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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Just google it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

I don’t think you understand what proving a negative means.

[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.

I find it hard to believe that a few hours letting a baby CIO for a few nights causes more damage than a child how is chronically sleep deprived.

So glad we sleep trained our kids. At 12 my son will put himself to bed when he tired and regularly gets 10+ hrs of sleep a night.

[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.

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!

I don't actually have strong feelings about CIO. You shared your opinion that... sleep training doesn't matter because... your kids have slightly different dispositions. Okay. Thanks for contributing I guess.

[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.

I find it hard to believe that a few hours letting a baby CIO for a few nights causes more damage than a child how is chronically sleep deprived.

So glad we sleep trained our kids. At 12 my son will put himself to bed when he tired and regularly gets 10+ hrs of sleep a night.

They are not sleep deprived. They are BABIES. Needs change as they grow. Do you think they're under nourished too because they don't get 2,000 calories per day?

You know what's really bad for babies? Parents who don't realize they have the needs of a baby. Also parents who don't seem to understand that 12 year olds who receive no sleep training also put themselves to bed and regularly get 10+ hours of sleep a night, without having to be traumatized to achieve it.

[Anonymous]

I have known plenty of sleep deprived babies and toddlers. It impacts everything, just like in adults. They’re moody, quick to get upset, have difficulty training. People that let their kids go for their first most formative years in that state are misguided and doing their kids a disservice. I pity those kids, same as you probably pity mine.

[Anonymous]

Learning, not training. Thanks, autocorrect

[Anonymous]

Let’s get real. The only reason to CIO is to support parents’ sanity, livelihood, marital relationship, etc. It doesn’t help children sleep more or better—that’s delusion parents use to justify their choice. Happens to be the same reasoning people used when spanking kids “for their own good”. They too believed it was important for establishing boundaries, learning to self-regulate, etc.

Any infant who is on a good schedule, gets enough sunlight early and has a caregiver willing to work with the child’s clock rather than their own (yes that usually means rocking and soothing them to sleep for several months) will get enough sleep. Any outliers are ill—the last kids who should be left to cry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have known plenty of sleep deprived babies and toddlers. It impacts everything, just like in adults. They’re moody, quick to get upset, have difficulty training. People that let their kids go for their first most formative years in that state are misguided and doing their kids a disservice. I pity those kids, same as you probably pity mine.

Why do you assume all non-CIO kids are sleep deprived? My kids slept great and were no sleep deprived at all - they just needed to be held and fed frequently. My kids sleep twelve hours a night now at 2 and 4 and never once cried for more than a minute where they were unattended to.

Sleep training is for parents not the baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have known plenty of sleep deprived babies and toddlers. It impacts everything, just like in adults. They’re moody, quick to get upset, have difficulty training. People that let their kids go for their first most formative years in that state are misguided and doing their kids a disservice. I pity those kids, same as you probably pity mine.

Only those in daycare settings or home with lots of other kids. If you let a baby and toddler sleep when and how they want, they aren’t sleep deprived.

[Anonymous]

It is not heartless or cruel. I look at it the same way as getting my kids vaccines or any other kid of healthcare that is unpleasant during the process, but much better for them in the long run. My child desperately needed quality sleep, and nothing else was working. A couple of days of CIO did the trick, and he was a much happier, engaged child for it. 13 years later, he’s still awesome and certainly no worse off for having done CIO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s get real. The only reason to CIO is to support parents’ sanity, livelihood, marital relationship, etc. It doesn’t help children sleep more or better—that’s delusion parents use to justify their choice. Happens to be the same reasoning people used when spanking kids “for their own good”. They too believed it was important for establishing boundaries, learning to self-regulate, etc.

Any infant who is on a good schedule, gets enough sunlight early and has a caregiver willing to work with the child’s clock rather than their own (yes that usually means rocking and soothing them to sleep for several months) will get enough sleep. Any outliers are ill—the last kids who should be left to cry

+1

CIO was developed as a "method" in order to facilitate the way we raise kids in the US -- dual income families, minimal family or community support. Babies are expected to get on adult schedules as quickly as possible because there is such limited accommodation for children.

In countries with sufficient parental leave and more support for young families, CIO is not a thing because it's not necessary. Even when both parents work, there is often extended family or communal support that enables the parents to work. Or families work alternate schedules. The idea that a couple will get their child STTN by month 2 or 3 so that the parents can get uninterrupted sleep without the assistance of extended family and then return to pre-baby schedules at work, is a uniquely American phenomenon.

Go ask people in other societies about Ferber or CIO or any of this. They don't know what you are talking about. Babies don't need to be "trained" to sleep. It's just in the country we train them to function as much like adults as possible to accommodate a culture that does not accommodate children or families but expects them to accommodate everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have known plenty of sleep deprived babies and toddlers. It impacts everything, just like in adults. They’re moody, quick to get upset, have difficulty training. People that let their kids go for their first most formative years in that state are misguided and doing their kids a disservice. I pity those kids, same as you probably pity mine.

Only those in daycare settings or home with lots of other kids. If you let a baby and toddler sleep when and how they want, they aren’t sleep deprived.

DP. This is a laughably ignorant statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have known plenty of sleep deprived babies and toddlers. It impacts everything, just like in adults. They’re moody, quick to get upset, have difficulty training. People that let their kids go for their first most formative years in that state are misguided and doing their kids a disservice. I pity those kids, same as you probably pity mine.

Only those in daycare settings or home with lots of other kids. If you let a baby and toddler sleep when and how they want, they aren’t sleep deprived.

+1000

I know a lot of people on these boards have been brainwashed by "sleep consultants" but infant sleep is not complicated and rarely needs intervention, barring medical issues (in which case the intervention that is needed is to treat the medical condition impacting sleep -- you don't actually have to do anything about the sleep itself).

Babies become dysfunctional sleepers because we try to force adult sleep expectations on them. If you leave them alone, they just figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have known plenty of sleep deprived babies and toddlers. It impacts everything, just like in adults. They’re moody, quick to get upset, have difficulty training. People that let their kids go for their first most formative years in that state are misguided and doing their kids a disservice. I pity those kids, same as you probably pity mine.

Only those in daycare settings or home with lots of other kids. If you let a baby and toddler sleep when and how they want, they aren’t sleep deprived.

DP. This is a laughably ignorant statement.

No, it isn’t. When a baby can sleep on their own schedule they aren’t sleep deprived. A baby cannot sleep on his/her own schedule in daycare.