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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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 [/quote]

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.[/quote]

Ha!  My German family recommended CIO to me before I ever considered it myself. [/quote]

Lots of Europeans have adopted American parenting philosophies. Not incidentally, this has happened as European countries have adopted more American-style capitalism, with fewer worker protections and more pressure on workers to be productive in a global economy. Your German family would not have recommended this 20 years ago -- they wouldn't know what it was and they would have considered it cruel and unnatural.[/quote]

Who cares?  Why have your kid up all night for months and possibly even years when it’s unnecessary?  That’s great that so many Europeans stay up all night with their crying kids, but I’m not interested in that.  There is absolutely NO benefit to my kid staying up all night.  I much prefer the American method as you claim of CIO and then my entire family gets good quality sleep.  ‘Merica!  [/quote]

People do not stay up all night with crying babies. Rather, they adapt their lives to infant sleep schedules.

My kids slept in our room with us for the first 8-11 months of life. We used a cosleeper and when they woke up, I'd nurse them. I took 6 months off work so for the most intensive months, if I was very tired after a night of waking up, I simply slept during their morning nap to catch up. By the time I returned to work, we were down to 1-2 wakeup a night and they were nursing efficiently. I was pumping quite a bit by then so we could split the wake-ups between us. There was hardly any crying. Whoever's turn it was would get up and feed the baby until they fell asleep, and then return to bed. Over the next few months, we'd go from two feedings to one, to just sporadic wakeups and some nights where they STTN. Then we'd move them to a nursery. Sometimes there was a transition period where the wakeup would resurface for a period, and we'd take turns going in the nursery, generally just to comfort, no food. And once the baby felt confident that we would come in if they needed us, they'd STTN every night.

No CIO, no being up with a crying baby "all night long". What was required was a SAHP until the child was 6 months old, then some mildly disrupted sleep for a couple months, and that's it.

I am always so confused on here when CIO advocates are like "if you don't teach your child to sleep, they'll be sleep deprived forever!!!!" What on earth. Sleeping is a natural animal imperative. There is some guidance necessary to get babies accustomed to day/night sleep cycles. They need to get big enough that they can consume enough calories before sleep to not get hungry in the middle of the night (which takes longer for some babies than others -- babies sleep 12 hours at night so of course some babies will wake up at 2am and think "I need food!"). They need to trust that their caregivers are nearby and reliable so if something is wrong, they will get help. They need practice. But none of this requires you to force them to cry until they pass out from exhaustion. [/quote]

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