Why I'm not CIOing

[Anonymous]

I happen to agree with the author of the blog. I, too, thought I would let my baby CIO, if and when it became necessary. Now, I can't imagine doing so, and my DD is a year and a half. Sure, illness and teething sometimes interferes with her sleeping, and she wakes up, needing a little extra cuddling. And when she's sick, she sometimes needs to be held while sleeping in our bed. When she's feeling better, she always returns to sleeping through the night in her crib. She needs her parents to help her on occasion, and we're happy to do it.

Providing comfort when needed seems much more logical and natural to me than the CIO method. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect a 4+ month old to consistently put herself to sleep and stay asleep for 12 straight hours each and every night, and yet, these are the expectations of some parents. I don't get it...any more than CIO parents understand my point of view.

[Anonymous]

Sure, illness and teething sometimes interferes with her sleeping, and she wakes up, needing a little extra cuddling.

Thank you for your respectful post. I mean that, no sarcasm.

To be clear, CIO doesn't change anything about how you respond to illness and teething. Ferber assumes you get up with your child during illness, teething, etc.

[Anonymous]

If sleep training was so bad, it would show up in the child's future behavior. But these kids turn out fine. None of the earth mama parenting theories changes that fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really funny how the woman who was aggressively calling people bad parents and abusive neglectors suddenly disappeared when she got called out for not being the OP. The OP also never responded to her posts or agreed with her because she was way over the top. CIO becoming illegal...my gosh.

I posted on this thread until almost midnight I think. Then I went to bed. How bizarre that you find that "suddenly disappeared" when I "got called out." I was never trying to pretend I was the OP -- why would I care about that? There were other anti-CIO posters on this thread, too.

I think parents who choose CIO do it because they read it is acceptable. I think some day it won't be. The mechanism for CIO is the same as the mechanism for neglect and abuse. The mechanism isn't "training."

For kids who did well really fast with CIO -- that's great. But that's not what I consider CIO and that's obviously not the experience I'm talking about.

Oh, I get it. You have your very own definition of CIO, which is different from everyone else's definition. Well, that explains it. You don't really know what it is, so you made up a theory of what you THINK it is, and then come on here and judge everyone who attempts to sleep train their kids and call them cruel, neglectful and abusive parents. Got it. Thanks for clarifying.

I think it's abusive to give your kids solids. My definition of giving your kids solids is tying them to their high chairs, having one parent open the kids mouth, and the other just shoving food in. It's abusive! One day it will be illegal. And that's why giving your kids solids is child abuse.

Seriously, PP? This is exactly the kind of argument you're making. No one expects a baby to CIO when she's wet/in pain/hungry/sick. Educate yourself on sleep training before making such a fuss.

[Anonymous]

Kids forced to CIO simply learn that their parents will not respond to their cries. They're not learing to self-soothe. My husband and I adopted two children from Kazakhstan. We spent a month there and visited the orphanage daily. The children and babies rarely cry because they've learned that no one will respond. That's what CIO reminds me of. Dramatic? Yes, but what's the difference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids forced to CIO simply learn that their parents will not respond to their cries. They're not learing to self-soothe. My husband and I adopted two children from Kazakhstan. We spent a month there and visited the orphanage daily. The children and babies rarely cry because they've learned that no one will respond. That's what CIO reminds me of. Dramatic? Yes, but what's the difference?

Sometimes if we are running errands, my toddler eats lunch a half hour late. If we're driving in the car, the baby may have to wait 10 minutes for a bottle. Some kids are starved by their parents, resulting in daily pain and illness. Dramatic? Yes, but what's the difference?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If sleep training was so bad, it would show up in the child's future behavior. But these kids turn out fine. None of the earth mama parenting theories changes that fact.

I'm not an "earth mama." I just learned something really interesting in the course of becoming a foster parent, something I never knew before and something I bet 99 % of parents who do CIO don't know, either. And sleep training does show up in the child's future. I already posted that 40 percent of adults from "normal" homes -- i.e., homes with intact marriages and no signs of trouble -- and who have had no known trauma, have attachment disorder. These are the "normal" people who behave in ways that make people think, "wtf?" They don't care about others, they steal for no reason, they turn on people w/o thinking twice. There is a list of symptoms of attachment disorder that describe the walking wounded among us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids forced to CIO simply learn that their parents will not respond to their cries. They're not learing to self-soothe. My husband and I adopted two children from Kazakhstan. We spent a month there and visited the orphanage daily. The children and babies rarely cry because they've learned that no one will respond. That's what CIO reminds me of. Dramatic? Yes, but what's the difference?

Thank you. This is my point exactly.

[Anonymous]

"Seriously, PP? This is exactly the kind of argument you're making. No one expects a baby to CIO when she's wet/in pain/hungry/sick. Educate yourself on sleep training before making such a fuss."

Not PP, but I've read post after post on DCUM from parents who clearly don't know whether or not anything is wrong, because they don't pick up or touch their kids while they're crying. I'm sure some people try to practice CIO under the best conditions but many don't and many are oblivious. So there, Miss Fussy Britches.

