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The sleep issue is a tough one. We nixed some major errors we were making with our firstborn when he was nine months old. He's three now, and a great sleeper, but I feel like we barely dodged a bullet.
A big part of the problem is me. Not because, as a professional and a mother, I've "professionalized" parenting or because I'm worried my child will be left behind, but because I'm a crappy sleeper myself and have been since I was a baby. I can't blame my mom, though, because I do believe that some people are just naturally better sleepers than others. My older siblings have never had any sleep problems, just me. But it's hard to teach good sleep habits when it all seems abstract and academic. Sigh.
posted by : Doppelganger on 5/12/2008 at 2:37 AM Flag For Abuse
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This is something my husband and I have become increasingly worried about. We're doing Family Bed right now, because our daughter is still nursing. She's 9 months, though, and we're planning to wean her at a year. What then? Do we just put her in the crib? I am not at all comfortable with letting her cry it out.
This article made me realize that we need to get a plan of some sort together. I'm just not sure what to do.
posted by : ShaLo on 5/12/2008 at 7:37 AM Flag For Abuse
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I'm not sure that this is an open and shut case of parenting style at bedtime leading to sleep issues for their kids. I've seen many families where the first child was a good sleeper and the second one just wasn't. Same parents, completely different outcomes.
posted by : anonymous2 on 5/12/2008 at 10:13 AM Flag For Abuse
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Just like anonymous2 at 10:13 - three kids, three different styles. Eldest is so by-the-book (at everything!) He slept well, potty trained well, etc. Second is a very emotional kid who craves physical closeness -took YEARS to get him into his own bed. Youngest is sort of middle of the road, but she is the one who won't get out of bed and come to our bed. No. She chooses to sit up in her bed (which she's perfectly capable of leaving) and YELL at the top of her lungs for someone to come to her. It's a little jarring at 3 a.m.! If she would just scamper out of her bed and climb into ours (as opposed to screaming and requiring one of us to lumber in) I'd feel victorious at this point.
posted by : BBBGMOM on 5/12/2008 at 12:14 PM Flag For Abuse
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I just have to HIGHLY recommend Kim West's Book Good Night, Sleep Tight. I found it helps them learn on their own, but the whole method she advocates feels a LOT less cruel than just letting them scream in their crib alone for hours. I was very anxious about letting my daughter "cry it out" but this book met both my needs and hers.
posted by : Happy Mama on 5/12/2008 at 1:03 PM Flag For Abuse
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There's a lot of good info in this article. There certainly are some issues unique to transitioning babies or toddlers who co-slept to sleeping by themselves. But, I think by and large sleep is a major issue for many babies and toddlers, period. We have plenty of friends who have done versions of sleep training and their babies didn't sleep much better than ours who co-slept, and they are now waking up as much as any of the four and five year olds described in the article. It's hard to find what works for each individual child, and sleep is an issue that cuts across parenting practices.
posted by : KaraH on 5/12/2008 at 1:35 PM Flag For Abuse
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I have a friend whose 6 year old regularly sleeps in her bed. She's divorced.
posted by : sleepneeds on 5/12/2008 at 1:37 PM Flag For Abuse
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I just found babble.com, and as a whole I haven't been impressed. Much of what is said in these articles are an attempt to inflame parents and cause more worry. Relax, enjoy your child, make decisions in a conscientious effort to bring them into the world with enthusiasm, these are the principles of parenting. If your child is a sleeper that's great, but please don't talk about "self-soothing." Self-soothing is psychobabble that has little to do with how children sleep (as a child clinical psychologist I think I can spot psychobabble :)) Stop looking into others lives, "the grass is always greener..." as they say. But remember, everyone struggles. Show me a good sleeper and I'll show you a family with other issues (eating? potty training? sharing?). Bottom line: take these articles with a grain of salt. Whatever method, use instincts, use compassion, use the love you have for your child, to make decisions, not what some article wants to make you feel or think.
posted by : unhappy about babble on 5/12/2008 at 1:40 PM Flag For Abuse
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We need to remember that correlation is not causation. There's no way to exclude all other factors than sleep in a child's life. In any case, people get so worked up about this and just don't look at the long term. I think it's true that consistency is key, but you don't need to beat yourself up about this. They will sleep and you'll send them off to college, where you can call them at 530 in the morning and ask for milk.
