Is this CIO?

[rallytog1]

I'm starting to worry that I'm inadvertently doing CIO with my 10wo DD...

She is not a cuddly or clingy baby in any way, shape or form. She doesn't generally enjoy being held for long periods of time but prefers sitting in her bouncy chair and chatting to whoever is around. So she's very sociable - just not in a very physical way.

Sometimes when she's properly tired she'll cry and cry. We always check things like nappy, hungry, temperature etc and offer cuddles and comfort. However it seems as though what she's looking for is to be put in her cot and left to settle herself. It's like she wants us to just leave her alone - if we try to comfort her etc she just gets more upset. If we leave her in the cot she'll generally cry for a couple of minutes and then just fall asleep. We've never left her crying for more than about 5 minutes and we only do it when we know the problem is tiredness.

She seems really happy most of the time so I wasn't too worried about it until we had a conversation about crying at baby club yesterday. The leader was showing us lots of evidence about CIO and how damaging it can be when a baby is young. I didn't think that what we were doing was CIO because it's baby-led, but any mention of leaving a baby to cry was shot down in flames. We leave her alone because that's what she seems to want. But now I'm worried I should be a better mummy and give her more cuddles etc.

So I just wondered:
A) is this normal that my DD behaves like this?
B) am I inadvertently doing CIO and potentially not giving her what she needs?

A: yes. Only unusual and you are lucky she will self settle.
B: no.

if she sleeps in a couple of minutes you are fine.

the only issue would be if you didn't go to her when she woke crying. sleep is developmental and will happen eventually but babies tend to cry for a reason, even if the reason is tiredness...

DD has also, very luckily for us, been a self-settler from a young age and sometimes she cries herself to sleep. Like your DD she can get very stressed if we do go in a try to help at all. She likes to go to sleep in a quiet, dark room, but sometimes she is very wired up and cries for a few minutes before she falls asleep. We can tell by the tone of her cries whether she is tired but overwraught, or genuinely unhappy to be alone in bed.

If she falls asleep in a few minutes and her cries don't reach hysteria pitch then no, I wouldn't say you are doing any harm. Sounds like she would be far more upset if you tried to shush or cuddle her to sleep.

Same here! My 11 wk old gets overtired and then cries when we put him down but also when we hold him. We get the same 'leave me alone' vibe as he just wants to sleep. I find it is less if I try and avoid over tiredness. I confess with a toddler too mine has cried for longer through necessity, no harm in my opinion if he then sleeps for hours he must have been tired. I think it is like he has to 'get it out' before going to sleep.

Thanks everyone - I realise we are very lucky and am relieved to know I'm not breaking our DD

catsdogsandbabies that sounds exactly like us. We're trying to get a bit more tuned to early phases of tiredness so it doesn't get to the hysterical crying point. And yes TinyTear, if she wakes crying we do go to her. We only leave her when we've tried other things and it's obvious that tiredness is the problem.

I was just quite surprised at how everyone at baby club seemed to think it was terrible to leave a baby crying for even a couple of minutes even in specific circumstances like ours - I was too terrified to admit we were doing it!

Ds1 did this. He didn't want to be cuddled, he wanted to be put in bed and left alone. He stopped the crying by 3 months and was a dream sleeper. The crying was a couple of minutes at most. By 6 mths He used to sleep 14 hours straight. Happy days. I thought I was brilliant at sleep training and parenting. Turns out I was just lucky!!! Ds2 is terrible sleeper and co-sleeps still at 2.5yrs!

Ds1 still likes to be left alone and hates teddys etc in his bed. I would say you are lucky not cruel!

DS is 14mo and has to be left alone to sleep, and has been the same since he was tiny. He now often takes a long time to drop off (up to an hour) but will happily chat in his cot until he falls asleep.

DS used to do it he just liked his space I think forcing yourself on her when she wants space would be more damaging. Not all kids are clingy some are very independent by nature from the word go DS always was