[Anonymous]

to the vehement anti-CIO posters, I suggest you try the following schedule.

Deal with miserable screaming baby from 6 to 7. Give baby bath, nruse, rock and put to bed.

Have 2 blessed hours to clean up, eat, make daycare bag,e tc.

Get into bed at 9 pm. Wake up at 9:45 and rock/hold/nurse screaming baby until 10:15.

Put baby back down, go to sleep until 11 pm, when baby wakes up again.

Repeat rock/hold/nurse until 11:30. Put baby down and get into bed.

Wake up at 12:15 when baby wakes up crying.

Repeating, with 30 to 40 minute “sleep” intervals until 3 am when your partner takes over. Because partner is not nursing, his solution is to put screaming/inconsolable baby in car and drive around at 4 am until baby falls asleep and stays asleep until 6 am when it’s time for everyone to get up after 3 to 4 hours of broken sleep. realize that you feel like hell and this must be how your baby feels too.

Repeat for 45 nights straight. Try co-sleeping, changing your diet (wiping out eery trace of dairy, soy, etc--you are brastfeeding, pumping, getting no sleep and now barely eating), visiting ped, doing GI tests, etc, read every book on sleep to try to establishing good sleep habits both night and during day without CIO, etc. Try to reassure daycare, who is worried that somethign has happened to your previously happy child.

Wonder if somethign is really wrong, suddenly you have an incredibly unhappy, fussy baby who cries all the time which is not surprising since he HAS NOT HAD MORE THAN 1.5 HOURS OF CONSOLIDATED SLEEP IN ALMOST 2 MONTHS. That's right--you are a nightmare, with little sleep, but your baby, who needs sleep for development, cannot get it.

That was us. I was totally AP parent. Natural birth, EBF, kid lived in a sling, etc. But our DS became a nightmare sleeper around 6 months after a virus that legitimately kept him up all night for about a week. We ruled out medical, teethign, etc. We went through 6 weeks of hell, where baby did not sleep ever for more than 1.5 hours and often woke up every 40 minutes and was crying out of exhaustion--in our arms--for 20/30 mins, unable to be soothed.

We finallyd read Ferber and did CIO (seriously baby was crying in our arms half the n ight anyway) and within 3 nights baby was sleeping 8-10 hours at a stretch and we regained the sweet, happy, active kid we thought had disappeared. Not only were his daytime and nighttime sleep patterns regularized, but he was simply happier, smiled, communicated with something other than screams, and generally was back on track. We did not do CIO so we could paint our toenails, get drunk, or expect 10 hours of sleep at night. We did it because we were all at the end of our rope and our pediatrician said that if CIO didn't work, the next step was a neurological work up.

We have NO idea what had happenedto make sleep so impossible for him but it was clear that he was waking up and simpy unable to go back to sleep on his own but even unable to calm down with us. At that moment I realized that the best thing we ever did for our child was sleep training. Yes, we also needed to do it for our sanity, but we were doing him no favors by not helping him get to sleep. I was scared that we would have scarred him, that he would feel resentful and anxious, but he is seriously a happy, confident, loving, outgoing expressive child--and totally unlike the fussy, frustrated, unhappy mess we had while he wasn't sleeping.

Now when my child cries out in the night, we go to him immediately, give him what he needs, and help put him back to sleep. He never cries alone for more than a few minutes (sometimes he cries out a minute and goes back down which is why we don't rush in). But that's because he learned to fall asleep on his own, and the only way that happened was through CIO. If you do not choose CIO for your child, that's fine with me. But until you've walked in someone else's shoes, you might want to withhold your judgment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids forced to CIO simply learn that their parents will not respond to their cries. They're not learing to self-soothe. My husband and I adopted two children from Kazakhstan. We spent a month there and visited the orphanage daily. The children and babies rarely cry because they've learned that no one will respond. That's what CIO reminds me of. Dramatic? Yes, but what's the difference?

Thank you. This is my point exactly.

You don't see the difference between neglecting a child 24-7 and letting a child cry in 5 and 10 minute increments for three nights?

And you don't see the difference between a hungry or sick child who doesn't cry because no one ever comforts him and a child who isn't crying because he is asleep?

[Anonymous]

Kids forced to CIO simply learn that their parents will not respond to their cries. They're not learing to self-soothe.

But in a way, isn't that what you want them to learn? That if your parents check on you and you're not wet or dirty or hungry or thirsty that you are not going to be allowed to stay up longer/play even if you cry, and you have to go back to sleep? I would definitely not advocate this for an infant, but at the toddler stage, I think it is ok to teach this lesson. We go into my 19 month old son's room and make sure he is ok and doesn't need anything, and often, one of us will lay down on the floor near his crib, but unless he is sick, crying is not going to make us let him get up to play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:to the vehement anti-CIO posters, I suggest you try the following schedule.

Deal with miserable screaming baby from 6 to 7. Give baby bath, nruse, rock and put to bed.

Have 2 blessed hours to clean up, eat, make daycare bag,e tc.

Get into bed at 9 pm. Wake up at 9:45 and rock/hold/nurse screaming baby until 10:15.

