To try cry it out method

[loveskaka]

I have tried everything to get my wee one to sleep through, nothing is working! I am considering trying cio but would like to hear some stories on your experiences. I did say I wouldn't do it but I am up at 6am for work really struggling now. Pls help!

*As has already been said, a car seat is different because the adult should be talking to the baby, so it has a reassuring voice even when it doesn't get a cuddle.

By that logic, what the parent should do is record their voice and play it to the baby when not in the room with them. Voila. *

I think the idea is the parent's whole presence - sight, smell, soothing voice - is better for the child's stress levels than being left alone. But I have no idea whether the research around that is robust. I'm inclined to think it would be difficult to gauge. But common sense would tell you some comfort is better than no comfort, and less stressful. Ideally though it would be nicer not to have to let one's little one cry in the car at all. Things don't have to be so extreme where it's either Entirely Fine or Terribly Harmful.

I think the idea is the parent's whole presence - sight, smell

My baby cannot see or smell me in the car when I'm driving

By that logic, what the parent should do is record their voice and play it to the baby when not in the room with them. Voila

Also this is emblematic of the whole weird thinking behind the compulsion to sleep train. In order to play the recording when not in the room with the baby you'd need to be awake and alert anyway to activate it when they woke (unless you had some sort of sophisticated motion-activated audio player set up, or had it playing on repeat like white noise all night long). Why would anyone go to such tortuous lengths just to avoid comforting their baby in person?

My baby cannot see or smell me in the car when I'm driving

Well then it probably wouldn't work for you then! Mine can see and smell me when we're driving (seat won't fit in the car rear facing and her legs are too long anyhow). But because yours can't I'll assume this is irrelevant for me too!

Sigh. I don't think anywhere in this thread or in my long, long history of contributing to these debates have I been aggressive. I have never once suggested anyone is a self-indulgent hippy anywhere.

I try to inform and explain that controlled crying is not leaving your baby/toddler/child to scream, it is not ignoring the needs of your baby/toddler/child and it should not in my opinion damage attachment or cause long term negative effects - other than a huge improvement in sleeping patterns for the household in question and in some cases resolve exhaustion/depression issues for the parent being sleep deprived.

I have done it, so I can at least speak from experience. I could not have a better relationship with my 19 year old and 17 year old. As far as I'm aware they don't have any attachment issues. They've been loved and all their needs attended to.

I appreciate that every parent will make their own decision but I will continue to explain how controlled crying works to try and bust the misinformation that those who haven't or never will try it peddle.

Jesus, good for you sitting next to your babies for whole car journeys. Some of us do lots of driving alone (single parents have to). So those babies are damaged by crying as someone isn’t sat next to them stroking them? What a stupid thing to say.

That's fine, and in terms of aggression I was speaking more about @auntiepatricia who laid into me about how I should 'stop whining' - I never did whine, and if she's bollocking the poor OP for coming on here undecided and seeking advice then it's even meaner.

But even you, when MrX and I were explaining to someone WHO ASKED what we do to avoid crying in the car, got all huffy, throwing around 'well aren't you privileged' - as if by saying what WE do we are suggesting that's what EVERYONE both can and should do. It's needless aggro in what doesn't need to be such an adversarial conversation.

Do it OP! But try a gentle method. Many people will say children aren’t “supposed” to sleep through the night at this stage, they “need” picking up at every whimper etc etc. but what a child actually needs in order to thrive is adequate sleep. I “trained” my babies from birth so really there was no training involved. I just created good habits and made sure they had the ability to put themselves to sleep without needing bells and whistles. One was a naturally good sleeper, her sister was a different story! But eventually we got there and the both sleep 12 hours straight at night and I’m a way better mum as I’m not dead with sleep deprivation and irritability.

So those babies are damaged by crying as someone isn’t sat next to them stroking them? What a stupid thing to say

Except neither of us said that. Did we?

what a child actually needs in order to thrive is adequate sleep.