@ShaLo--there's a third way. We just moved our 9 month old into his room and crib from a futon on the floor next to our bed (@6mo he moved to the floor), and we had one rough night with him crying with my husband in the room for 45 mins and then an hour with me when he realized he would not be going back to bed with us. In the course of three days he went from our room and nursing back down 6-7 times in the night to sleeping from 8-5 continuously, with exceptions, of course. This was harder on me than on him, as the night weaning definitely brought on a dip in hormones and I miss him every night, but overall the dynamic in our family is better. The key was really letting dad take control of bedtime--leave the house at bedtime for 2 weeks, no less , and let them get in a groove. Your baby will adjust, and if he doesn't, then it's not the right time but you will know when the right time comes around. There's 'The No Cry Sleep Solution' too, which is all about making a plan and evaluating.
posted by : anoninny on 5/12/2008 at 1:59 PM Flag For Abuse
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I've heard a couple of sleep books mentioned, so I thought I'd throw out the name of the one that has really helped us: "Sleepless in America: Practical Strategies to Help your Family Get the Sleep it Deserves" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka (also known for her "Raising Your Spirited Child" book and workbook). It offers a gentle, but practical approach, no "sleep training", and is consistent with co-sleeping. After reading this book, I realized that my (at the time) just-turned-4-year-old wasn't getting enough sleep, which was causing her to be overtired and therefore too wound up to fall asleep. We reintroduced afternoon naps and while that didn't completely solve all of her sleep issues, it did lessen them. Since she's my first, it seemed entirely counter-intuitive to me that my daughter could actually be too tired to sleep--but that's actually what turned out to be the case!
posted by : anonymous2 on 5/12/2008 at 2:20 PM Flag For Abuse
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i feel like the phrase "sleep training" immediately connotates a negative. how about "sleep teaching" because that is what you are really doing - teaching your kid to put themselves to sleep without you. i didn't start to sleep teach my child until he was 18 months...and that was too long to wait. up until then i couldn't bear to hear a wimper...i'd rush right in to comfort him. i didn't sleep for a year an a half. finally, i just hit a wall and realized it was something i needed to do. i was a wreck, i got mono...i was tired of being tired. and i think he was too. there was crying for the first night, less the second, less the third and by the fourth night, things were much better. i still get up once, sometimes more if it's a bad night (he's a very light sleeper) but it gradually gets better all the time. the book i loosely followed was "the baby sense system".
posted by : ab on 5/12/2008 at 2:31 PM Flag For Abuse
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You take a HUGE leap here. Yes, lack of sleep causes problems. But to say that co-sleeping and attachment parenting CAUSES lack of sleep, or that Crying it Out is the alternative shows quite a bias.
We did NOT cry it out and we are attachment parenting style parents and we have done some co-sleeping at various points. Our 21 month old daughter is well rested and is now sleeping through the night more and more (as in 11-12 hours straight) and talks a nice 2 hour nap each day AND I leave her sleepy, but awake.
I've never understood how leaving a child to cry for one or two hours "teaches" them to self-soothe. Where's the teaching? By singing to my newborn, she learned to sing herself to sleep as a toddler. That's teaching.
Of course, that is just anecdotal, but so is most of the "evidence" in this article.
The only "hard" evidence cited shows the effect of the lack of sleep, not how people got to that point. The "theory" that it is attachment parenting is not backed up by a single shred of anything that could be considered objective data.
And as to this bit:
"That's cited as evidence that you won't roll over on your kid during the night and you'll know if they stop breathing. Comforting to those fearing SIDS, yes. But we're wired to need deep sleep. Sleep lightly for too long and you end up exhausted."
Actually, this is the type of sleep newborns need. And I would rather take the self-soothing thing slowly and wait until it is developmentally appropriate than worry about a baby not rousing when he or she needs to. SIDS isn't something to take so lightly.
And finally, I would like to point out that for much of human history and in much of the world today, the majority of people co-slept with infants. And yet their children all ended up being perfectly functional members of society. So, while you may have a point about parent anxiety driving people over the edge today, it isn't "co-sleeping" or "healthy attachment" that is doing it.
