Cry it out is the most heartless and cruel thing you can do to a child…

[Anonymous]

Teaching your baby how to fall asleep by herself is not cruel. You are in for a rude awakening if you think teaching your child life long lessons is the cruelest thing you can do. Give me a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Terrible parenting. You will pay.

how will those of us who sleep trained pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terrible parenting. You will pay.

how will those of us who sleep trained pay?

I don’t think the poster was serious. But there are studies that say CIO sleep training before a year damages the structure of a child’s brain increasing aggression and learning disabilities. If true, the child will pay not the parents.

[Anonymous]

Here's my anecdote: I have a 10 year old boy who sleep trained at 6 months and an 8 year old boy who never sleep trained. The kid we sleep trained is by nature less aggressive, has always been better at listening and self-control, and has always been more advanced in school, read very early and scores about 10 points higher on IQ tests. The 8 year old who did not sleep train has always had more trouble controlling his emotions and is slightly less strong in school overall (i.e., he's in advanced math tracks but not for reading/writing). He is a better athlete and more outgoing.

All of this is to say....I think they have the intelligence, personalities, and emotional nature they were always going to have, and I don't think sleep training mattered one bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's my anecdote: I have a 10 year old boy who sleep trained at 6 months and an 8 year old boy who never sleep trained. The kid we sleep trained is by nature less aggressive, has always been better at listening and self-control, and has always been more advanced in school, read very early and scores about 10 points higher on IQ tests. The 8 year old who did not sleep train has always had more trouble controlling his emotions and is slightly less strong in school overall (i.e., he's in advanced math tracks but not for reading/writing). He is a better athlete and more outgoing.

All of this is to say....I think they have the intelligence, personalities, and emotional nature they were always going to have, and I don't think sleep training mattered one bit.

You don’t know where either kid would be had you sleep trained or not sleep trained.

[Anonymous]

I didn't sleep train but only because I didn't have to. Most people I know sleep trained because they had to go to a FT job at the end of their leave and most people cannot work 8 hours a day after getting up with a baby 2-4 times over the course of the night. Some can, but most can't.

The single biggest factor in being able to avoid CIO for me (because I would have found it extremely hard to do -- I think it's more tortuous for parents than babies, to be honest) was that I worked PT and could take a nap every morning from 8-10am (while the baby napped) so that when my sitter arrived, I felt like a human being and could go to work without feeling exhausted.

If you hate CIO and think it's heartless/cruel, you should advocate for better parental leave policies, flexible schedules for parents with babies, and more support for new parents. We live in a culture that expects babies to STTN by 2 or 3 months so that their parents can go work 40 hours a week, and that's why CIO is so huge in the US. In counties with proper parental leave policies, people still work on getting their child to STTN, but it is way less urgent and advice like "your child will figure it out on their own" doesn't feel like a slap in the face because parents are afforded the leeway to let their kid figure it out. New parents are tired but less is expected of them in the rest of their lives, so that tiredness is not the crisis it is in the average US household.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's my anecdote: I have a 10 year old boy who sleep trained at 6 months and an 8 year old boy who never sleep trained. The kid we sleep trained is by nature less aggressive, has always been better at listening and self-control, and has always been more advanced in school, read very early and scores about 10 points higher on IQ tests. The 8 year old who did not sleep train has always had more trouble controlling his emotions and is slightly less strong in school overall (i.e., he's in advanced math tracks but not for reading/writing). He is a better athlete and more outgoing.

All of this is to say....I think they have the intelligence, personalities, and emotional nature they were always going to have, and I don't think sleep training mattered one bit.

This anecdote means less than nothing. Your conclusions are based on literally nothing. Comments like this are incredibly unhelpful and mostly just serve to make people either feel better about their choices or feel worse about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terrible parenting. You will pay.

how will those of us who sleep trained pay?

I don’t think the poster was serious. But there are studies that say CIO sleep training before a year damages the structure of a child’s brain increasing aggression and learning disabilities. If true, the child will pay not the parents.

Pubmed citations, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terrible parenting. You will pay.

how will those of us who sleep trained pay?

I don’t think the poster was serious. But there are studies that say CIO sleep training before a year damages the structure of a child’s brain increasing aggression and learning disabilities. If true, the child will pay not the parents.

PP above. Yes, I was serious. It is terrible parenting and you will pay. So will your DC.

