Letting your baby cry it out!?

[Eloise97]

What are your thoughts on letting your baby cry it out??

My little boy is 1 and the other night he just wouldn't settle so I put him upstairs and let him cry himself to sleep. He was asleep within 10 mins

He was safe so no judgment please

When my babies cried for me I'd cuddle them day or night. I honestly could never leave them to cry. 2 year old and 7 year old both fantastic sleepers now.

I can't see that letting them fall asleep unhappy is a good way. I normally just fed them / sat with them, and left them as they started to doze. I never did the stay in the room for an hour thing either.

When they were very young I could transfer them to the cot quite easily though.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

What nonsense. I had to do the same with my son occasionally. He's 40 now and a perfectly normal and lovely human being and we have a great relationship. I'm surprised mumsnet babies can breath at all wrapped in all that cotton wool. No wonder none of them sleep.

It’s that sort of very defensive response that suggests people who leave their vulnerable young babies to cry aren’t as happy with their parenting decisions as they say they are.

We do better when we know better and everyone should be glad research has moved on and we understand more about what baby’s need to thrive.

PP's ARE being harsh. I did this a few times. Can't really remember the details as DD is now 8 but I'm sure we didn't do it for long and wouldn't be far away but it did work at getting her to sleep.

And just seeing a post about putting the hand on the chest I'm sure I did that too

A long ago ended friendship was eased to its end for various reasons. One being she told me her dc was left in it's own room from arriving home from hospital at a week old... Haunted me tbh.
Her dc had serious issues. Apparently no cause...
Always wondered if any Prof body knew of her methods..

I used Ferber, we went in after 1 min, 3 min, then 5 min to reassure. Never got to ten minutes with a normal sleep. If she’s crying after ten for us it meant get her out of bed.

I think PP are totally overreacting here.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/11/leaving-babies-to-cry-does-no-harm-study-finds

The NHS says it's ok to leave newborns crying for 10 minutes( implied here www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/caring-for-a-newborn/soothing-a-crying-baby/), so I think posters are beginning overly harsh here. OP isn't saying she left her baby to scream for hours - I assume she would have gone back if he hasn't calmed down.

Worked for us. I was attempting to sooth my child for 40-60 minutes. It wasn't helping and eventually she would tire herself out and fall asleep. Rocking, cuddling, singing, patting didn't help.

Tried controlled crying where I went in every 5 mins and said "shhhh shhhh time for sleep and a gentle pat" then left again. Sleeping within 10 mins. After 3 nights she went to bed awake without crying and went to sleep herself.

It was an easy decision to me as soothing wasn't working anyway. It was hard to listen to the crying and wait 5 minutes but seeing improvement so quickly also helped.

Shame on all of you for making this poor mum feel like she is doing a bad job. As if motherhood is not hard enough, to then have such bad judgement made of her when she was just asking for a bit of advice. Allowing your baby to cry for 10 minutes on one occasion DOES NOT MAKE YOU A BAD MUM. I can imagine this mum had probably been through a battle that night to get her baby to sleep to the point she was becoming frustrated and needed to take a breather. I understand you, I’ve been there and you are not alone! It happened to myself tonight, after a long 2 hours of trying to get my 1 year old to sleep, her testing boundaries as they do at this age, finding out what she can and can’t get away with, in and out of her cot, my bed, the living room, back in her cot etc. I wanted to find out if allowing babies to cry and self soothe is helpful, just like this mum wanted to know a bit more info on it. She did not deserve to be ATTACKED by these unrealistic opinions. My HEALTH VISITOR advised me on the first visit that if I ever felt frustrated, to put baby somewhere safe (cot/ moses basket) and to allow yourself a break for a few minutes. This was referring to a new born! By the age of 1, they know how to play on your attention so I believe that sometimes some form of sleep training, whether that be not pandering to their every cry may be necessary to set the boundaries and not allow them to be in control of the bedtime routine which could then go on for years and result in a lot of stress for the parents. Us mums sacrifice our wellbeing for our baby’s but our sanity is just as important to be able to give our baby the best care!! Where is the support here? That’s what mumsnet is for right? Disgusting how these small minded comments would have made this mum feel.

Our DD is almost 1 year old and has always been a relatively good sleeper, naps and at night. Recently however night time has become so incredibly tough. At the start, she would take a little while to settle (around 7-8pm) but with both I or my partner there to soothe she eventually did settle and would sleep until around 5am (amazing)! Recently though, she goes down around 6.30pm - 7pm, sleeps for 2-3 hours then wakes and screams bloody murder. No matter how much we try to soothe her, she pushes our hands away and doesn’t stop crying - in the beginning we got into the habit of letting her sleep beside us but it went from sleeping through the night in our bed to kicking, slapping and pulling our hair all night long!! So obviously we wanted her back in her own bed… now, like I say, when she goes down, she sleeps for a couple hours then is up screaming and crying. Settle for a little bit, up and crying - more or less the whole night. Is this just sleep regression or are we doing something wrong? She’s a good eater and has 3 meals a day. She naps in the morning and afternoon totalling 2-2.5 hours… we are really at our wits end especially as we both work and are getting very very little sleep. Any/all suggestions welcome 🙏🏽