AIBU to let my baby cry it out

[hotcheeto]

My baby is almost 8 months old.
Since he was 2 months old I have held him for every single nap. It hurts my hips to hold him on my lap for 90 minutes twice a day, at least, and as a velcro baby, nap time is the only time of day I get a physical or mental break. I know this stage won't last forever but I'd also really like to be able to eat something and drink a glass of water sometime before 6pm daily when my partner gets home from work.

Today I decided to start cot naps. The first nap of the day was good, he cried for 5 minutes, I went in to reassure, cried for another 5 minutes, I went in again, and after 11 minutes total he was asleep. He slept for 1hr 15 mins. Amazing.

For his second nap I did the same, but there was no calming him down. Going in kept making it worse. In total he properly screamed for about 20 minutes being going to sleep. I feel awful.

Can someone reassure me I'm not a selfish failure of a mother and my baby isn't going to be forever scarred by this? It's genuinely upset me, listening to him cry hard, but I'm also feeling determined to teach him better sleeping habits. I'm going back to work very soon and I don't want him to struggle at childcare. I also don't want to sit in the dark and listen to white noise for 3 hours a day anymore. But I still feel sad and guilty...

I've been where you are, and I don't blame you for wanting to try something different. I remember sitting in the dark with white noise roaring, my arms and hips aching and just crying for the best part of an hour because I was so exhausted with it all, desperately trying to figure out if there was any way I could go back to work early. The next day we tried crying it out. He cried for 8 minutes and then slept for 2 hours. Within 3 days he was taking all of his naps in his cot, alone, without any tears. It's now almost 18 months later and he's a happy boy and a great independent sleeper.

I'm calling bullshit on this one too.

We tried everything with my son, including cry it out. Nothing worked. He eventually figured it out in his own time. But if cry it out had worked, as it reportedly does for some people, I would no doubt be shouting from the rooftops about how great cry it out is and how it had to be done. In any case, he spent some time crying alone in his cot and whilst it didn't make him go to sleep independently, it clearly didn't do him any harm either.

I only advised the OP to not worry too much about a nap routine if it's only because of nursery, because they will figure it out. They don't need you to deliver a perfectly programmed baby in order to do their jobs.

That said, @hotcheeto, can you not eat and drink when your baby is awake? It's not a binary choice between contact naps and meeting your own basic needs.

YANBU, I sleep trained my first and it was a huge help. We would time and go back in after 5 mins. Also there are different cries, there's a whiny not wanting to be in bed cry and a genuinely upset cry (more like the screaming you mention), for that cry I go and try and see what's wrong rather than persisting with sleep training

20 mins is a looong time to leave them crying. it would feel long to me never mind a baby.
if you sleep train then at least do it for the few minute intervals, being in the room with him, shushing etc that's recommended

I couldn't do it. My second just wanted to be held all the time. I read the sleep training book and tried once or twice but I couldn't get past the first few minutes. Every instinct in my body was telling me to be there for my baby. I'm a firm believer in trusting your instincts. If its painful for you to leave your baby crying, imagine how it feels for them. They don't even know why its happening. It worked out for us in the end. Once she got past one, she always slept really well.
Some people swear by it. That's OK for them, their baby isn't mine so it's not my concern.

There’s a reason it feels awful to hear your baby crying and not comfort them. It feels wrong because instinctively you want to comfort them.
I accept that in our society, where mothers have to work, a lot of parents find some form of “sleep training” necessary. I do however think that going from all contact naps to suddenly leaving your baby screaming for 20 minutes is cruel though.

As I do with every thread regarding this subject, I’d recommend looking up Lyndsey Hookway on instagram. She has some fantastic resources for helping get babies to sleep more independently. They’re not the quick fix many seem to be looking for but theyre much gentler.

