A question about CIO

[cogitosum]

Firstly this is not a dig at anyone who has used CIO or similar... Whatever works for each family it's just a question about our situation. Ds is 6 months so I've got to know his different cries pretty well.

I was reading a baby book and they recommended CIO.

One thing it said that I've seen elsewhere about CIO is that the baby is not sad or distressed, just frustrated as they are not getting their way like they usually do. This makes sense to me as there are times during the day when ds whinges and I can totally ignore him as I know he's just having a moan.

He very rarely cries at night as he sleeps next to us so I can settle him before he gets worked up but we've just started putting him to bed alone before we go up and when he wakes up and cries it's that awful pitiful cry that hurts my heart (and my boobs!) not the whiny cry that I can ignore!

So when you do CIO is it normally a frustrated cry and my ds is different in his sad cry? Does this mean CIO would be distressing for ds? Or am I reading him wrong? He's a terrible sleeper (sometimes) so I'm keeping options open but there's no way I could ignore the Cry he does when he wakes up alone. Is this likely to change?

are you sure you mean cry it out (leaving them alone however long they cry for) and not controlled crying (go in at set times and then leave again)?

I don't do it! I was just wondering as I know a lot who do cc (I know it's different but I couldn't even leave him for 2 minutes when he cries like that). The book advocates hardcore CIO it says going in would make it worse! It's a week by week one that only goes up to 24 weeks so definitely under a year!

what book is it? Doesnt sound very baby friendly!

Your baby week by week.

I've ignored most books but loads of people raved about this so I've read it. It's pretty much the opposite of what I do though. We pretty much co-sleep he's in the sling loads and we've done blw.

There is a good blog called Evolutionary Parenting which has lots about baby sleep - I haven't learnt how to post links but I'm sure you can find it with google.

I'm sure I've read research on it about CC and CIO being distressing for babies, their cortisol levels (stress hormone) shoot up - even when they stop crying it remains high.

The Isis website also good for info and how night wakings normal for lots of babies up to and beyond 1yr.

I love evolutionary parenting I've read some great articles. Isis is also good.

I've heard that about cortisone but thought it hadn't been properly proven.

I have the same book and found it absolutely invaluable for the early weeks, but pretty much useless from about 17 weeks onwards. It is obsessed with sleep training from a very young age, and assumes weaning from 17 weeks - making that last third or so completely irrelevant if you wean as per guidance.

Agree with Frumious on week by week book - the weaning thing really annoyed me. As did telling me DD should be getting at least 8 hours uninterrupted sleep and 3 hrs of day time naps....

A lot of the arguments for CC go along lines of - baby is full, safe, dry etc then they are ok to be left to cry. This completely ignores the fact they have emotional needs to.

OP - like you my wee one has a moan/grizzle he'll sometimes make when going to sleep and he had proper crying. They are easy to distinguish. If he wakes and grizzles I'll leave him (this is very rare albeit) - usually it's proper 'I need someone' noises. I just can't cope with leaving him like that - I know lots of folk do and they have babies who sleep better. I guess it's down to personal choice, as with so much parenting. You try to be as informed as possible and make the choices that feel right for your family.

I stopped reading week by week when I got to that bit. Thought it was a great book until then.