To think cry it out is kinder than gentler methods

[notarisingfan]

I’m getting to the point where I need to sleep train my 15 month old. I’m getting hardly any sleep and it’s getting me down.

The problem is gentle methods just wind her up. If she knows I’m there she just keeps screaming and trying to get to me. Her brother was the same and gentle methods didn’t work for him either.

AIBU to think cry it out is long term probably kinder … it worked after one night with ds.

Makes no difference @Greentreesandbushes … she definitely wants to be picked up and cuddled. DS was exactly the same.

Oh, and it doesn't necessarily get better without intervention for a long time. I know a seven year old who needs a parent in the room to go to sleep. Presumably at some point she'll learn to go to sleep by herself, but seven years is a long time to have no evenings free!

This describes a version of CIO. I’m not saying it’s bad at all. We inadvertently did CIO with my son just because he had very bad reflux and colic so would scream for hours, was inconsolable even when we tried to settle him so it was like we might as well have not bothered. He’s an excellent sleeper now and has been from being young.

Mine are teens now OP. CIO was more normal 18 years ago. I did it with both at around 8 months. They both slept through after two nights. I couldn't believe how much easier things were after that.

From then they slept 7am to 7pm every night

Pm to am rather

To any parent reading this who doesn't want to sleep train but is reading all the messages that it will never get better on its own: it does. My son was a horrible sleeper as a baby, and we could never have done CIO with him, he would never have gone down. At 17 months he started sleeping through, and by 4 he would announce he wanted to go to bed and off he would go. He would only come in to us in the night if he was ill or had a bad dream. He has since been diagnosed with ASD, which I think affected his sleep even as a baby, and affected what methods we could have used, but we really didn't do anything to make him better

I dispute that CIO does no long term damage. I’d reframe that, existing research has not found an impact. Personally, I strongly suspect that in long term cry it out will be shown to be a cause of long-term anxiety and mental health issues (I suspect perhaps why so many Americans have issues and are on medication). This hasn’t been researched.
think about it, throughout history, for thousands of years humans have held and cared for their babies, because if you didn’t hold the baby they would likely perish, from exposure or be pray to an animal. people would have lived in small spaces all together. To allow all to sleep babies would have been held. Babies are thus hard wired to want to be held and are very loud about being left alone to alert. Trying to leave a baby along is fighting against babies natural instincts. The baby thinks it will die. I don’t think the baby learns to self soothe, they learn no one responds and give up. And I suspect this leads to underlining emotional issues with attachment manifesting later in life. My friend with older children whose told me they’ve done this and they’re children are fine…except now as teens they both have mental health issues. I’ve not suggested it to her because I think it would be too upsetting for her to think that she caused this. I prefer to be with and comfort my child and help them to learn to become independent securely. My 2.5 year old still needs putting to bed and wakes most nights and gets into her dads bed for a cuddle (I’m in another room with newborn). Yes it’s hard work but children are a

Don't be daft
This a perfect example of getting a child to sleep

😂😂

I too did controlled crying, just leaving longer between going in and not picking up when crying, settling in the dark with a shhhh and then a hand on their back. Within 3 nights DC was sleeping through. I'm sorry but the correct advice is 'let them see they can soothe themselves". If you don't teach them this, you are telling them that they need you to go to sleep. DC are none the worse for it - both confident, healthy kids.

You can dispute it all you want, there's how much research showing it doesn't?

I totally hear you. My two wouldn’t settle in the slightest if you didn’t pick them up. Eldest we tried it with and in the end she screamed so much she made herself sick. After that I decided bollocks to trying to make them sleep alone and co slept (which worked for us but I appreciate doesn’t for you). In the end you also need sleep in order to function. You have to find what lets you get that. I always thought CIO would be useless for us as kids would just have screamed until sick with that too and then we’d have been changing bedding so I’m very thankful the co sleeping worked. Babies and toddlers are all different and what works brilliantly for one is useless for another. In the end people are right though that vast majority of kids will just sleep a lot better as they get older regardless of what you do or don’t do. There have been studies on it and as I recall basically the conclusion was that sleep training makes a difference at the time but no difference by school age. Seems like some people (& babies) are just less good at sleeping than others by nature vs by habit.