That is such a promising start, OP! It took my baby a lot longer to settle into cot naps (although she was 4 1/2 months when we started) but she steadily got better and better, especially once we started leaving her alone to go to sleep herself- she got to the point where she was clearly pissed off with us shushing and patting her and just wanted us to go away! Good luck x

It’s not for us to judge you.

Parenting a velcro baby is incredibly hard.

I wish I could recommend a way to make them sleep alone but it is such an unnatural thing to do and their survival instinct is warning them at top volume that they aren’t safe to sleep unless you are there.

I tried everything, nothing worked for us. Even cry it out doesn’t work on the most stubborn babies, bear that in mind and listen to your instincts.

I wish I had better advice.

For your mental and physical health you need a break.

I don't do cry it out, but in your case I might try putting baby in their cot and leaving for a very short time to start with. 30 seconds/one minute later if they're crying go in and give a cuddle/lie them down and leave. Slowly lengthen the time between checks and hopefully they will calm down quicker each nap time.

Leaving them for 5/10 minutes is a very long time for a baby that size. Mine would have been an inconsolable mess.

If you were to sit quietly in the same room as their bed while they nodded off would that work?

We done exactly your method at 8 months - went in every 5 minutes to settle him - when the baby showed signs of slowing down I restarted the 5 mins.
We done it for bedtime and all naps, it took about 5-6 days and now he’s an amazing sleeper. Not only that but his development came on in leaps and bounds.
So as someone on the other side of what you’re doing now NO you are not selfish! You’ll look back and think why didn’t I do this sooner 😂.

Also you should be able to eat and drink when baby is awake. It's not easy but I try and keep a water bottle sitting around and use a thermal cup for tea/coffee. Food wise I buy more ready to eat stuff than i ever have before. Or make some lunch up the night before/morning when I have five minutes spare.

You forget sometimes though! Wish i had your tips when i was going through it. I should have organised a little table beside me. Would have been v handy!

There is a lot of evidence that this causes trauma to the child. Makes them insecure.

PLEASE don’t do this. It is so harmful to babies in the short and long term. I am a clinical psychologist and specialise in child and adolescent mental health. I see the effects of this as children grow up.

We did controlled crying with DD1. Took 3 nights and she has slept brilliantly ever since.
She's 17 now and doesn't appear to have suffered any long term effects we have a very close relationship. Luckily never had to do it with the other two, not because it was the wrong choice, I just hate hearing them cry.
Also if you are going in every 1 minute or 5 minutes then your baby knows you are still there and doesn't feel abandoned or anything like that.

I did very gentle ‘training’ at 8m with my son, I checked him very often, gradually eeking out the check-ins from 2mins to 3mins to longer. It took a couple of weeks, some nights he went straight to sleep, others he cried for 10-40mins, but he did learn how to sleep without feeding or contact, it just felt like we were going backwards on the days he took longer to settle.

I have never been in favour of plonking a baby in a cot to cry themselves to sleep, that is harsh & anxiety inducing in both parent & child, but there is a difference between that and giving them
time to settle in their cot, while you are around. If you are near, going in regularly and briefly just to reassure/shush/whatever, that is fine. I used to potter about in the room next door folding washing and humming along to the radio so he knew I was around.

YABVVU

@MoreThanEnoughSoFar

Actually, most babies after a few nights don’t cry at all. Is it because they know nobody is coming? Perhaps. But if their caregiver is there in day, responsive and engaging, it IS a good lesson for a baby to learn that at nighttime, it’s ok and safe to sleep. Those babies who don’t learn this often have sleep issues well into school age… that’s not healthy.

@RadoxRita I am genuinely interested in this. Our baby cried more if we interrupted their smaller cries as they settled themselves. It took no longer than two minutes. If we went back in they’d cry more and get into a complete state. How is that better?

I tried hard for 3+ years to get my eldest to sleep on her own. With the second I gave in on day one, let him sleep on me / co-sleep. Child 2 is a fantastic sleeper, child 1 still hates going to bed, now aged 13. But it's anecdotal of course. It is hard to hear a baby cry because nature intended it to be. No advice other than it's a phase that will pass quicker than you think.