Just do the job you signed up for, lazy parents. Yes, your baby wakes up in the night. Did you really not know this before you had one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's my anecdote: I have a 10 year old boy who sleep trained at 6 months and an 8 year old boy who never sleep trained. The kid we sleep trained is by nature less aggressive, has always been better at listening and self-control, and has always been more advanced in school, read very early and scores about 10 points higher on IQ tests. The 8 year old who did not sleep train has always had more trouble controlling his emotions and is slightly less strong in school overall (i.e., he's in advanced math tracks but not for reading/writing). He is a better athlete and more outgoing.

All of this is to say....I think they have the intelligence, personalities, and emotional nature they were always going to have, and I don't think sleep training mattered one bit.

You don’t know where either kid would be had you sleep trained or not sleep trained.

Right, nor does anyone else who has or ever will study sleep training in babies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's my anecdote: I have a 10 year old boy who sleep trained at 6 months and an 8 year old boy who never sleep trained. The kid we sleep trained is by nature less aggressive, has always been better at listening and self-control, and has always been more advanced in school, read very early and scores about 10 points higher on IQ tests. The 8 year old who did not sleep train has always had more trouble controlling his emotions and is slightly less strong in school overall (i.e., he's in advanced math tracks but not for reading/writing). He is a better athlete and more outgoing.

All of this is to say....I think they have the intelligence, personalities, and emotional nature they were always going to have, and I don't think sleep training mattered one bit.

This anecdote means less than nothing. Your conclusions are based on literally nothing. Comments like this are incredibly unhelpful and mostly just serve to make people either feel better about their choices or feel worse about them.

Yes, I posted it with my opinion because the OP said she was feeling guilty, though I knew of course that one of you commenters with STRONG FEELINGS about sleep training (and everything else, no doubt) would have something nasty to say. Stay consistent!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terrible parenting. You will pay.

how will those of us who sleep trained pay?

I don’t think the poster was serious. But there are studies that say CIO sleep training before a year damages the structure of a child’s brain increasing aggression and learning disabilities. If true, the child will pay not the parents.

Pubmed citations, please.

You can google it, PP. There are hundreds and various groups dedicated to stopping CIO sleep training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's my anecdote: I have a 10 year old boy who sleep trained at 6 months and an 8 year old boy who never sleep trained. The kid we sleep trained is by nature less aggressive, has always been better at listening and self-control, and has always been more advanced in school, read very early and scores about 10 points higher on IQ tests. The 8 year old who did not sleep train has always had more trouble controlling his emotions and is slightly less strong in school overall (i.e., he's in advanced math tracks but not for reading/writing). He is a better athlete and more outgoing.

All of this is to say....I think they have the intelligence, personalities, and emotional nature they were always going to have, and I don't think sleep training mattered one bit.

You don’t know where either kid would be had you sleep trained or not sleep trained.

Right, nor does anyone else who has or ever will study sleep training in babies.

Because it is impossible to prove a negative!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's my anecdote: I have a 10 year old boy who sleep trained at 6 months and an 8 year old boy who never sleep trained. The kid we sleep trained is by nature less aggressive, has always been better at listening and self-control, and has always been more advanced in school, read very early and scores about 10 points higher on IQ tests. The 8 year old who did not sleep train has always had more trouble controlling his emotions and is slightly less strong in school overall (i.e., he's in advanced math tracks but not for reading/writing). He is a better athlete and more outgoing.

All of this is to say....I think they have the intelligence, personalities, and emotional nature they were always going to have, and I don't think sleep training mattered one bit.

You don’t know where either kid would be had you sleep trained or not sleep trained.

Right, nor does anyone else who has or ever will study sleep training in babies.

Because it is impossible to prove a negative!!!

Cool, then we agree. Good talk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Terrible parenting. You will pay.

how will those of us who sleep trained pay?

I don’t think the poster was serious. But there are studies that say CIO sleep training before a year damages the structure of a child’s brain increasing aggression and learning disabilities. If true, the child will pay not the parents.

Pubmed citations, please.

You can google it, PP. There are hundreds and various groups dedicated to stopping CIO sleep training.

No, there are not “hundreds” of high-quality studies showing brain damage, increased aggression, and learning disabilities in kids who did CIO. Try again.

There are various groups dedicated to stopping plenty of things. That doesn’t mean there’s quality evidence supporting their efforts.