@CallItLoneliness im honestly glad that was true of you but it definitely isn’t true in every case. I sleep trained ds at eighteen months and honestly I think if I hadn’t I’d be in big trouble as once they are in their own beds and can get out of them and wander round at will to be honest you’ve lost the battle then.

A lot of sleep is about habit and I do think DD has got into some bad habits (she actually slept very well as a newborn and right up to about 6/7 months.)

DS used to get so worked up he’d be sick as well @whatkatydid2014 … it’s horrible it really is

I know enough about social history to know that babies were not picked up and soothed always until an arbitrary point in history at which point it all changed!

I think I'm going to have to do this with my daughter. Need my bed back.

People have different versions of cry it out. We would put baby down, go back after one minute, stroke head say goodnight (no pick up or additional words). Then go back after 2 minutes, 5 minutes etc, just extending the time a little bit each time. Teaching the child that you do come back, but also that they need to learn to self soothe. Not sure we ever got up to ten minutes to be honest because they had fallen asleep by then. We did this at - much younger age though.
But no I don’t think cry it out is cruel. Parents that I know that have used cry it out have children that sleep well. Surely those are the happier kids (and families)

I think it does have to be balanced with how the whole family is coping. I didn't sleep train mine and there were times where they were shouted at during the day or I'd have panic attacks and sleep deprivation was a factor.

In early human history babies were more likely to have several adults who could take turns holding them, modern mums are often left alone with their children during the day.

It is awful and think if your baby isn’t like that & can be settled without being picked up then you would struggle to accept how much it doesn’t work for someone else.
Hope the CIO works well for you this time too & you get some better sleep soon. If it helps at all to know my two were both relatively poor sleepers up to being toddlers (particularly my eldest) but I’m about to have to go and wake them up for school (& have had to since they were about 5/6) as they now sleep like the dead.

It works, its brutal but it works.

OP, you're getting a lot of heat here but I agree. We used CIO with our little one at 8 months old and within one night she was sleeping through, too. I was wracked with guilt and nerves about it but it was life changing, and by far kinder than the weeks that had proceeded where I had frequently lay by her cot in the dark for an hour, attempting to "resettle" her while she wailed solidly to be held. Equally, like PP have said, coming in and out of the room wound her up to hysteria rather than reassured her. It felt downright cruel and our nerves were all absolutely shot. Nowadays, usually no crying at bedtime at all. If she does cry and it sounds off (beyond brief grizzling) I'll go in and comfort her. On the rare occasion she ever wakes in the night now, I have always gone straight in to her. We have a happy, secure, bonded and loving relationship, which frankly is even better for us all being rested. I'm all for some safe co-sleeping when they're small and personally I wouldn't use any sleep training before 6 months, but CIO at 8 months was perfect for us to achieve a sustainable sleep solution for our family and I would do it again in a heartbeat

Have you heard of the kissing game? It’s where you go in after really short increasing intervals (10 secs, 20 secs, 40 secs, but making them increasingly longer). Give a kiss and say you are just going to go do X quickly (use the bathroom, whatever) and you’ll be back for another kiss. Rinse and repeat, giving kisses in fairly theatrical ways, but not to really excite them! The idea is that they just get very confident you’re returning and fall asleep. It worked well with both my twins at this age.

That's controlled crying. That's my preferred method when I'm doing sleep training with parents. But older kids are stubborn and sometimes crying it out is the best option.

I suppose it depends on the child. Cry it out worked incredibly well for me and my family. About 2 night off crying then boys who could be put down to sleep and slept through from around 6 months. (Both healthy weights and didn't feed through night from that point) Ds8 and ds5 now and they are unharmed well balanced, happy little energetic lads who don't think I'm cruel evil mother from hell. But most mumsnetters will tell you otherwise. Feels like my best parenting tip that I never share for fear of judgement. I just nod sympathetically at all my friends struggling with sleep for many years. Gotta do what works for you x