in refusing DP's request to let our baby 'cry it out'?

[baldybaby]

Firstly, I'm not posting this because I'm canvassing for support. I'd really like to get objective views on this because it's causing a big problem between us and I don't know how we're going to resolve it.

Here's the deal. We have a gorgeous 10 week old baby boy who has lots of trouble with wind and colic. He doesn't sleep well at all (ie he can't fall asleep without some help from us, either feeding or motion usually). He's also a very light sleeper. These things mean that it's very easy for him to become hugely overtired by the evening, which results in screaming. My technique when this happens has been to go to bed with him where it's dark and quiet and feed him to sleep, which may take some time but eventually works. He is very slowly getting better.

DP feels that we would be better leaving him to cry. He thinks that handling him, albeit to comfort and feed him, is just adding to the stimulation and making things worse. He suggests putting him in the cot in the dark and letting him cry himself to sleep. He wouldn't advocate leaving him to cry in other situations, but thinks in this casewe should try it.

I am against this for two reasons. Firstly, I can't bear to leave him crying by himself - it instinctively feels wrong, he's too little and it doesn't, to my mind, teach him anything. Secondly, I don't think he's the sort of baby who would 'cry down', because when I've had to leave him before (eg to give myself a chance to calm down if he's stressing me out) his crying just escalates and becomes hysterical.

I have told my OH that I cannot do what he's asking me to do because to me it's fundamentally wrong. He feels upset because he thinks I'm not considering his views or giving his ideas a chance and he also points out that my techniques aren't working anyway as our baby still won't sleep by himself. My feeling when it comes to our life together is if either of us feels strongly that something is the wrong thing then neither of us should do it, but he is sure that it could help our baby.

I'd really appreciate opinions and experiences of how others have dealt with similar impasses. I also want to be as fair as possible and get some dads' opinions too, so if anyone could suggest a good dad forum that would be really good.

"No one here thinks 'a few minutes crying' is the end of the world, though."

Thank god for that (as I sit here listening to DS3 whinging before dropping off to sleep).......well serves him right for a doing a "cover the entire inside of the nappy" poo straight after his bath .

i had this with my ex dp. At one point he wanted to lock oldest ds in a room to cry to sleep and hide the key from me becasue i was so poor at sleep training. I threatened to call the police if he did that. aaa, thos rational chats we used to have!

I don't think it is ok for either of you to leave the baby to cry for ages if the other doesn;t want you to. I don't like the idea of leaving babies to cry at all in fact, but I know that is a matter of personal choice, and I don't think they'll come to any harm, providing they don't work themselves up into hysterics, which is just so horrible for them. I think you should have a really long chat with your dh, explain how you feel so stronlgly about this and how important it is to you. Then you could get reading together - I found that if I could find my arguments in print, or support for my arguments in print, then stupid ex dp was much more willing to consider my views.

stick to your guns. happy mums = happy babies.

I left dd to cry whenshe got over tired because I felt it was true i.e. the more we tried to comfort her, the more she screamed. We usually found she went to sleep after about 20 mins, which quickly decreased and got better when we started doing regular day time naps. In the end she didn't get overtired/stimulated and went to sleep put down awake and got off to sleep herself. Afraid I think it wouldn't hurt to try and if it doesn't work then you have perfect ammunition to throw back at him after a week.

firstly i only read your very first post so if anything else has changed sorry for this!! too much for me to read with achy eyes!!! (must really get to bed but can leave the PC!!!)

i had bad nights with my first till he was 10mths, we lived in a small flat and just as we were ready to put him into his own room we founbd out we'd be moving to a house soon and decided not to disturb him more if we'd have a big move round the corner....the first night after we'd moved he cried out for 10mins then went straight to sleep and ever since the only time he wakes is if he's poorley or had a bad dream....so i put the waking every 3 hrs till 10mths down to me being there and it being convenient for him, and he gets food and cuddles....

with my daughter we had her in our bedroom in a moses basket until she was 3 mths, i decided she was them old enough to go through the night without feeds, so put her into the room she shares with her brother, within a week she was sleeping through from 7 till 7 like her brother!! she again didn't need those feeds in the night and only had them because i was there!!

i know its hard to let them cry out but i personally feel once they get to around 3 mths they can understand the difference between night and day, so perceverance is key to a peaceful life....within a week he'll sleep through i'm sure!! many of my friends couldn't believe it when i had a 3mth old baby sleeping 12hrs straight in the night!!! many have done the same with theirs and cant believe they ever coped with life any different..... your little man is still a few weeks away from when most babys can sleep through but once he's in his own room and his cot i dont see why sleeping through should be coped with, he's your baby and you need your sleep too.....if you dont get enough sleep things will feel worse!! good luck!!