Please separate these issues.
posted by : CaliMama on 5/12/2008 at 2:34 PM Flag For Abuse
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when our son was 18 months old and after months and months and months of failed attempts at attachment parenting sleep methods, we realized that he simply had to figure out for himself how to get himself to sleep. we gave him as much consistancy as possible in bedtime routine and we checked in on him but we stopped trying to help him get to sleep.
- first night was horrible.
- second night was better.
- ever since the third night -- over 8 months ago -- he's been a great sleeper. and we are ALL much, much happier.
i realize this won't work for every child, but it's what worked for us.
posted by : k1 on 5/12/2008 at 2:36 PM Flag For Abuse
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What a huge leap - parenting style results in sleep disturbances. Hmmm. Too bad you don't present more sides of the issue. How about the child's temperment? Diet? Exercise? Too much tv? Consistency indeed is key but whether you CIO (cry it out) or co-sleep or some combo has little to do with quality of sleep. Try reading any of Elizabeth Pantley's books on sleep - you can be a gentle no-cry parent and very easily teach your child to sleep.
posted by : akendall on 5/12/2008 at 2:41 PM Flag For Abuse
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I sleep trained both my kids using the Supernanny method to reassure them. I had ot be careful since my youngest was adopted as a toddler and needed extra reassurance. Took a few months and we had to be super consistant but at 4 and 5 they sleep great now. No night wakings in 2 years and they go to sleep in their own beds. They even crawl into their bed when they are ready to go to sleep! Best of all, they sleep really deep and well. They are healthy, slim and alert all day, never needing naps unless they are sick. I think sleep training is an important part of parenting. They need to learn to self soothe. To know that you are still there, they learn to trust that you will be there in the morning and trust themselves. I feel sorry for the kids with interrupted or light sleep. They are the groggy, grouchy ones at school. The chubby kid or the teensy, tiny one that does not sleep enough to release growth hormones. How terrible that these kids get crummy sleep, waking so many times a night, because their parents are too lazy to sleep train them. Poor, inadequate sleep is a health hazard. YOu can nurse your baby and have htem slep in their own beds. I did it. By 6 months they only wake like once to feed anyway. I never had to do a night time feed after that. I never slept with either of my kids and breatfeeding was a non issue with the one I nursed. I was willing to get up out of the bed to nurse her. Having her upright also prevented ear infections. Laying down to nurse caused one in my newborn.
posted by : cassie on 5/12/2008 at 2:56 PM Flag For Abuse
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Hooray for CaliMama's comment. I felt like this whole article was vague, not nearly as well-written as other things I've read on this site. I couldn't find a single thing to relate to, and it made me cranky and defensive. It think co-sleeping is not to blame for this "generation" of sleep problems, since it's what the majority of the world has been doing for the majority of human existence.
posted by : hippygoth on 5/12/2008 at 4:00 PM Flag For Abuse
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I guess I must not know how to put myself to sleep, and I have never learned to manage my emotions.
That's funny because I coslept with my parents and siblings growing up until I eventually wanted my own bed (not with my sister).
For some actual research on how kids who are attachment parented including not "trained' like animals to accept loss of parental love at the whims of mom and dad's "expert counsel", check out the various research on my website www.babywhys.org
If you want your kids to be happy, then treat them like you would want to be treated.
The reason they cannot fall asleep is because they do not think of sleep as a fun activity, they think of it as a punishment because it was the source of torture and obsesssion from their parents early on. Do you really think humans were designed to be put in cages, and sleep alone from birth? OH PUHLEEZE!!!!!
Think about it.
posted by : amyphilo on 5/12/2008 at 4:14 PM Flag For Abuse
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That's quite interesting, because I was "sleep-trained" and put in a crib to sleep, my mom never co-slept with me. And guess what, it now takes me hours to fall asleep! I slept wonderfully as a baby and started having sleep issues later on. Explain that one. Oh and yes, I do co-sleep. And I predict my daughter will be a better sleeper because of it.
posted by : gothymama on 5/12/2008 at 4:47 PM Flag For Abuse
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Give me a break. In many other countries, and in pre-Victorian Western history—like the pioneer days—babies sleep and slept with their mamas. Don't tell me those people were all sleep deprived all the time. And, why would sleeping with a baby be any more of a disturbance or cause lighter sleep than sleeping with a partner?
