To ask if you let your baby cry

[Hippydippydoo]

Having a conversation amongst a group of mum's at a recent baby group, the topic of crying came up.

One mum had adopted the cio to try to get her baby to sleep through the night, I believe she is around 9 months old, with success. Other mum's in the group discussed that they didn't let their baby cry, and cio wasn't for them. Fair enough.

I felt a bit stuck in the conversation, I wouldn't say I have let my dd cio, however I have left her to cry. For example I would lie her down in her cot for a nap, and she would instantly start crying, I would then put my arm through the bars and place a hand on her chest, pop a dummy in etc, and eventually she would stop crying. I never took her out of the cot and it could sometimes go on for 30-45 minutes.

When other mum's say they never let their babies cry, do they literally mean that the moment they cry they are picked up, and even 1 minute of crying is not ok. Or are they exclusively talking about cio, laying baby down and walking away?

I just don't understand the sentence "I never leave my baby to cry" and to what extreme this is meant?

Any mum's that "don't let their babies cry" shed any light on this?

No I wouldn't and have never left my baby to cry.

I don't live in the UK. I only got 90 days paid maternity leave and couldn't take the sleepless nights and work anymore. DH got zero paid leave and only took 30 days.

We waited until self-soothing worked. We waited a little for DD as she was not calming down or soothing herself.

I don't leave my kids to cry, what do I need to reassess exactly?

You need to think about what you're teaching them. I've been convinced by studies which show boys and girls are treated differently from birth and this has an effect on their 'gender'. If this is true then CIO / not letting them cry will also surely have an effect.

I want to raise independent, not dependent, children and in hindsight (children are young teenagers) I wouldn't change anything.

I've lived abroad a lot in the 3 decades I've been working and having seen CIO from a young age, I haven't seen a single case of it having negative effects on the children. Quite the opposite.

I’ve done exactly what you describe OP in the middle of the night. DD has gone thru phases (developmental/ sleep regressions/ bit poorly etc) when she’ll wake up and take up to 2 hours to get back to sleep. Up until about 10/11 months I would pick her up and walk up and down.... then she hit 12kgs and my back couldn’t take it any more so she had to get used to staying in her cot. I used to set up an air bed and lie there patting her tummy through the bars. I didn’t see this as any different through really.... she knew I was there.

My baby wanted to feed all the time so every time he cried feeding him would stop it, meaning I never really let him cry. It did mean he fed to sleep until he was 1 which obviously didn't have great implications for his ability to self soothe and he's always been a bad sleeper. Now he will go to sleep fine on his own in his cot but wakes in the night and I bring him into our bed and he sleeps until morning. Not ideal but we live in a terraced house with very difficult neighbours so leaving to cry for 45 minutes isn't really an option at the moment.

I had three under five. All three were entirely breastfed for nearly a year. It was impossible to attend to all three at the same time, so yes, sometimes the baby was left to cry. She was safe in her cot, so I knew she wouldn't come to any harm.

Curiously, my eldest is the most needy and she was never left to cry. The middle one, who was left, is laid back and happy.

The youngest is the jolliest child you could ever wish to meet. When she was a baby she was contended and would settled herself off to sleep whilst the others were causing mayhem.

Leaving babies crying at night does not promote independence when they are older, what are you on about.
You don't need to start teaching them anything at 3 months old, you have their entire life to guide them and it works just fine.

You can find studies proving one point or another, it doesn't matter. Babies and children who co-sleep are not spoil either, and putting 2 babies in a cot together is not going to impact negatively on their independence.

Do what works best for you, but the way your teen behaves today has nothing to do with his nightly routine when he was 2 months old.

What Placeboooo said. Difference between crying and whinging before sleep. I would never leave baby when crying or if whinging starts to escalate. But she does make whiney noises before she sleeps even if in the pram or car seat.

I think that too much pressure is put onto mothers. Some babies cry a lot, in fact most babies cry more than you were expecting. If you have a crier, and my first was one of these, the pressure to stop her crying was almost intolerable. A much better approach was suggested by my HV. She said when you've done your very best for your baby, i.e. they're clean, changed, fed, well, loved etc., if they continue to cry, put them down and make yourself a cup of tea. She said that faffing about and getting upset yourself with the constant crying, just makes your baby even more unsettled. This was the very best piece of advice I ever had.

My son co-slept and was never put down to sleep in a cot on his own, so I never left him to cry. At all. Of course, he did cry (because he was a baby) but never overnight and not going to sleep.

When he was older, between 1 &2, I would get him to nap in his pushchair and he might whinge from tiredness for a few minutes, which I would walk through, but if he was actually crying, I would pick him up.

He's an amazing sleeper, and never wakes in the night, and never did. I find people who do CIO might get short term results, but often end up with anxious sleepers years down the line.

I never left either of mine to cry alone. It didn't feel ok to me. They did sleep through eventually. It was tiring but I'm glad I did it that way now.