"our little man is still a few weeks away from when most babys can sleep through"

ermm - I thought the "average" age was quite a bit older than 3 months old......

and the sids guidance is in your room with you till they are 6 months

i'm not saying that all baby's will, but most babies i know of have been able to sleep through from around 3mths and books i have read have been saying about the same age- re baby in your room i know a lot of people who had their baby in their own rooms from day 1 and they have had no problems, and at 6mths a baby is much too old and realises they can get things if they just cry for it or winge!!! my two now aged 2yrs 9mths and 18mths go to bed at 7pm just after tea and a drink and a nice playful bath and will sleep through till 7am- i would have never got them into such a good routine without letting them cry out for a while..... i feel that as soon as baby is old enough to go into a cot it should go into its own room at the same time....we made that mistake first time round and suffered for 10mths and tried the CIO method with the second and had peaceful evenings from 3mths.....i take the second option any day!!!

Sorry Glaskham but that kind of advice is exactly why people feel so much pressure to leave their babies to cry.
"your little man is still a few weeks away from when most babys can sleep through" is not true. Some babies are ready not most. A you said yourself your friends were amazed which suggests you were in the minority.

I will say again, do not ignore your instinct. If you don't want to leave your baby to cry then don't.

"i would have never got them into such a good routine without letting them cry out for a while."

DS2 (nearly 4) is in a EXCELLENT rouinte - as 3yr olds go he's amazingly well behaved and "knows" when it's bedtime etc........but he never ONCE cried before going to sleep - not even a whimper.......

glaskham there may be many people who have put their babies in their own room from day 1 and they have not died, you only need to be the one person who does it and for your baby to die of sids for the reality of the advice to hit home
The sids guidance is based on extensive research based on thousands of babies who have died and one of the factors that was identified as being a risk was being in your own room to sleep before you are 6 months old.
They have also recently identified that if your baby is left to sleep alone dring the day they are also at increased risk of dying from sids
The guidance is there for a reason not for fun if you choose not to follow it then you are increasing the risk of sids

baldybaby - You mentioned earlier (I've only read a bit of this thread) that you're worried about not being able to stop him crying sometimes even when you're cuddling him. Just wanted to say that ds (now 14 months) at that age really did spend almost all day crying and frequently woke at night. I always went to him as I felt the same as you, that it was right to respond (luckily dh is very supportive and took a lot of the strain), but he barely seemed to notice sometimes that I'd picked him up. Didn't know what else to do so just spent a lot of time cuddling a screaming baby and not seeing anyone else for fear of damaging their eardrums. I was terrified that this would be doing something appalling to his brain... But forward a year and ds's childminder remarked to me a few weeks ago in passing "He's just not a crier, is he?" And it's true - he is known at toddler group as 'smiler'.
Just a long way of saying please don't worry. How he is now is not how he will be in a little while.

Even Dr Feber...the bloke who is credited with the invention of 'Cry It Out' said that it such never be used with babies under the age of six months.

Interestingly Dr Feber has recently recanted his earlier theories and now rejects the 'Cry It Out' theory for some new theory and he now says that babies need night time parenting and that all needs of a child must be met day or night...duh.

So if the inventor of Cry It Out thinks it is a bad idea, what does that tell you about this 'sleep training method' ?

I would try a sling if you have one. I remember walking my daughter up and down the street three lampposts up and down from our house every evening to get her to sleep.

Might not have been the quickest way to get her to sleep but I couldn't listen to her cry, it is like a knife twisting in my head. I don't think men are as affected by the sound of their children's cries like the mother is and rightly so from the biology 'look after your child and don't let him/her get eaten by bears' point of view.

"DS2 (nearly 4) is in a EXCELLENT rouinte - as 3yr olds go he's amazingly well behaved and "knows" when it's bedtime etc........but he never ONCE cried before going to sleep - not even a whimper......."

Yeah, but this could equally be the sign of a defeated child rather than a well behaved child, depending on your POV.

OK I'm going off at a tangent here, as I don't see that your most important issue at this stage is how to get your baby sleeping as much as you would like. Every baby and set of circumstances is different, and there is a wealth of ideas out there. And for every parenting book or leaflet that says don't attempt CC or CIO or whatever the latest acronym is, there will be another book which suggests something different.

But there is an issue as to how you and your dp make decisions about your child, and these will crop up continually.

In your OP you stated "My feeling when it comes to our life together is if either of us feels strongly that something is the wrong thing then neither of us should do it." That unfortunately can't hold true, because he could say that the current routine is the wrong thing. And there will be a huge number of issues ahead where you could have different opinions and to take no action is not possible (eg what type of childcare, school etc).

You need to recognise that you are both tired, and it is much harder to have meaningful communication with each other under those circumstances. No idea if this is your first child or not but if it is then you are also going through a considerable change to your life together. Is it worth exploring more about your dp's need for your child to be sleeping by himself - is it a fear that he will never settle by himself, or is it a feeling that he could be having time with you but instead you're upstairs? It appears that your dp is in problem solving mode but you need to identify what is truly the problem, as there may be an alternative solution (though I appreciate that at your particular stage a full night's sleep must look as if it could cure everything and anything!).

I would be reluctant to go down anything that seems like a "I'm right and you're wrong and he is my baby". The fact that he is keen and looking for ways to "help" is in fact encouraging, and there is a real danger that by pushing away his opinions on parenting you end up pushing him away.

