Cry it out - abuse?

[CeCe2023]

I’ve recently been on Reddit and have stumbled across a sleep training page, I find the whole thing fascinating and perhaps something we might look into in future if needed (baby wakes often and currently co-sleep/bassinet mix) but would want to avoid any form of crying it out at all! And I don’t think you can ‘train’ a baby, but support better habits perhaps.

What I can’t believe is the amount of posts from parents who are doing full cry it out and what they call ‘extinction’ methods where the withdraw all support which was previously there. Juts a couple I have read tonight 1 one where baby cried for 3.5 hours until sick and parents intervened and one where baby is only 5 months (so likely going through a regression) and as they’ve been waking every 45 minutes the parents have gone to full cry it out and left them alone in a room all night.

Comments from other posters are all ‘well done you’ and ‘sorry you’re dealing with this’ - what about the baby?!

I understand sleep deprivation, I currently get around 3-4 hours interrupted sleep a night and I respect others parenting choices but how is this not bordering on child abuse?

They celebrate when the baby falls asleep alone, but I would to if it was the middle of the night and I’d cried myself to sleep 🥹

Found the whole thing really upsetting to read.

I think not doing it is worse, part of parenting is getting your child to learn to self soothe and get themselves to sleep without help another part of parenting is to ensure that you are well yourself, exhausted people do not make effective parents.

We didn't do it in time with our first and he still has sleep issues, with the other two we did and they have never had any.

The other way of looking at it, is that 50 years ago almost everyone would have just let their babies cry it out. We have a mental health crisis now with the younger generation, not the older one.

It's sick. And it's absolutely abuse, via neglect.

There are different methods of sleep training. We had to do it around 14 months. We where spending 3 plus hours rocking ds to sleep and we where exhausted and I was unable to hold him for that long too. He also wouldnt co sleep.We had to take it in steps but now he goes into his cot , has his stories and then it's lights out, projector and music on and we say night night and get into our bed and ds is asleep within 8 minutes. We never left him alone to roar crying , he cried a bit at the start but he was always comforted. There's no way he was harmed or neglected by it.

Self regulation is learned through repeated co-regulation with a carer, not through the removal of support. It’s entirely normal for babies and young kids to wake in the night, and training them out of calling out for your support is for your convenience, not theirs. There are reasons why people need to do it, as highlighted in this thread, but teaching ‘self-soothing skills’ isn’t one of them.
Also, linking the current mental health crisis to kids today getting more parental support is….a stretch.

But as other posters have pointed out, the research on the subject is inconclusive at best, and reading an account on a forum of a few nights in the whole life of a child does not warrant calling parents abusive.

You can hold whatever opinions you like, and it’s great your current methods of dealing with your child’s sleep are working for you, but starting a whole thread on a parenting forum, labelling it as abusive is uncalled for.

P.S I have no dog in this fight as I still lay on the floor next to my 6yr old twins until they go to sleep.

It seems people forget that baby's don't know the world they're born into, they don't know about 9-5s, and short maternity leaves, and other adult woes in the western world. They're little creatures of instinct and need to derive comfort from their parents. Proper cry it out where you are soothing the baby (who is age appropriate for this) in ways other than picking up is one thing, but to leave them in a room crying for hours until they exhaust themselves into sleeping is cruel. Im sure it works,.in that the baby eventually sleeps and therefore parents do, but so would anyone sleep after exhausting themselves and how sad that the baby is "trained" to sleep because they learn that crying, their one biological communication of distress as they cant talk yet, doesn't bring their parents to them anyway. I have a 4 month old so know the pain of sleep deprivation, but could never close the door on him and not return til morning.

No of course the cry it out methods you describe aren't ok. It's neglectful in my opinion. I truly believe cry it out depends on the child. I had success with it with my eldest (going in every few minutes, gradually retreating etc) and consequently he has always been a brilliant independent sleeper.

My youngest is a different story. The first time I tried it with her she was sick within the first few minutes. I wasn't going to let her get that distressed but as a result she isn't a great sleeper and often ends up in bed with us.

Cry it out when done properly definitely has its place. But it won't work for every child and imo if they are getting distressed and it doesn't improve it's probably not for them.

Just to say, if it wasn’t clear, i’m not lumping all sleep training into this at all, I follow a few instagram accounts which promote gentle methods and they seem to have a place. What I’m referring to is closing the door on your baby and letting them cry themselves to sleep with no check ins at all.

@JaxiiTaxii I’m sorry you were in that position and I am absolutely NOT acting or stating I’m any better than anyone, regardless of choices.

I also didn’t call it abuse, I asked if people agreed it bordered on it.

Each to their own, I just wanted opinions on here after being shocked by what I’d read.

We done a sort of Ferber method at 8 months old (only waited 5 min intervals) and by night 3/4 the baby had gone from co sleeping with 2 bottles (for comfort, not hunger) to sleeping through the night.
It was the best thing we ever done, everything seemed to fall into place. The baby’s development came on leaps and bounds, I felt like a new woman. The longest he’d ever slept was 2-3 hours at a time and went to 11-12 hour stretches. He still has his moments if he’s poorly and will get in our bed but on the whole life’s so much better now.

