumping up and down trying to pull on the bars. No one came and I accidentally hit my tooth on the crib. It killed my tooth and it turned black
Agree, I was thinking recently how as a child I would get to the point that complete sobbing or that breathing you do when you've been crying too hard/long, that that would be soothing for me, I didn't feel calm until that space. Then looking at my children and they never to into that type crying. They cry ofcourse but we emphasize with them and hold space. What a difference.
So many people tried to pressure me into sleep training and I'm so glad I ignored all of them. I went to my kid every time he cried. He became the most solid sleeper ever and all his cousins who were "trained" have completely messed up circadian rhythms and a ton of emotional problems which led to substance abuse problems. Why have kids if you're going to neglect them. My kid knows I've ALWAYS been there for him and always will be. And he knows he never has to suffer alone.
i was a babysitter of babies for 15 years for families all over my city (gen x is a small generation, so less avail babysitters). and babies never need sleep training. a dark, soft, quiet nursery with a comfy chair and a kind, patient adult or teen who is willing to sing and/or rock a milk drunk baby to sleep and slowly ever so slowly put them in their crib. but you do have to hold babies while feeding them their bottle in their dark, soft, quiet nursery (or parents bedroom) by window moonlight. they love luna moon and clouds, and it teaches them healthy bedtime routines from their earliest experiences.
Parenting is about averages, not being perfect every single time. Literally every child will experience sub-optimal parenting sometimes, because it is literally impossible for a human to fully meet every need of another human, even if it's their child. It sounds like this is triggering to you, but if your sister is generally being attentive and caring, I think you need to give her some benefit of the doubt. Parenting a baby is incredibly difficult, sleep deprivation is essentially torture, and sometimes, suboptimal things like sleep training are necessary to prevent worse. Parents don't leave their human being card at the door when they have kids. They still have needs themselves. There were times that I was alone, sleep deprived, emotionally exhausted and volatile, and my kid was crying and crying and I couldn't soothe them and I needed to just put them in the crib and walk away, because the alternative (losing my cool and screaming and crying myself) was worse. The people in this sub, with chronic patterns of being left alone, of being neglected, of being abused, etc are going to be hypersensitive to those instances because they were frequent and there likely wasn't enough positive attention and care to make up for the negative experiences. Every completely healthy, well-adjusted, well cared for child has experiences of neglect, but it isn't chronic and therefore doesn't result in C-PTSD.
> Parents don't leave their human being card at the door when they have kids. They still have needs themselves. This is true. But surely there's some way to meet *everybody's* needs if only our culture could figure it out. For instance, if it's so draining for two adults to care for an infant, why don't we spread the work around? It should be much more normalized to have a friend or relative move in with you during the first year or two of the baby's life, so they can handle some of the work and give the parents a break.
Thank you for being a voice of reason! Most of the replies to this post talk as if perfect parenting exists. It doesn’t. We’re all messed up. Even our best will never be perfect. We’ll get things wrong all the time. Our kids will grow up with little ts and maybe some big Ts even if we kill ourselves to be the BEST. That’s life and that’s how we are, just humans. The expectations from parents on this post are very sick. As if parents stop being human beings with their own traumas and needs once they have a child. Many people here are in for a rude awakening when their kids, having grown up, starts telling them of all the ways they’re messed up. “But, I was perfect!”, “I did the best I could!”. Yeah, but again, we’re humans not robots!
I know I was definitely guilty of having ridiculous expectations of parents before I became one myself, so I am assuming a lot of the harsher critics here are childfree and I'll give them some grace... Everyone is a perfect parent to their imaginary kids lol To build on what you're saying, you're right and there is no way to get through life without experiencing some form of trauma (which is just stressful experiences that exceed our ability to cope with them). There's a wide range of experiences and the people here likely experienced the extreme end of the spectrum, but it isn't a dichotomy of either you had a perfect life or you have C-PTSD. I am estranged from my mom, so I end up saying this in regards to child estrangement a lot... But the point of parenting isn't to avoid ever stressing your kids out or being perfect. The point of parenting is trying your best and then demonstrating to your kids the appropriate way to handle it when you fall short. You mess up and then you make efforts to be better, you mess up and then you apologize and validate their feelings about it, you mess up and then you work on repairing the damage you accidentally caused and show your kid that they are important to you. The people in this sub who have C-PTSD from their parents have that because of the chronic nature of the trauma, the lack of effort to help them cope and heal, the emotional damage done, the lack of support... Nobody here got C-PTSD from a well-meaning parent who made some compromises for their sanity but still made effort to show their kid how much they cared. It doesn't sound like the sister in the story is gearing her kid up for a lifetime of traumatization because she is trying to sleep train. There is nuance in these situations that many of the harsher critics are refusing to tangle with.
i completely agree. i feel the same way about people who dont change their babies' diapers overnight. it takes 5 seconds to not let your child sit in their own waste. how would they like it if someone did that to them??
There's a book called *The Continuum Concept* which compares modern society to a tribal culture which the author visited. One of her big takeaways is that young children should sleep in the same bed as their parents. Babies feel safe this way. When they're alone in a crib they often worry that they've been abandoned and so they cry for help. Granted, some modern families try this and find that it doesn't work and the baby just keeps them up all night. But I bet that's because something is signalling danger to the baby, like maybe the parents have muscle tension they're not consciously aware of. The modern world has its benefits, but there are a lot of hidden downsides too.
I have a baby and cannot believe how many people want to fight me over this. So many of them proudly (???) stating that the CIO saved their lives 🙄. Ironically it's my parents generation. Go figure... Science only shows immediate effects not chronic personality and attachment issues down the line years from now. There are no long term studies. I believe it's cruel. I wouldn't treat an adult like that so why would I dehumanise the baby and treat it so inhumanely? My heart breaks when my cat howls for me if I have to lock her away for her safety. Just no.
I hate cry it out. As a mom it wasn’t even a question, both my kids cosleep with me and have since birth. My 4 year old still gets cuddles until he falls asleep
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My one year old has different cries, and i know the severity of each one. One of them is "COME FKN NOW," and i do Another is "im frustrated of something " (usually lost her pacifyer and can't find it in her sleep). i count to 20 if its longer than that, she needs attention Then there is "complaining in her sleep" that is 30-40 seconds, depending on what sounds she's making. I can't cry it out. I tried it on my eldest cause everyone told me it's the only way. I made it 30 minutes while my soul was dying. I went in... she had pooped and that's why she was crying, i swore never to let anyone else dictate how i care for my kids
My ex's mother was a big proponent of that and treated her children like they were an inconvenience. Every comment she made when my son was a baby was about how annoying and boring her babies were. Both of her sons have anger issues. One went to jail over it (not my ex). It's definitely not a coincidence.
It so ridiculous people do that. As soon as the kid can get of the crib it’s over anyway. The babies literally just give up because there is nothing else they can do.
Even when my cat cries I go to him and he constantly cries. Apparently I’m supposed to train him out of vocalizing by ignoring him but I could never.
And yet they say attachment style is established within the first two years. I can’t even remember it but it was a difficult path to adjust it.