My child is thriving and her sleep was utter bollocks for over a year and is still a bit ropey now. Adequate will be different for different babies.

Also this is emblematic of the whole weird thinking behind the compulsion to sleep train. In order to play the recording when not in the room with the baby you'd need to be awake and alert anyway to activate it when they woke

My post wasn't entirely serious. I'm only pointing out the ridiculousness of the 'CC is damaging, but other kinds of crying isn't' position.

If a familiar soothing voice is the only discernible difference then there are ways of supplying that. It could be played on a loop all night.

Look, I definitely don't think you're a hippy for not sleep training and in an ideal world I wouldn't have done it either. But given our particular set of circumstances and my particular child, it was a good solution for us.

I won't be told, by someone who didn't live through it with us, that so called 'gentle' methods were better for us. We persevered for weeks, we didn't get anywhere, DS was hysterical, it caused immense stress all round.

I'm very happy with our decisions and our outcome. You are happy with yours. All children and all set ups are different.

I'm very happy with our decisions and our outcome. You are happy with yours. All children and all set ups are different

And so say all of us!

@Namestheyareachangin said pretty much everything I need to. I believe it's good to comfort your child whenever possible and it works for my family with no inconsistency. I've never heard that controlled crying stops babies from getting upset in the car, but I still won't be doing it. We mostly get public transport anyway where I get him out of his pushchair on the train on long journeys to play to minimise crying. In fact he knows from the bus that if he wants to come out and is told "5 minutes please" then he may as well stop grizzling because he'll be picked up in a short while whether he's moaning or not; except very rarely he sits smiling then until he's picked up. I taught him the phrase because I find that consistency works best for him; no is no, 5 minutes is wait, lying him back down means go back to sleep etc.

Namestheyare, I wasn’t actually speaking about you, I’ve never met you. I was talking about the many incidences of this Ive had in real life. So apologies if it sounded like I was speaking to you.

It’s why when people start saying ‘oh my god I’m so exhausted I haven’t had s full nights sleep in 4 years. HOW do you DO it with 4 small kids you must be dying’ I just say ‘I’m just lucky they’re good sleepers’. Rather than ‘we’ll I’ve put a lot of effort and time into each child at a certain point when they were beginning to make life miserable for me and sometimes the others and did sleep training’.

It’s just not worth it. If someone has got to even 2 years with shit sleep practices it’s not that they aren’t aware of other ways to handle bedtime.

OP join the Facebook group “respectful sleep training” if you’re on there. They have many files on each different type of sleep training as well as hard evidence that it doesn’t cause “psychological damage.”
I did CIO with one of mine, after months of trying to do it gently - years down the road I can see why it worked so well for her. She’s fiercely independent, she just wanted to be left alone! Another was more clingy and insecure and it didn’t work for him so we coslept until he finally weaned and slept through at 2. There’s no harm in giving it a try he’s 13 months not 13 days!

Oh and don’t leave it too long OP, my 3 year old niece is an utter disaster when it comes to sleep. It’s not her fault her parents openly admit they made a mistake by pandering to her every whim at night. My DSis really bought into “attachment parenting” except she thought it meant you should never, ever let your child cry and she’s now paying the price.

They’re trying to tackle it now that they have another baby and she’s also pregnant but it’s much too late. The bad habits are ingrained, so short of locking my niece in her room and sticking in ear plugs, my sister is coming to the realization that she’s going to be spending hours of her evenings in her daughter’s room for the foreseeable future... I honestly worry for her mental health when the third child arrives.

@Auntiepatricia

I think it was the way when responding to a comment I made (jokingly) asking for facts you said:

"Here’s a fact: sitting by your kids bedside holding their hand to go to sleep leads to sitting by your kids bedside holding their hand to go to sleep.

So please don’t whine and moan at parents who don’t have to spend two hours doing it about how it’s unfair you have to do it for your 6yr old. (And then throw your head up enraged when told that we just refused to do it when younger so don’t have to do it now)."