My DD is 17 months and sleeps in bed with me. She’s slept through the night maybe 3 times in her life. I have tried EVERYTHING. Sleep training didn’t work and just left us both distressed. I am constantly at varying degrees of sleep deprivation. Maybe I’ve made a rod for my own back but I’m quite lucky I’m in a position where my job isn’t high pressure and I can afford to lose the sleep to cuddle and comfort her in the night when she wakes. I don’t judge parents for sleep training, if it works and baby is seen to when they need something then it works.
I absolutely do judge parents who use cry it out all night with no checks. How on Earth as a parent could you abandon your tiny baby in the dark all night knowing they’re crying, needing feeding/changing/comfort and choosing not to see to those needs?? Babies cry because it’s their only form of communication. Imagine as an adult being shut in a dark room all night, hungry, thirsty, soiled, calling for help and eventually giving up because no one’s coming. Awful awful awful.

What you just described is not sleep training It's just abuse. I think any sensible adults should be able differentiate between the two.

I did all the things sleep trainers tell you not to do- breastfed to sleep until over 3, co slept on occasion, rocked/fed in the night if my son woke up upset- and he doesn’t have any sleep issues now. I think sleep issues in general come down to the child in question, not what the parents do, honestly. I wasn’t a good sleeper as a child and I’m still not 🤷‍♀️ I totally see why people would resort to sleep training due to exhaustion though. Personally I think full extinction cry it out is neglectful and abusive. I don’t see how leaving a child to cry on its own would lead to them being able to self soothe rather than getting more stressed and upset, but learning that no one will come so they might as well be quiet. It’s quite upsetting honestly.

Perhaps the younger generation are more likely to talk about their feelings to a doctor or parents instead of bottling them up/drowning them in alcohol like the older generation. Now that mental health is taken more seriously, people are more likely to discuss it and seek help.

What a load of rubbish. My DS co slept and started waking every 20-40 mins wanting to be fed/rocked/patted/cuddled to sleep. After a few months of this he was getting over stimulated and over tired and didn’t want to feed to sleep either as he wasn’t hungry. He would cry so much at night, all night and was totally shattered and miserable in the day, all day. I was also shattered and miserable but plodded along for his sake. When I saw the detrimental affect the lack of sleep and constant wake ups were having on his mood and health I decided to try the Ferber method. He was sleeping through on night 2 and night 1 wasn’t awful, he never cried for longer than 8 mins and within those minutes I went in and comforted him (without picking him up and putting him to sleep). He was a transformed baby. Happy, reaching his milestones, enjoying his day and I was a much better parent and well rested.

I 100% sleep trained so he learnt that he could put himself back to sleep easily throughout the night whenever he stirs/wakes up briefly, to hold onto those sleep associations when he was so miserable was far more cruel than doing a night or two of sleep training.

"full extinction"
Neglectful
Abusive
Awful
'Yes I judge'

Jesus wept.

Comparisons to Hitler incoming....

Lovely thread @CeCe2023 great work 👍

So on England, once I've returned to work, if DS regresses and starts waking up all night, is it ok if I abuse him into compliance? Because I have a job. Presumably SAHMs are never allowed to abuse the kids tho so that's nice.

I'm in the US and went back to work when my baby was 10 weeks. She still doesn't sleep through the night (18m) and I would never ever CIO. If you do extinction you are a terrible parent, and that is neglect. I feel bad letting DD cry while I use the bathroom for 2 minutes sometimes.

Purposely knowing your helpless baby is crying themselves to sleep for hours? Vomiting? And being ok with that? Going to watch TV in another room? Sleeping with ear plugs? You are vile.

Can you cite the evidence?

@JaxiiTaxii again, we’re talking about cry it out, leaving your child alone to cry all night until they fall asleep. And the extinction term is one used on the sleep training boards I’ve seen.

Other sleep training is different and can have its place.

It seems discussions of the former have really hit a nerve with you, I’m sorry about that, but maybe that’s something you need to work on.

You can’t say you’re not judging when you asked if it was abuse….

Do I think it’s top quality parenting? No. Would I do it? No.

If I thought someone was abusing their young child or baby, I would report them to children’s services. I wouldn’t report this.

If I heard a baby crying all night for days on end, I probably would report it…

I absolutely hate this method. Some of the worst cases of neglect are babies that don't cry anymore - because they learn this is actually pointless and in some cases causes more harm than good. 😌 Often a young babies only form of communication is to cry, this is to get your attention and should never be ignored. There are also different types of 'cry' some distressing to listen to! I struggle to understand why anyone would ignore a defenceless baby!!

The issue I have is with inflammatory posts like this which serve zero purpose, except as a stick to beat people with.

Your thread is offering no support, no alternatives, no guidance, no empathy. What's the purpose of it, except self congratulatory behaviour?

I'll leave you to it 👍 I'm off to work on my feelings about judgemental, divisive threads.

They do serve a purpose if parents of babies who are considering these “methods” are reading them and decide not to.

If you wouldn’t leave your baby to scream on their own during the day - obvious neglect - then don’t do it at night.