As Salina pointed out a few days ago, when it comes to parenting, everyone differs in their views on how to approach a situation.
When Ellie was just 4 months old we decided it was about time to figure out how to get her to sleep better through the night. We needed some ideas and so off to the bookstore we went!
While standing in the "Get Baby To Sleep" section, we were surprised when a complete stranger came up to us and said "Oh, the only thing that ever really truly works is to Ferberize the baby." For those who don't know, Dr. Ferber was the one who is accredited for the "Crying it out" method. The lady continued by saying "I know it sounds horrible, but the crying will only last a few days and then the child will sleep so much better." Away she went, looking confident and satisfied that she helped new parents learn a valuable lesson quickly.
Within seconds, another girl came around the bend. She was holding her young toddler and she was in near tears. Literally. She approached us and said "I heard what that lady said and please, please, please, whatever you do... DO NOT do that to your sweet innocent child! I can not imagine how horrible it must feel to be completely alone in the middle of the night and not have those you trust the most come to comfort you." We asked her what approach she took with her child and she said that she coslept with her. Intrigued, I asked her how old her daughter was before she started sleeping through the night. "Oh, she still wakes up 3-4 times a night." After a few minutes, she went off after we promised her not to scar our little one for life.
Needless to say, we were shocked at how quickly people were willing to give us unsolicited advice, not to mention how strongly they both felt about their views.
In the end, we discovered that we were middle of the road type people. I do not like the idea of having a child cry forever until they calm themselves down. However, there was no way in hell we would survive if our daughter was still waking up 3-4 times a night for two years! I know everyone's experience is different, but here's how ours ended up:
When Ellie woke multiple times a night, we tried everything to get her down to one night-time waking. We tried desperately to not feed her until 1:00 AM and just put her down after just calming her. We even tried cosleeping, but even from a young age, Ellie just thought it was playtime. I don't even recall the other things we tried (Parental amnesia gets us all, I think), but I do know that we felt like we were completely out of options. So one night, we decided to let Ellie "cry it out" if she woke before 1:00 AM, only our version was to let her cry for 15 minutes and then calm her down.
That night she slept until 1:15 (I did not sleep as well, since I was suffering from Engorged Cow Syndrome). It was almost like she just had to know the plan.
Later, when she was older (around 10 months) we went through a similar decision for getting her to sleep through the entire night. We tried everything from many books (most of them No-Cry-Solutions), but nothing worked. After a while, we decided "Tonight, she's going to cry it out."
That night she slept until morning. Go figure. This girl just needs to be told what was expected of her.
We've been pretty lucky. Ellie has almost always been a pretty decent sleeper. When she did wake up and cry, we would give her 15 minutes and she's almost always be back to sleep in 13, but that didn't happen very often.
I recall being so jealous of the parents who did not have to use any version of Crying it Out.
The parents who were able to co-sleep with their babies - oh how relaxing that must be! Unfortunately, even from a very young age, Ellie always assumed that sleeping with us meant play time. We could go for hours of playing dead before she'd finally pass out with sheer exhaustion.
The parents who were able to get their babies to sleep in the car, then transfer them to the crib - oh how peaceful and magical that sounds. For one, Ellie screamed every second she was in the car until she was about 4-5 months old. For two, the few times she did fall asleep, she was awake as soon as I put the car into park. I never once had the opportunity to try transferring her.
The parents who were able to get their babies to sleep by just sitting within view of the crib - I would love to be able to watch Ellie fall asleep. Nope. Again, literally hours would pass before Ellie would finally fall down almost-dead, only to wake up shortly after and in a bad mood.
Somewhat unfortunately, we felt like we were forced into a version of crying-it-out because nothing else worked. I don't think any set of parents ever go straight to that method without trying all the others. However, for us, it was magic. If we were willing to wait 10 minutes, she'd stop and put herself to sleep (and that's on the rare occasion when she cried at all).
I sometimes would get tired of the parents who would look at me like I was tormenting my child. Ellie was always super happy in the mornings, well rested and very confident. I never felt like she was being scarred. In fact, I felt like it was less so if she fell asleep without me there because then she wouldn't wake up expecting me to still be there.
Anyway, moving on...
It has been a long long time since we had to deal with any of that. Ellie slept so well all the way up until we started traveling a lot this summer. Even if she didn't join us, she'd be sleeping with someone while we were gone. She also started having nightmares recently (a symptom of her age, I'm assuming). She also started sleep walking. And of course, we amputated Bun Bun.
So now, who knows what the cause of the crying is, but I'm certain we found ourselves having contributed to making a bad habit. Ellie wakes now and feels like she needs us to go back to sleep. I simply don't think that's true because she has been so good at it in the past.