-that made me think you were talking to me. Clearly not. My mistake.

If people ask for advice, they should be open to hearing it. If they just want a good old moan, however, then I think it's more collegiate just to sympathise rather than start boring on about how if they just parented exactly like you they, too, could be perfect. We all do things differently and have different reasons for so doing. Everyone is putting a lot of effort in, either to sleep training or responsive parenting. Having that sneered at and dismissed as stupidity is not nice.

We all find parenting hard sometimes. Imagine if, the first time you (or some notional example person if that's better as I daresay you would say you've never struggled) tried sleep training and were finding it tough, poured your heart out to a friend and they just rolled their eyes and said 'well just stop doing it then, or stop whining." That person might be going through a difficult process in pursuit of a goal they thought was worthwhile. So are those who don't sleep train. There's no need to piss all over each other when we dare to struggle because of our choices, or assume because something is hard it's not the right thing for our child in the long run, be it sleep training or choosing not to do so.

No, you asked for research so I did give that on a post specifically giving research. Then I made a general post starting with ‘here’s a fact’ but I honestly wasn’t replying to you in that one. More speaking to people in real life in the last week, one of whom was complaining about having to spend 1.5 hours every night holding her 6yr olds hand. I just politely said ‘kids can be difficult can’t they’ and left it at that but honestly I wanted to say ‘well if you give a child an option of holding mummy’s hand to go to sleep why the hell would they make it easy for you not to! But 6 years of it is really taking the piss. And amazing that your younger kid doesn’t need 1.5 hrs of holding your hand. Could that be because you didn’t let him (because you were too busy holding your eldest child’s hand and can’t be in two places at once)?’.

Can I just say that if my DS wants to hold my hand to go to sleep when he's 6, I'll be happy to hold it. He has lovely hands and that sounds really nice. If he suddenly wasn't getting to sleep quickly at age 6 that's not really CIO/CC though, so I'm not seeing the relevance. At 6 a child is really quite different than a baby and bedtime routines should evolve with the child; they should talk about their day, can say anything they need, read a book for themselves, learn to put his body to sleep from his toes up etc. His dad falls asleep if he hears me sing rock-a-bye or twinkle twinkle, so that might still work too. If he needs to be told to settle himself then I can do that when he understands.

My mum never left us crying and she always used to tuck us in until we were about 11. I loved talking about the day at bedtime, any worries and plans. We're all excellent sleepers, so I've really no concerns.

Yes, I’ve a lovely routine too with my 6yr old. The situation was that this mum was upset and exhausted and frustrated that she’s had to lie by her child and now at 6 sit there for 1.5 hrs every night she said. She’s upset that she can’t get dinner till very late and then ends up eating and tidying up after dinner and it’s 10pm so she gets no time to relax at all. Her words and her issue. And one that could be avoided if she really wanted to.

Of course, and it can easily be avoided by methods that are appropriate to a 6 year old now. A consistent routine, tell him it's time for sleep etc. Where we disagree is that I don't think that has anything to do with what did or didn't happen when he was a baby.

No you’re right. We can’t know in this case. Except she said she’s been trapped for 6 years at bedtime. No evenings for 6 years. But maybe she didn’t find it stressful then. Anyway, her problem and I do feel bad for her but like I said I’ve learned that parents who do these things don’t like being told you actually need a consistent routine, involving saying no.

I agree that consistency seems to work best with my DS (and in my experience of family babies and little kids). Routine might seem boring, but it is nice for little ones to know what's going on, what comes next etc.

it worked amazingly with my 15mo who had never slept through the night whilst co sleeping. he's much happier now and he slept through for the first time within 2 weeks and now at 22 mo is a really good 11hr sleeper. it's also helped his naps fall in to place. i've no regrets, i think it worked so well because he was well overdue moving on from sleeping attached to boob. he adapted really well.