"Just Let Her Cry"
Why I don't care for this article
I recently read this article floating around Facebook, and it really bothered me. It was kind of that pebble in your shoe feeling at first as I couldn't quite put my finger on why I disagreed with the authors premise so much, but after mulling it around in my mind I think it boils down to a few things with me.
Some of what is said in article is not only really dramatized to me, but is simply untrue. The author states that letting newborns, babies and toddlers cry, is the same thing as letting an adult cry, equating it to her husband abandoning her when she is deathly ill in bed at night and even says, "For all they know, a predator could be lurking and waiting to eat them!" I don't know if she means that the baby might feel someone bad is going to kidnap and rape them, or "a predator" in a scary dinosaur movie sense, but a child is not born with fears of being kidnapped or eaten by large animals. Humans develop fears from experiences that they have and knowledge that they gain on this earth, and unless you are instilling that fear, either inadvertently with age inappropriate movies etc. or by making them feel that they shouldn't WANT to be alone, and passing along your own fears to THEM, then they should not be afraid that the boogie man is going to get them. After all, what is the boogie man anyways, but a story that gets passed down from kid to kid?!
She also mentions that parents leaving a child alone in their room to sleep at night will make the child feel scared, lonely etc. Children spent 9 months being cuddled and nurtured in their mothers womb as they grow, and believe it or not there isn't a night light in there. Children are not born scared of the dark. The idea that leaving a brand new baby alone in a dark room, warmly wrapped and well fed, is going to emotionally scare them or make them afraid, to me is false. I have never given my daughter any reason to believe that being alone is scary, or that the dark is scary, and quite the contrary is true for her. As she has gotten into toddlerhood when I tuck her in at night I say things like, "isn't it so cozy to be in your nice warm blankets after your nice warm milk?" and she fully agrees with me! Or, "wasn't that a wonderful story we read, when it's morning time, let's read another one!" She isn't always jumping up and down to be put to bed, but when the time comes and she's put in her bed she has every reason to believe that she is being watched over and protected, and not only isn't insecure, but she really genuinely loves her time alone in bed. Some mornings she wakes up immediately calling for Mom, but MOST mornings I hear her singing, talking and even giggling to herself for 20 or 30 minutes before she calls out for me and is ready to get up. And at night even when she isn't ready to fall asleep yet she talks to herself and sings songs, retells herself stories we read earlier in the day (I know this because sometimes she's rather loud in the re-telling), and sometimes turns on the little mobile by her bed; after which, she finally falls to sleep. I attribute this FULLY, to a healthy version of CIO.
When Grace was born Craig and I had read a couple books and articles on helping children sleep and decided that 10 minutes was a good amount of time to let Grace cry and any time longer than that, meant that we would go check on her, make sure she didn't need anything and then gently lay her back down in her crib. I know some parents let their children cry longer but for me it was important for her to always know I was there, but that she was ok without me. I have always tried to do this in a reassuring way, not in a disciplinary type manner. I am not punishing her by making her sleep in her bed, I am making sure she knows that I'm there if she needs me, but let her know that she doesn't need me to get a good nights sleep. If nothing was wrong when I went in, I would re-tuck her in, tell her how much I love her, and lay her back down. At first that 10 minutes was LONG! I got a little clock and kept it by me while I waited on the floor by her door because I was convinced that my "mean" husband was really making me wait 30 minutes when he watched the clock. I soon discovered he'd been telling the truth all along, it just seemed so much longer to me then it did to him! I quickly realized several things by doing this. 1. Parents, and especially mothers for some reason can differentiate cries. Contrary to what this article suggests, by going with the cry it out method I could tell when Grace was crying because something was wrong and she was upset, and when she was crying and fussing from being overly tired. 2. Also contrary to what the article suggests babies cry to tell us things because they can't talk. It is their only method of communication with us, so crying does not mean the same thing that it does for an adult who is capable of verbal communication, but is emotionally at their whits end. Learning to tell the difference between babies different cries is important, and is something that most parents feel they can do fairly easily. Even as an infant if Grace started crying like she was hurt, I was in her room in a heart-beat. I didn't abandon her and think, "oh she just needs to learn" I immediately went to find out what was wrong, but if she was crying to communicate to me that she was tired, I let her fall asleep on her own, it is as simple as that.
I think that wonderful things have come from the CIO method for our family.
1. My child has never learned to be afraid of the dark. I don't rush in her room when she cries like I'm trying to save her from something terrible, and because of that she feels perfectly safe and confident in her little world, as I believe all children should.
2. The CIO method saved my sanity as a new Mom. Going from full time school/work to a full time at home Mom held all kinds of adjustments for me, without being sleep deprived. I am not the kind of person who can get a wink of sleep while holding a baby, and the few times I did try to sleep with Grace in my arms, I noticed she would wake very often and didn't sleep for as long as she did on her own. With the CIO method Grace was sleeping through the night in her own bed by 4 months old, and although I realize that does NOT happen with every baby, studies have shown that babies whose parents train on the CIO method rather than the only-sleep-while-Mom-or-Dad-are-in-bed-with-you method, learn to sleep through the night much earlier.
3. Dad's especially need regular alone time with their wives. Adjusting to a baby can put a strain on any relationship, and it definitely changes the dynamics of the home. Craig and I can probably count on 1 hand the number of times we've gotten to go on a date without baby since her arrival, but at least we know that at 8:00pm every night, the two of us have some time to talk and read, watch movies, hang out, and reconnect about how our day went, and what it will look like tomorrow. Not to mention how are you going to work on baby #2, if baby #1 is still in your bed? ;)
I realize that like all things, there are exceptions to these rules, and really feel that all parents need to listen to their own instincts and intuition when it comes to their children's sleeping habits. I wrote this simply because I've felt from a lot of sources lately, like the article presented, that choosing to let your child self sooth is child abuse, and they will grow up crying on a therapists couch somewhere talking about how horrible their parents were for making them cry it out. I don't think that every parent needs to use the CIO method, but felt like I wanted to present why I think it works, and why I DON'T think it is child abuse.
