WIBU to ask why people are so weird about cry it out?

[Worried675]

OK, I know already how this is going to go and what views about this are on Mumsnet, but my question I guess is why people are so against cry it out methods? Recent research showed no differences in babies' behaviour/happiness/attachment etc. between cry it out and other sleep training methods. I'm always surprised by how strongly people are against it, especially as anyone born in the 80s or before probably were trained that way.

Enlighten me! Is using cry it out unreasonable? Why/why not?

I relied on pure instinct when my children were babies, rather than what a book or ‘expert’ said and my instinct was to go to them when they cried. Not immediately but after about a minute (or maybe less if a minute seemed like too long a time). I knew nothing about babies, had never even held one before my own but I did most of my parenting by instinct and not a book or other people’s ways.

"All the people saying ‘I did it and my child is fine’. How do you know your child wouldn’t have been great or amazing without CIO? You have no direct comparison of your child using CIO versus without"

Because sleep deprevation gets so bad that some parents don't have the luxury of 'wait and see' any longer.

Can we at least take it as read that no-one wants to do CIO unless they're desperate and nothing else has worked? You'd think parents who do it relished the prospect going by the tone of some on here.

Are you serious? How can you possibly think that leaving someone you supposedly love, who is helpless and vulnerable, all alone to cry hysterically for potentially hours, is anything but unreasonable!!!! You wouldn’t leave a friend or a partner in great distress

Some things feel wrong, and it doesn’t matter how much research you present me with showing one conclusion or the other. It felt totally wrong.

Except when it felt right, which was when I was absolutely at the end of my tether and exhausted and the baby was safer in the cot crying for twenty minutes whilst I gathered myself.

Basically, when it came to my babies, instinct was what I preferred to use. And instinct mostly told me to to pick them up and have them close to me.

Are you serious? How can you possibly think that leaving someone you supposedly love, who is helpless and vulnerable, all alone to cry hysterically for potentially hours, is anything but unreasonable!!!! You wouldn’t leave a friend or a partner in great distress

I think it's weird to try conceiving for god know how long, carry a baby for 9 months and then ignore it for long periods of time when it arrives. They seem to be similar, the kind that do this, long for a baby not having an understanding of what caring for one 24/7 entails then putting their own needs above the babies. Why bother having one? I was knackered when my son was little and I just got through it, napped with him, lots of coffee.

Oh, I agree, it would be very difficult to isolate that one factor. Not least because the kind of parents who are likely to use cry it out are also quite likely to parent differently in other ways, so it would be difficult to hone in on that factor alone. That's precisely why I don't share your optimistic view that, if there was an impact, we'd know about it by now. I just don't think the studies exist. In the meantime, I'm inclined to trust my instincts and the anecdotal evidence that is available to me.

I didn’t even do cry it out as I can’t really deal with crying but if CIO taught a baby that no one will ever come or respond to their needs then they wouldn’t cry in the day either, which is obviously rubbish!

The reality is people have a stick up about things that are seen to benefit the parents over the baby when actually things that benefit the parents often actually benefit the baby too. A baby doesn’t benefit from a sleep deprived, emotional and soulless mother at the end of her tether all the time.

People hardline about sleep training imo haven’t experienced terrible sleep and having to get on with life.

I didn't do cry it out, but controlled crying. I didn't do it when they were very tiny, and I only left them for a short while before returning, patting them and then leaving. With both of mine, it took only one go at controlled crying before they slept through the night. The oldest had always slept poorly, the youngest had a blip when I returned to work.

"It might be coincidence or it might not, but as a 17yo, she is one of the most confident and emotionally secure people that I've ever met"

My aunt did CIO on my cousin and said cousin is now in a great job, with a loving family and seems as well adjusted as anyone I know.

This kind of anecdotal evidence serves no purpose, and is part of the reason these discussions become so heated: it's all emotive speculation.

Then count yourself lucky you were never desperate enough to have to try it.