I nurse my 10.5 month old to sleep and naps then leave her to sleep on her own. We have a great set up of a futon on the floor so that I can join her when she needs me, and she can be independent when she is able without us fearing her falling off a bed. Sometimes she stirs and falls back to sleep by herself. Sometimes she needs help getting back to sleep. She is a baby. When she is older and we can communicate using language, I will explain to her how it's gonna be. I can assure you requests for juice boxes or other snacks will not be honored. Dealing with a baby and dealing with a kid are two different things.
My husband doesn't like to touch or cuddle when he is trying to sleep, so there's nothing lost by my going to sleep with the baby if she she needs me at night. Sex is sex, sleep is sleep. The two are separate for us.
I like Dr. Jay Gordon's philosophy on sleep.
I don't think sleep is something that needs to be "trained" I think it is something for which parents need to set the stage and help a child out with, but extended crying fits are just disruptive to everyone.
Sometimes when my little one won't settle down and wants to crawl all over or do acrobatic nursing instead of winding down to sleep, I leave her to sort herself out for 5-10 minutes. She cries. I let her cry for the short time so she can get her rambunctiousness out of her system, then I come back and nurse her to sleep and she's ready for sleep. I don't like letting her cry for more than a few minutes.
I know my way is kind of a mixed up amalgam of stuff, but it works for us.
posted by : mama in nove on 5/12/2008 at 4:48 PM Flag For Abuse
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This is the most reasonable comment section on babble I've ever read! Thank God there are those who are willing to think about issue rather than taking "expert" advice. I so like mama in nove's comments, it's how we're doing it in our house more or less... thanks to all those who have reasonable thoughts about sleeping, it reaffirms my faith in humanity.
posted by : babble shmabble on 5/12/2008 at 5:24 PM Flag For Abuse
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It makes me sick to think that a mother can listen to her baby cry for more than the few minutes it takes to get to him and comfort him. Forty-five minutes? How absolutely, unbearably cruel ... even for one night! No amount of crying is worth a full night's sleep for us! We co-sleep and practice attachment parenting. We've employed the help of The No-Cry Sleep Solution with very good results. Are we tired? Yes. Does our baby know that someone is there for him when he is lonely or scared or hungry or uncomfortable? Absolutely ... and that's the most important thing for him!
posted by : SrndptyGddss on 5/12/2008 at 5:50 PM Flag For Abuse
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Give me a break; people in less developed countries and people from pre-Victorian History shouldn't be our role models on how to live our modern lives! Maybe if they would have gotten some sleep they wouldn't have had a life span of 45! Maybe we should be like the people in less developed countries and drink polluted water and live in hovels since they're so wonderful. No thank you. My son slept with me for the first couple of months now he's in his crib sleeping 12-13 hours a night and he takes a three hour nap during the day. I have a stuffed frog that plays music and that's a big help, but if he's tired he'll curl up and fall asleep. He's never CIO, but I totally would have done that for my own longevity and sanity. If a baby is fed, clean, warm, and comfortable is it really so monstrous that they cry? They don't really need anything, they just want some attention. I'm sure that there's plenty of times when they want attention and you can't get to them that very second so they cry. How about when you're in the car and they cry, are you supposed to pull over on the side of the road and take them out of their carseat and give them a snuggle? I wouldn't. Baby's aren't going to die or be irreparably damaged from a little crying. In the whole scheme of things, 45 minutes is a little crying.
posted by : letthemcry on 5/12/2008 at 6:49 PM Flag For Abuse
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Is Japan a "less developed country"? Co-sleeping is the norm there. (So I have read.) We're not necessarily talking about only less developed countries. Americans' obsession with individual independence need not be forced upon infants, for heaven's sake.
Even if we *were* talking about less developed countries, there are some primal things, basic things, like birth itself, the bond between mother and child, and sleep, that perhaps are better left without modernization. Sleep training is for the convenience of the parents to make babies fit into our adult world.