UPDATE:
It took us a while to decide to finally let Ellie "cry it out" again this time, but we finally made the decision about 5 days ago. We told Ellie there were new bedtime rules:
1. Go to sleep.
2. Stay in bed.
3. Wait until Mommy comes to get you in the morning.
4. Make eggs.
Ok, so Ellie always adds the last one, but she likes eggs!
The first night, she woke twice and cried for 6 minutes one time and 4 minutes another. She did get out of bed and Daddy put her back into bed, but he didn't speak a single word to her. The next night she woke and cried once for about 5 minutes. The third night she slept until I woke her. The forth night she slept until 6:30. The fifth night she slept until 6:45 and last night she slept until I woke her.
Once again, it felt like she just needed to be told the rules. Considering that she's sleeping better, for the small price of 15 minutes of total crying (which is less crying than she was doing when we'd go to her all the time), I hardly consider this to be scarring to a child. She is by far a happier little girl when she sleeps well, so isn't it worth it?
This morning I went in to wake her up and asked her if she wanted to get out of bed. She told me no and that she just wanted to sleep. The rest of the morning was filled with tons of smiles and hugs. TONS of hugs! It was wonderful.
I didn't write this long post to criticize parents who don't let their children cry it out at all, and I certainly understand that one should react to a baby differently than to an older toddler. I also didn't write this post to make it sound like I felt like I was being attacked this time around (Salina, I apologize if it feels that way), but I realized that I never wrote about this in the past so I thought I'd put my experience out there. I'm not saying that crying it out is the best solution, but I am saying that parents shouldn't be fearful of it being a possibility.
The end. Sorry for the Monday Niffer lecture. Life is good. We're sleeping well again (minus the super-pregnant-can't-move-easily-Niffer and the I-just-threw-out-my-back-and-can't-sleep-Daddy) and everyone is in smiles.
12 comments:
I'm of the mindset that if crying lasts less than 15 minutes, it wasn't "I'm terrified" crying, it's "I've learned this is the way to get what I want" crying. The only way we've finally got our little dude to sleep through the night it to let him learn to self-soothe, which did require him to cry for a little while in the beginning. But now that he can soothe himself, he wakes up in the morning so happy, it's wonderful!
That's similar to what we have always thought. I'm curious, though, have you had people judge you for it? Maybe it's a Boulder thing, but it seems relatively common for other mothers to assume the worst if I say I let my child cry it out.
I'm going to assume it's a Boulder thing, people in Colorado Springs seem to think that crying a bit will toughen your kid up. No one's really judged me yet, but I think that may be partly because I don't volunteer information much (unless I already agree with them), I more so listen to other people's advice, smile and nod even if I disagree, and then just use what I want to. What works for one kid, won't necessarily work for another.
No offense taken. I wondered what your approach to some of the typical parenting things were. I think every parent does things that is best for their family and child. Each child is different and I can't even use the same approach with my two children.
I won't do CIO with my children because it doesn't work for our family. By CIO I mean 15 minutes of crying without me checking on them. I personally don't think crying teaches them how to self soothe, toughens them up, or helps their lungs. I think it's okay for parents to help a child fall asleep until age 3-4 (although the kind of help will obviously change as the child gets older). However I don't judge those parents who don't agree with my views.
Charlotte is as close as I've come to any sort of CIO since she does need a few minutes of fussing/complaining/yelling/crying to chill out before she falls asleep. I never let her go longer than a few minutes without helping her (story, song, back rubbing, etc). Cooper gets more hysterical and makes himself throw up. Charlotte sleeps through the night (she has my family's sleeping genes) and Cooper is inconsistent (he has his daddy's sleeping genes).
They are different people and need different things. I don't think it's anything the parents do or don't do, I just think it's the personality of the child. You find what works for that child whatever it might be.
My guess is that sleep related issues will be different with baby #2...although I hope it's easy whatever comes your way!
Oh, and my guess is that people in Boulder are likely more into Attachment Parenting, hence the anti-CIO sentiment. This is based on what I know about the type of people in Boulder. I too lean toward attachment parenting, although there are some parts I disagree with and lean more main stream. (Google it and you might be surprised that you can relate to some of the AP'ing stuff.)
Salina, you're right - there are definitely parts of attachment parenting that I agree with. I carried Ellie for quite some time and I think she's been in a stroller for a total of a couple hours her entire life. I love the general concept of attachment parenting and agree with much of it. It's the co-sleeping that just never worked for us.
I'd be curious to know what aspects of attachment parenting you disagree with, though, if you're willing to share.
My problem lies in being told that I'm scarring my daughter because I let her cry it out (comments from Boulder Moms), when I feel like she ends up crying less than she does if I constantly go to her. I do not think I'm scarring my child at all and feel like she's an incredibly confident little girl. I think it's too bad when people take one extreme or another (and I'm guilty of this, myself, for other topics like vaccinations) when in the end it's just a matter of what works for each child.