8yo DS just asked if there’s an architecture or design club he can go to? Any ideas? We are south west Fife nearest to Edinburgh.. TIA.

Oh dear.

The idea that you can only love/be close to/have a bond with/ instill emotional intelligence in children if you dont ST is hilarious.

Kids are for life, not just for babies.

But yeah. All parents who st are cruel, neglectful and dont love their kids

🤣

I'm the opposite of you, I cannot believe that anyone would do that to a baby. It feels awful and unnatural to leave a baby to cry. I was really shocked when I became a parent that people still do this. I think there have to be attachment issues if one thinks it's okay to do this. My mother absolutely never left me or any of my siblings to cry ourselves to sleep neither did my maternal grandmother so even in the past it was possible to go against parenting fads.

There are on-going studies that will look at exactly this. They will work in exactly the same way that all of the other studies into sleep training have, with one group of infants who were sleep trained using extinction and the other control group who were not sleep trained with extinction. They will to to make sure that both groups are a similar as possible in every other way. They will then look to see if rates of anxiety, depression or addiction are significantly higher in one group or the other.

@Mumwantingtogetitright

So you do deny the research?

What 'kind of parents' are the kind to cio?

People hardline about sleep training imo haven’t experienced terrible sleep and having to get on with life.

Not true.

My baby is coming up 7 months and has been a good sleeper since 10 weeks. She is still in my room in the next to me cot.
I haven't purposely thought 'I'll lea e her to cry it out' BUT she does get herself in a tizzy when tired and does seem to cry herself to sleep - if I pick her up and try to rock her she fights to stay awake cos she has my attention. I know myself even at 36 I get over emotional simply cos I'm tired. I'm not completely against it at all, but I do think we have to make sure it is a 'tired' cry and not something else

@3WildOnes

Do you have any links to that research? I couldn't find any but it was just a quick Google

I'm confident in the research I could find.

People should be more concerned with actual abuse and neglect rather than trying to make themselves feel superior over a non issue

I don't deny the research, I just don't think it exists in so far as I haven't seen anything that looks beyond those early years.

As for the kind of parent who does CIO... I simply mean the kind of parent who is capable of emotionally distancing themselves from their child to that extent and who believes that it's OK to do that.

People hardline about sleep training imo haven’t experienced terrible sleep and having to get on with life.

I had 2 non sleepers under 2, with my youngest a bottle refuser we often woke 10+ times a night, and I returned to work (part time) at 6w.

I'm very against adjust training as I believe it's cruel and neglectful.

But aye, we couldn't possibly know what it's like 🙄

Echoing that this is untrue. DD woke hourly until 18 months and I never sleep trained and never would. My BFF had a kid who wouldn’t sleep til midnight, then did two 3-hour bursts then that was it, she was done. She sleep trained but not CIO or controlled crying, it was all hippie woo sleep consultant feelings stuff. It’s possible to take a hard line against cry-based sleep training and also be on your knees with exhaustion.

Your link doesn’t work but I lived in the US so am very aware of that particular particular paediatrician, presuming it’s Michel Cohen, because it’s that notorious (think worse than Gina Ford on here). Granted I didn’t live in NY where he’s based but I still don’t know anyone that did CIO and my paediatrician did not recommend that book at all. Amongst our circle there was lots of controlled crying at 4 months in preparation for end of parental leave but never, ever CIO. Thankfully I had good sleepers and a European contract with longer leave so it didn’t come to that for us!

Tin hat, OP.

I actually do remember being left to cry it out. Was probably about one and in lots of ways my parents were very hippy-dippy so it wasn’t their style, but by their own admission they tried it to try and get me off the breast at night when I was around 14 months. They’re not incredibly detailed memories, but I distinctly remember standing at the bars of my cot and shouting/crying and no one coming. It felt like it went on for eons and I was really frightened. I’ve never told my mum this because she would be horrified, as I say not heir usual style at all, but the memory stays with me and makes me very anxious to think about. Didn’t want to make my own baby feel that way.