They are babies for such a short time! For me, I don't like to force too much on mine. If other people want to let their baby cry and scream, that's cool. I believe that by being gentle and responsive to her I am building a better bond of trust. We can't really get into their heads and know why they cry. Attention is a real need. Being held and cuddled is real. What is so wrong with a baby wanting to be cuddled?
posted by : gp4avie on 5/12/2008 at 8:41 PM Flag For Abuse
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We co-slept with our now-eight year old until she asked for her own room and own bed at two and a half. Of course, she woke up frequently to nurse as an infant, but by the time she was 18 months I explained that the "mimmies" (her word) need to sleep too and she accepted that, so we night-weaned. I was tired through her baby and toddler years, but I've never yet met a mother of young children who wasn't. She asked us to lie down with her as she fell asleep until she was about 5, but loves her own room and bed and never has or had trouble falling back to sleep unless ill or after a bad nightmare. She's been a stellar sleeper for years now, yet according to this article and lots of other conventional experts we did everything wrong! By the by, she's also happy, healthy, loving, attached and relatively mature for her age, hardly the spoiled and clingy child we supposedly were raising. Perhaps we were just lucky, or perhaps our attachment parenting principles delivered what they promised.
posted by : coslept on 5/13/2008 at 12:21 AM Flag For Abuse
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I'll echo. Across the globe, and across the centuries, children have slept with their parents. Apparently people like "letthemcry" consider this backward. I consider it natural, logical and a completely understandable result of our biology - human children are born much too immature to feed or defend themselves, and they are programmed to do everything possible to keep an adult nearby.
Are people in "our modern lives" really sleep training because they are worried that their children are sleeping too lightly? Or are they sleep training because they want their children to be less trouble?
posted by : catmom on 5/13/2008 at 1:48 AM Flag For Abuse
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Sleep training is yet another industry to induce paranoia in parents. I was in and out of my parents bed all the time as a child, waking frequently each night, and I sleep fine now.
My two year old is still put to bed by my husband or I each night, because we're not proponents of cry it out and can't take the screaming, and he wakes midway through the night and we bring him into our bed where he promptly falls back asleep - and yet he puts himself to sleep every day at daycare so he has the capacity put himself to sleep, he's just conditioned to expect us there at night.
I know lots of people who practice CIO - and their kids are waking in the night too, and fighting going to sleep.
I refuse to get worked up about this, no one begins university not able to get to sleep.
posted by : hoagy294 on 5/13/2008 at 12:29 PM Flag For Abuse
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Most of the comments here really made me feel better. I don't know...most of the time I just feel like I'm not doing anything right, and sleep is just one other thing that I obsess and feel insecure about. I suppose it will all work out. While I miss the closeness with my husband, I know that the baby will be out of the bed one day soon, and I will miss these months with her. I work full-time and am away from her for 10 hours every day. It's nice to be close to her in the night. It feels right for us, at least. At any rate, I'm going to 1) check out some of these books that were suggested and 2) stop worrying so much about this.
posted by : ShaLO on 5/13/2008 at 12:54 PM Flag For Abuse
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maybe what people should take away from this rather than being judgemental is that there are many different ways to go about this. the article is more information to add to quite a bit of research that is already out there. the "any parent that hears their baby cry for five minutes and doesn't go in is horrible" argument is really ridiculous and nasty. "bad parents" wouldn't be bothering to engage in a conversation about what worked for them on a child focused website. there are lots of ways to parent and lots of ways to teach kids how to sleep. i suspect most people do a mix of the two... i co-slept for 18 months before engaging in some kid of methodology to create a situation where i could finally get more than two hours of sleep at a time. does that mean i let my kid scream for a half an hour in the middle of the night while i sleep peacefully - of course not! sometimes he winds up in my bed, sometimes not.
and in our "modern world", unfortunately, some of us need to work to provide for our children and yes, we need to sleep in order to keep our jobs! that is reality. i don't think that makes people bad parents for chrissakes.
posted by : ab on 5/13/2008 at 1:48 PM Flag For Abuse
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letthemcry--
The problem isn't whether something is "monstrous" or not. It is the absurd logic, lack of evidence, and total bias in this article.