Your child, your choice but why do you need to sit in the dark, can you not watch something on your phone or read via Libby? My DD used to contact nap exclusively until she turned 20 months old, I read so many books during this time on my phone. I also agree the transition should be gradual from contact to cot, plus there's a huge difference between grizzling and crying hard for 20 min, but as I said your child, your choice, you do what you think it's best.

A baby that age absolutely does NOT recognise that you are still there. A baby’s brain at that age is not structurally or neurologically developed enough to recognise itself as separate from its primary caregiver, whom its primal (attachment) behaviours such as crying are designed to elicit care from.

A baby at that age is completely at the mercy of its physiological state. It experiences a wet nappy with the same level of distress as imminent death. Its neurological development does not make sense of patterns at that age. A baby is physically incapable of ‘self-soothing’ - babies and young children NEED attunement and comfort from a safe adult to genuinely calm. The loss of crying is owing to one of two factors - the baby has given up (an attachment wound that will continue) or they are so distressed/exhausted they collapse (babies sleep when distressed - dissociation is their only escape when other survival mechanisms (such as fight, flight or fawn) evade them. Please don’t mistake a quiet baby for a happy/calm baby after being left to ‘cry it out’ - any blood test would show you the elevation is cortisol.

A baby’s earliest, pre-verbal experiences shape what they come to believe about themselves, what they expect from others and how safe they perceive the world as the develop. This impacts on their ability to develop other fundamental skills as they develop of emotional and behavioural regulation as they grow. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that something a baby can’t remember won’t harm them. We know very well now that the inter utero environment through to the 5th birthday is the most profound time for trauma to impact long term on children’s subsequent mental and physiological health. Children that hold no explicit memory carry it in their bodies (not least because the brain structures and language capacities were not present to help it be processed at the time they experienced it).

It is not hard to find this information online. You don’t really need a clinician like me to tell you this. You just need to stop asking people on here who did it themselves so, likely have a invested interest in insisting it does no harm (what we call ‘cognitive dissonance’). These kinds of people always demand to see ‘research’ that “proves” crying it out is harmful, but obviously, no ethics committee is ever going to approve a study that could potentially cause harm to infants. Rather, just like in many areas of this nature, the (extensive) available research that supports this being a harmful practice is drawn from a synthesis of what we know about brain development, attachment and developmental trauma. I hope this helps.

Have a read or Crib Sheet by Emily zoster, she rebunks a lot of bad science around child raising. She says: 'The Bottom Line: - "Cry it out" methods are effective at encouraging nighttime sleep. - There is no evidence of long- or short-term harm to infants; if anything, there may be some evidence of short-term benefits.' A lot of people don't like the idea of it but for me it's worse not helping your child to sleep independently.

This is utter bullst. Babies need to learn to sleep alone. What’s more important is receiving love and attention when they awake. OP, so what you need to do

Of course it's a skill that needs to be learnt. But like everything with kids, they are all different and ready to learn those skills at different ages and stages, there are also lots of different teaching methods. I wouldn't leave my baby alone crying because it's a skill that they need a little longer to be comfortable with or to learn.
You say it's important for them to recieve love and attention when awake.....they are awake, but they are alone not receiving attention or love whilst crying and scared (if doing the cry it out method)

OP you are clearly in need of time for yourself, I used to have a coffee table with snacks and drinks ready, sp when DS fell asleep on me, I could pop Tv on and he could snooze on me, while a had snacks and drinks, but I understand that's not everyone's choice.

I would definitely choose the a sort of retreat method and sooth when needed,

Dear God! Emily Oster is an economist and stressed-out parent. Where are her credentials to advise on this sort of stuff? I enjoyed reading Gabor Mate’s scathing cirque of her ‘input’ in his latest book - The Myth of Normal - you should check it out!