To wonder why "cry it out" works?

[chocahoop]

I've heard people say that cry it out only works because babies then learn that no one will come so there is no point in crying, but surely that's nonsense? Surely babies don't wake up in the middle of night and sadly think to themselves "oh I may as well go back to sleep as no one bothered to come last time".

I'm curious as to why it does work tbh as it goes against all my mothering instincts yet I am jealous of people who's children sleep through the night and don't seem to be feeling any ill effects of being left to cry it out.

Oh sink, I'm sorry. My ds3 (of 4)was in nicu for 10 days too and he is a very well adjusted 7 year old now. He was on a lot of morphine, so I'm not sure he would have even been aware. Like i said, the 'good enough mother' stuff is really comforting around this stuff. Noone is perfect and we are (mostly) all just doing our best.

My ds1 is the one I tried to get into a routine as a baby and he is the most anxious for sure - we have had big problems with this, but I reassure myself that I did the best I could at the time. The one who was in Nicu is the most grounded of all of them - I was just a much more relaxed, intuitive mum with him and he has such a strong sense of self. I'm rambling, but I guess what I want to say is that there are many variables that construct a person. Try not to beat yourself up.

Yes I can imagine it’s difficut when you’re exhausted and at your wits end

SinkGirl, please don’t worry. Your child’s developmental problems are NOT the result of being left to cry.

This is why I loathe the smug anti-sleep training brigade; they make normal, loving parents frightened for no reason.

Yes underneath - what about lack of sleep and lack of decent sleep being bad for babies development?

DS cried far more during the weeks of ineffectual 'gentle' sleep training than the 2 nights it took for CC to work.

Where does that leave the attachment parent theorists?

My only regret is not doing CC sooner.

Yes Laurie, I'm reading a book on gentle sleep training and it talks about gradual retreat, but it just says to sit next to them with your hand on them while they cry for 40 minutes until they fall asleep - that sounds just as bad to me!

@LaurieMarlow DS was the same!

the only long term study of the effects of cc by Price et al. (2012) showed there were no adverse effects at 5 years after sleeping training.
I personally wouldn’t do it because I think you can sleep train without leaving to cry but I haven’t seen any evidence that it is damaging.

Babies do not have narrative thought or internal monologue because they have no language skills, they are as based on instinct as much as a pet at that stage. Things like crying it out work solely in the same way that things like ignoring a begging pet will work, it's just reinforcement and training.

I live in Asia and crying it out would be unthinkable here

To be fair though, people let their kids wee and pop in the street as well. That doesn't make all instincts right in every location.

because babies give up when they know no-one will answer their cries.

And Beating kids with bamboo sticks is pretty accepted in many Asian cultures.

My baby was born premature and was in the NNU for a while so I expressed milk for him. This continued for over 6 months. It took me 30-40 minutes to express milk every couple/few hours at first. If my baby cried while I was expressing milk, I couldn't pick him up - I could stroke his cheek, give him toys, put something on TV for him to watch, but I couldn't pick him up which is what he wanted. I had to make the difficult choice between giving him the best diet I could provide and "damaging him" by "neglecting him". I'm a terrible parent either way apparently!

Anyway, he's 2 and I couldn't be happier with the person he's become.

I guess maybe I should've said "why does cry it out work so quickly?", because while I can completely believe that long term ignoring of crying is damaging, and that babies do eventually just give up crying (which is obviously very sad), most people say that the cio method works very quickly. So actually not that much crying involved actually. Does a baby really learn that no one comes after one or two nights of crying? Maybe they do and I'm just being naive.

The evolutionary perspective is that obviously babies cry initially because they want their mothers. They eventually stop crying because they are aware they are alone and vulnerable and therefore need to be quiet so a predator doesn’t get them.

Just one perspective! Wouldn’t do CIO personally as my son would be physically sick with the distress. Every baby is different though.

So many people slagging off mothers who dont do sleep training. I cosleep etc and dont leave my baby to cry. I am not a martyr.. my approach is just different to yours. It goes against my instincts so I dont do it. Some if my friends use cio but theyre still my friends. I am so fed up off women judging other women.

