Am I harming my baby?

I think being screen free will be so much more valuable to your children’s brains than a few minutes crying before bed when they are otherwise well loved and attended to.

Well given I’ve seen many babies cry for HOURS on end, while being held, fed, changed, rocked and sung to - I imagine for most babies all this damage is already done before they cry for ten minutes with regular check in.

It takes longer than 4 minutes to get a bottle to a baby who thinks they’re starving to death - yet most of them seem to manage unscathed.

Many babies do need to learn how to sleep without a sleep aid. For some children their sleep aid may be feeding to sleep, some being rocked, others co sleeping, dummy etc. It's not a problem if you are happy to do it and you don't mind being up numerous times a night to help them go back to sleep (though I think it's better for their development if they can learn to have more continuous restorative sleep). Some parents have other children, have to get up for work early, have an important job in which they need to be well rested, they need to protect their mental health and their own physical health to name a few reasons so they teach their child to sleep unaided (using a variety of methods). Every situation, child and family is different.

Do you wanna say that British people transfer babies to their own rooms because parents need to have sex? Wild

How do parents in other cultures have sex?

I have met countless children who never learnt to sleep. They drop off but they don’t go asleep. Under-slept kids is a real issue and often leads to traits associated with adhd - not adhd but the associated traits. I was that kid. It took me years to learn how to sleep , I learnt this as an adult

🤣🤣🤣 have you ever met a child that never learnt to sleep?! Children don’t need to be taught to sleep, they know how to do it from day 1. What you’re referring to is adults wanting young babies to be silent when they’re stressed which is damaging.

I’d just all sleep in one room and laze about until the kids fall asleep. I could never be faffed with sleep rules and routines and getting out of bed to see to them in the night.

While mine were young enough to need me at night, they stayed in arms reach. Crying it out is a western thing, other cultures don’t do it at all as they don’t leave kids in separate rooms.

I believe that unsettled children who haven’t learnt to sleep are much much more damaged in the longer term than children who have a short sharp shock and then learn a skill for life

Some nights my two cried for way longer than 10mins when I was actively holding them and trying to help them go to sleep! Or in the day when I was trying to soothe them, or in the car, or in the buggy...

We did CC (not CIO which is different) with both of them, a little more structured than the OP but still the same idea. It worked in 3 days and they've both slept solidly every night for 6 years and 11 years, respectively. Neither of them remember it. And neither of them think "nobody comes when I call" because guess what? We do. If one of them calls out in the night, we go straight away because they obviously need something.

You're doing fine, OP. You won't damage your baby by helping them learn how to fall asleep.

I know I have one. It’s still normal.

10 mins is nothing. I left mine for way way longer. It saved my sanity. They are now a happy and well-adjusted teenager. Go for it.

I wouldn’t do it, I’d have you all in together. I can’t see why you’d need them in separate rooms? That’s making life harder for yourself. I’m all for the co-sleeping for everyone.

Babies and toddlers are meant to wake and it’s really hard. I think reframing sleep as not something that needs to be”fixing” though
is important.

And sleep consultants are toxic snake oil selling fuckers who prey on vulnerable people. I’d put them all in the bin.

It's a problem when the baby won' fall asleep any other way, and needs to feed at every normal night waking, which happens several times in the night for most people including babies.

4 minutes is nothing, it takes me longer to get to my twins sometimes (because I’m with the other one or their siblings) same room too, just not enough hands. If your an otherwise responsive parent it’s not subbing to worry about.

Of course there is no evidence. And no real way to run a controlled experiment like that, it's all massively speculative.

People have raised cortisol all the time, for all kinds of things, 10 minutes as a baby is really a drop in the bucket.

@freakingscared consistently raised cortisol has long lasting impacts yes, from situations that are repeated and /or traumatic. 10 mins of crying one day and then 3 the next doesn’t qualify. If you’re on a motorway and the baby is crying, you’re going to pull onto the hard shoulder within 3 mins so its cortisol levels don’t raise? I don’t think so, and neither should you.

I would either cosleep or use a dummy, you need sleep

You are fine OP, there is nothing wrong with a baby taking 4 minutes to settle.

Heck, I grizzle that long when I get into bed.

I think that staying around longer in a situation like yours, where the baby is really settling quickly, can actually prolong the time the baby is unsettled and they don't end up sleeping as well.

Definitely all subsequent babies. And twins/triplets.

Sleep trained my baby, took a week.
Now 21, travelled Asia on her own at 18, thriving at university.
Take from that what you will!

Do you have any evidence that 10 minutes of crying causes any long term harm to babies? Or even short term harm.