Put baby back down, go to sleep until 11 pm, when baby wakes up again.

Repeat rock/hold/nurse until 11:30. Put baby down and get into bed.

Wake up at 12:15 when baby wakes up crying.

Repeating, with 30 to 40 minute “sleep” intervals until 3 am when your partner takes over. Because partner is not nursing, his solution is to put screaming/inconsolable baby in car and drive around at 4 am until baby falls asleep and stays asleep until 6 am when it’s time for everyone to get up after 3 to 4 hours of broken sleep. realize that you feel like hell and this must be how your baby feels too.

Repeat for 45 nights straight. Try co-sleeping, changing your diet (wiping out eery trace of dairy, soy, etc--you are brastfeeding, pumping, getting no sleep and now barely eating), visiting ped, doing GI tests, etc, read every book on sleep to try to establishing good sleep habits both night and during day without CIO, etc. Try to reassure daycare, who is worried that somethign has happened to your previously happy child.

Wonder if somethign is really wrong, suddenly you have an incredibly unhappy, fussy baby who cries all the time which is not surprising since he HAS NOT HAD MORE THAN 1.5 HOURS OF CONSOLIDATED SLEEP IN ALMOST 2 MONTHS. That's right--you are a nightmare, with little sleep, but your baby, who needs sleep for development, cannot get it.

That was us. I was totally AP parent. Natural birth, EBF, kid lived in a sling, etc. But our DS became a nightmare sleeper around 6 months after a virus that legitimately kept him up all night for about a week. We ruled out medical, teethign, etc. We went through 6 weeks of hell, where baby did not sleep ever for more than 1.5 hours and often woke up every 40 minutes and was crying out of exhaustion--in our arms--for 20/30 mins, unable to be soothed.

We finallyd read Ferber and did CIO (seriously baby was crying in our arms half the n ight anyway) and within 3 nights baby was sleeping 8-10 hours at a stretch and we regained the sweet, happy, active kid we thought had disappeared. Not only were his daytime and nighttime sleep patterns regularized, but he was simply happier, smiled, communicated with something other than screams, and generally was back on track. We did not do CIO so we could paint our toenails, get drunk, or expect 10 hours of sleep at night. We did it because we were all at the end of our rope and our pediatrician said that if CIO didn't work, the next step was a neurological work up.

We have NO idea what had happenedto make sleep so impossible for him but it was clear that he was waking up and simpy unable to go back to sleep on his own but even unable to calm down with us. At that moment I realized that the best thing we ever did for our child was sleep training. Yes, we also needed to do it for our sanity, but we were doing him no favors by not helping him get to sleep. I was scared that we would have scarred him, that he would feel resentful and anxious, but he is seriously a happy, confident, loving, outgoing expressive child--and totally unlike the fussy, frustrated, unhappy mess we had while he wasn't sleeping.

Now when my child cries out in the night, we go to him immediately, give him what he needs, and help put him back to sleep. He never cries alone for more than a few minutes (sometimes he cries out a minute and goes back down which is why we don't rush in). But that's because he learned to fall asleep on his own, and the only way that happened was through CIO. If you do not choose CIO for your child, that's fine with me. But until you've walked in someone else's shoes, you might want to withhold your judgment.

Wow - OP I am sorry you went through that. Hooray for you for finding a solution and helping your little guy!

But wait, someone here is going to still insist that you were abusing your child by letting him cry for three nights, and will say that you should have continued to "parent" your child to sleep. I haven't tried CIO but wouldn't hesitate in a situation like yours.

[Anonymous]

This is the OP and I wanted to thank you all who came with plausible evidence to help clarify the situation.

I have 2 friends who adopted babies from other countries and another friend who's a foster parent so I completely understand what you're talking about. Those children were taught "independence" very early on and today they have extreme difficulty to get attached to anything and anybody.

In one case, the one child who's very affectionate is extremely sensitive to loss. The poor thing cries the entire day if something breaks down, stops working or someone new in her life goes away. I remember her crying on the way out the grocery store because we were leaving and she said she didn't want to leave because she loved the cashier so much. Poor little thing!

My only wish was that we were in a society that would reward us for doing what's natural and not what's convenient. We need sleep because we have other priorities other than carrying for our children and the little ones are the main sufferers with the consequences.

They spend all day away from us and at night, when they need a little snuggle or a comfy place to fall sleep on we teach them to get attached to a piece of fabric and suck on a silicone nipple to fall asleep (so WE can get sleep).

I'm also guilty of all this but my point here is that I'm trying to stop making excuses to justify my choices. Maybe one day I'll be strong enough to make the right choice, not the one that is convenient.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids forced to CIO simply learn that their parents will not respond to their cries. They're not learing to self-soothe. My husband and I adopted two children from Kazakhstan. We spent a month there and visited the orphanage daily. The children and babies rarely cry because they've learned that no one will respond. That's what CIO reminds me of. Dramatic? Yes, but what's the difference?

The difference is NEVER having your needs met...and letting your child cry for 5 minutes or 15 minutes....if u cannot see the difference between letting a child cry within a loving attentive home environment and a child who nevers has any attention or affection...u need help