Wild ones - potentially flawed research: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/moral-landscapes/201407/parents-misled-cry-it-out-sleep-training-reports%3famp

My point being that you can always find one study that skews the paradigm. Ultimately parents have to make these decisions with the best resources at their disposal and weigh up the cost vs benefit in their own head.

OP it's not about learning that no-one is coming, from my understanding. Someone is always coming, just not immediately. Most ppl resort to CIO because a baby has a negative sleep association and can't self settle. Leaving the baby for short periods of time gives the child the opportunity to learn to self settle. I think the Ferber advice was to stop trying training if it doesn't work within a week and to try at a later period when a baby is more mature.

And incidentally, I would argue that a five year follow up does not classify as long term, particularly with something as nuanced as attachment theory.

Well they say babies in orphanages don't cry because they know no one will come.

Also, my two ds were awful sleepers as babies, I never did cry it out. They are 4+5 now and brilliant sleepers and have been for a good long time.

Babycenter.com is a US site - CIO is used for controlled crying there. It's difficult to talk in absolute terms on the net as different people interpret terms differently. I think the culture around sleep training in the US is different too.

Basis (formerly infant sleep info source) have very good info/research about sleep training, they acknowledge the issues with studying it too:

sites.durham.ac.uk/basis/things-to-consider-potential-costs-of-sleep-training/

They have only just changed their site/name/branding so the links etc are a bit clunky.

Personally I think it's massively unhelpful to use terms like "good sleeper" "negative associations" - sure babies can get into habits/associations which are difficult for the parents and which parents may wish to change but none of it makes these "bad" and there is no universal criteria for "good". Sleep is subjective, I wish we'd talk about it in more subjective terms.

I hate the notion that sleep training is just something which has to be done and needs to happen for every child, like potty training, because I don't think that's true. It's one parenting technique which can be used to try to change sleep patterns if they are problematic for the family. I do think it's cruel to leave a child crying alone for any length of time if they are so young they can't understand why or what is happening, but if they are older and it happens in the context of a responsive and loving family relationship it's unlikely to cause harm. We do all kinds of things that aren't nice for our kids in the short term because we know it is the right thing for the medium-long term. I've not met many children who love having their hair washed, nappy or clothing changed for them.

The argument about asian babies always irritates me. In part but night care falls predominantly on women in Asian (and the UK). But also if you want to hold up a cultural norm as a good thing perhaps choose a culture that doesn't include the normalisation of violence towards women and children, the legilisation of rape and terrible mental health levels particularly in women.

bouchie and if some of us ARE Asian/are married to Asians?

Is it ok for us to bring it up then? Are we allowed?

'A culture that normalises violence against women and children' - what the fucking whole of Asia??? All 4 and a half billion of them? And those lovely western countries? They're all totally lovely and violence free are they?

Give your head a wobble, you sound properly racist.

One of my biggest regrets whats leaving my babies to cry under the illusion from lots of books that it was the best thing to do and that was how to do it properly. My eldest was a very unsettled baby and exhausting to look after, he must have spent a lot of time alone crying- though he still cried when he was lifted/with us too. I do wonder how it has affected him as he has ASD now and still a difficult and demanding child.

My youngest hardly cried as a baby anyway so he wasn't left to cry as he hardly ever cried in the first place. He is a much calmer, more content and easie child now.

The Asian argument annoys me too. I live in Asia and IME babies often wake with their parents/the household and go to sleep with their parents/the household, ie their days are 7am-10/11pm. Pretty sure if I made my toddler stay awake that long every single day they would fall asleep anywhere too!

I sleep trained. I left my first daughter for a maximum of three minutes. I mentioned that on this site previously and someone replied to my post to call me "abusive".

Actually, even after sleep training she regularly woke in the night until 13 months and I'd go to her every single time (and still do at 2yo - thanks, molars).

I think there is a lot of unnecessary judgement towards CIO. I don't know anyone in person who's done it but I imagine they were absolutely ON THEIR ASS.