I think it's fascinating that you get to experience hands-on how it totally differs for each child. It must be interesting and frustrating at the same time to have to adjust your parenting ways for both of your children at the same time. You're amazing!
Some of the AP type of discipline is what I seem to struggle with the most because at a certain age it's just not practical--and even more impractical with two toddlers. Many hard-core AP'ers won't use the word no, won't do time-out, and generally have a very 'reason with the child' approach to discipline.
The idea behind saying no is that it doesn't actually teach the child anything. A better approach is supposed to be that you say 'Stop touching the trashcan. It's full of germs and you can get sick. Let's go read books instead.'. Basically give them direction, tell them why it's not okay and then redirect to an appropriate behavior/activity.
The idea behind no timeouts is that it tells the child 'Your behavior is so dispicable that I have to banish you to an area by yourself because mommy/daddy can't deal with it' again not teaching anything to the child. I haven't heard what the alternative is to timeouts.
For me and our family it just doesn't work. I don't have the time to explain every little thing to our children, sometimes for the 10,000th time I just need to say 'No touching the trashcan' and move on. I also firmly believe in timeouts because I think there has to be a consequence for certain actions. (I won't do spanking/slapping hands so I still feel like that is very AP'ing.) It's not reasonable to try to reason and explain everything to toddlers. As they get older I can see that changing.
I did co-sleep with Cooper, both bed sharing and room sharing. Many AP'ers find it acceptable to co-sleep in some fashion for several years. I think children do need their own space and I think for the health of any marriage parents need the privacy of their room. So by 1 year I was ready to be done with all co-sleeping...unfortunately we couldn't until 14 months old and moved to a bigger place.
As for baby-wearing, I loved it when my two were little and I want to get an Ergo to wear them now (except my abs are still messed up so I'm not supposed to without damaging them more). However I don't think a stroller is awful either...I still interact and engage them while walking with the stroller.
Maybe I'll do a blog post about the 8 principles and how I approach them, what I agree/disagree with, etc. Great post BTW!
From what you just wrote, it sounds like we agree on quite a few general concepts of parenting.
Time-outs work great for us and I've never been able to find a suitable alternative, because like you said, I think they need to be disciplined somehow. I refuse to spank my kids and so far the time-outs and then discussing the situation afterwards seems to work well.
I LOVE my Ergo! I still use it occasionally, though less now that Ellie likes to walk so much. Michael never liked it - it hurt his back, but it was definitely the carrier that lasted the longest for me without killing my back.
We carried Ellie a ton and ended up hardly using our stroller mainly because she hated it. It started out with our stroller being the kind where the car seat snapped into the stroller, but she hated her car seat, so that didn't get us very far. Then when she was old enough for an umbrella stroller, she had just grown to like being carried more.
I look forward to reading your post!
Very thoughtful piece. It really demonstrates how there is no clear road map for every kid.
The hardcore Cry-it-out method was not for us. So, we started off with the No Cry Sleep Solution "Shuffle" but Millie was *infuriated* by watching us stand next to her crib but not pick her up. If she were older I bet she would've had a few choice words for the Sleep Lady and her Shuffle. She was much better if we just left and let her work it out for a a few minutes.
Now every time she has a rough spell we start off going to her right away and staying with her a few minutes. But occasionally those few minutes morph into an hour and she's still not asleep because shes hanging out with us now. Then the pendulum swings back to somewhere in-between, where we go in and comfort for a few minutes and leave even she protests. Usually it's just a protest and after a few minutes shes sleeping on her own. At least that was how it was with a crib... still working out the details for the big girl bed.
Sqpeggy - Yes, thanks for the reminder. We tried that method too and I don't think it would be possible to piss off a baby any more than Ellie was if we just stood there next to her. Not pretty.
I wish you luck with ironing out the big girl bed details! The fact that she is taking off her clothes had me laughing. You poor parents. =)
I know I'm late to this one, but I feel I should warn you that the techniques that worked with our first child, did not work with our 2nd. And neither of those 2 things work with the 3rd. Same story for the 4th.
I'm glad that it's worked so well with Ellie. But if your 2nd child is anything like my children, be prepared for a lot of things that previously worked to not work at all.
FWIW: Child #1, Cry it out didn't really work that well. Frankly, he doesn't really sleep through the night now (he's almost 12). He (like me) is something of an insomniac.
Child #2, has always, and still does put himself to sleep. He just knows when it's time to go to sleep, and he does it entirely on his own.
Child #3, cry it out worked almost exactly like you describe w/Ellie. But, unfortunately for us, he's a total morning person. He goes to sleep easily at 8:30 and wakes up bright and altogether disturbingly chipper at 6:30. Every day.
Child #4, Started out difficult like #1 but is now more like #2. We didn't have to deal with cry-it-out, but he'd be in his room chattering away for a *LONG* time before he went to sleep. Now he goes to sleep almost immediately.
In any case, my point is to expect something different.
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