If this is your first child then you are approaching the time when your relationship with dp is likely to be most strained (peak time for unmarried break-ups is 3-6 montha after the birth). Non-sleeping baby aside you do need to look at getting some quality time back together (and yes I know that that is difficult!). If you have some time to read then Relate do a book called "Babyshock" which may be worth a read.

"DS2 (nearly 4) is in a EXCELLENT rouinte - as 3yr olds go he's amazingly well behaved and "knows" when it's bedtime etc........but he never ONCE cried before going to sleep - not even a whimper......."

"as I sit here listening to DS3 whinging before dropping off to sleep"

there you have one child that winges and one that doesnt- surely you can understand if you were sat on the pc typing while your ds was whinging- i'm not saying to leave them to scream for hours on end till they finally sleep, my two never screamed as such, a little cry, a bit of a moan and a whinge and they fell asleep, but if they ever sounded like they were really crying then i'd go in and check them, give them their dummy, check bum etc and if that was fine leave them another few mins....leaving a bigger gap between each visit.....

BALDYBABY_ these are only my PERSONAL views on what i have experienced with two completely different babies!!! i would happily do the same as i did with child no2 than suffer for 10mths like i did first time round!!!! HE is YOUR baby and do as YOU feel right, you asked for objective views and everyone seems to be pouncing on me for sharing my experiences and views!!!! both my children are very happy contented children and their couple of nights of CIO never did them any harm at all!!!

no - I can catergorically say that DS2 is anything BUT a defeated child - he's incredibly outgoing - DS1 is the quietly spoken, but popular one at school with people approaching him to be friends/play. DS2 is the type just to walk up to someone and start talking to them in order to form a friendship - infact that's probably DS2's biggest downfall - his exuberance LOL.

well - his whining tonight was rather sedate for him - (DS3 that is) - usually it's either complete silence when I put him down or screaming like a banshee LOL.

think ten weeks is too small yo leave too cry it probably isnt but id be heartbroken listening to a baby that tiny crying on their own

bb - your ds sounds like my first baby. At the age of around 12 months, she suddenly miraculously became a perfect sleeper. Until then, like you, I was feeding her off to sleep every night.

I didnt leave any of my babies to cry, because it is a strong tradition in our family that this is bad for babies.
You cant spoil a baby this small - they just grow up at different rates, yours will get to the point of sleeping by himself when he is ready.

Thanks all for your advice. LadyMuck, yes, a lot of my worries are about how to resolve our disagreement rather than the issue concerned. My LO sleeps not too bad at night but takes a loooong time to fall asleep due to overtiredness, so although fraught with the hours of crying we're not as tired as some might be!

twelveyeargap, your post rings massive bells with me. I feel that he is much more comfortable now, but the crying has taken a real colic pattern. Also, as soon as he latches on to the breast his eyes roll in his head he's so tired. Very familiar feeling reading your post.

Loads of food for thought, thank you all.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I am glad that I am a single parent and can just do it my way!
(Sorry baldy that's prob not very useful)

I never left my dd to cry, always cuddled and responded to her needs. Coslept and breastfed to sleep etc
She took 18 months to give up BF and sleep on her own. Which was hard. I didn't go out for over a year, didn't get much of a break at ll.

But she has slept beautifully ever since and looking back on it I think well that was one way of doing it and she's fine and I'm fine. But then I have friend who were stricter with their babies, slept in different rooms etc

And you know what, they are fine too.

So I guess it's just a question of finding your own way and trying to relax into it.

Good luck

haven't had time to read through all the responses so i may be reiterating someone elses point.
it is a difficult situation where both of you must remember that you are equals in raising the child and both are interested in what is best for the child.
i would only consider you unreasonable if you were not willing to discuss or consider your partners views or even give his method a trial run of a week or so to see if there is a positive or negative effect.
how would you feel if your husband "refused your request" with something regarding the baby rather than compromising between your two positions?
many men get marginalised by mothers (i'm not saying you do this) with regards children where by if there is a dispute the mother thinks she knows best and it is her way that wins out.once again i'm stressing that i am not saying you do this, but is something to be careful of.

glaskam I'm with you on this. I don't think its about age, more about weight and the ability to get all calories needed into them in the day. Once they are able to take decent sized feeds at each feed IMO there should be no reason to feed in the night.

I think what lots of people forget is that children need lots of sleep to process all the events of the day and without enough rest will also be irritable all day(as would you, if you went out until late at night and then got up for work the following day). To leave a baby screaming for more than 15-20 minutes is cruel. To leave for that long to give them chance to wind down from all the stimulation throughout the day, is IMO reasonable, providing that you have checked they are perfectly well and happy before being put down.

The best thing we ever had was a video monitor attached to a teddy, hung at the edge of the cot. This was brilliant because we could watch her body language when she cried and it was then easier to tell why she was crying. Obviously if she was bringing knees to chest, fist clenching, red faced it was crying because something was wrong. Other times it was just moaning with all the noise and no body language to say she was upset. This meant that we would go straight in if she was truely upset, but would leave her longer if she wasn't, and she normally went to sleep.

"defeated child" - god. She said he's fine.

Please, have a little respect. The mother of the actual child is saying he's fine. Please take her at her word.

Rudest thing I've read on here, ever.