AP and no-cry methods and co-sleeping do not cause lack of sleep, there is no evidence in this article they do, and in fact there is a mountain of evidence available to the contrary.
posted by : CaliMama on 5/13/2008 at 3:06 PM Flag For Abuse
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I read this article yesterday and thought, oh no, I might be spoiling my daughter, I need to toughen up and let her cry a bit. Everybody tells me this. So I tried, I really tried. I let her cry for half an hour, checking in on her every five minutes or so but not picking her up. Finally I couldn't stand it any more and picked her up and sang her a lullaby--she was out in less than two minutes. I should know better by now than to take parenting lessons from a website and should have more faith in my instincts, but you folks keep snookering me... It seems to me that babies sleep how they sleep and there's no need to make someone feel bad about soothing a crying child. Hmph.
posted by : Shines on 5/13/2008 at 4:56 PM Flag For Abuse
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I went back to work when my son turned three and a half months old. I commuted 100 miles a day on a straight, two lane road. I pumped and continued nursing while my mother watched my son for the eight or so hours a day I spent working and commuting. (Yes, I'm blessed.) In the end, I didn't "choose" CIO--by the time my son was 6 months old and sleeping without nursing for six to eight hours at a time, I didn't really hear him cry! Exhausted, drooling, and face-down on my pillow, I would hear him cry at first and resolve to wait ten minutes to do the soothe/reassure routine. Then I'd wake up hours later. I think the combination of working, driving on that boring road, nursing a huge and hungry boy and not feeling guilty because he spent the day with a care provider I trusted led to a deep sleep that made the whole what-theory-do-I-believe-in moot. I agree, waiting consciously for forty-five minutes would be hard; I feel rather stunned that I slept through it! If you don't know how you feel about this issue, try total and utter exhaustion...
posted by : sleepy mom on 5/13/2008 at 8:37 PM Flag For Abuse
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I agree with most that this article is vague. Here's a specific real life tip I wish I had a year ago: For those of you who are in that weird middling stage of having a toddler or older child who needs to sleep before you and likes your prolonged company at bedtime, I suggest buying a nintendo DS--keeps you from falling asleep after the whole bath and book routine. My husband and I are both totally willing to put the kids to bed because it means 15-30 minutes of playing a video game while whispering shhhhh. Just don't wear glasses or the kids will be able to see the screen reflected.
posted by : sbr on 5/13/2008 at 11:21 PM Flag For Abuse
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Oh, AB. I work. And I co-sleep. And now, at age 2, my daughter generally sleeps from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. with no awakenings that I notice and a 2-3 hour midday nap at her nana's. It hasn't always been this way, and in the future, I don't expect it to always be this way, because she will continue to develop at her own pace. Toilet training, tooth eruptions, illness, bad dreams and probably a million things I can't anticipate will affect us day and night - just as they affect families who use separate bedrooms or cribs or toddler beds or whatever - whether or not they used a cry-it-out technique and whether or not they feel they "need" their sleep any more than anybody else.
I didn't "teach" her to sleep the way she does now, any more than I "taught" her to crawl or to walk. I only tried to make bedtime and sleep as peaceful and nonthreatening as possible, and to meet her logical and natural need to keep me close. I hope this has paid off, and will continue to pay off, with smooth and happy bedtimes, but there's certainly no guarantee that it has, or that it will. As someone above said, correlation is not the same as causation.
This article suggests co-sleeping causes children's sleep problems but doesn't really have much data to back it up, and it appears to recommend sleep training as the solution. So I'll ask again - are these people really concerned with the quality of children's sleep? Or are they just trying to make their children less troublesome?
posted by : catmom on 5/14/2008 at 1:25 AM Flag For Abuse
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There is more than one way to do something correctly. Unfortunately when discussing sleep (and breastfeeding), it seems that people have trouble seeing any way but there own and too often guilt and accusation are employed as debate techniques. Why do we think that one way fits all with sleeping but we allow for different developmental timelines and expectations on all other matters?
I co-slept with my son for the first 6 months of his life and neither of us slept well. We were both up every 1 to 3 hours during the night and we were all exhausted. It seemed hardest on my son who was out of sorts most of the time and his emotions were hair trigger.
After 6 months we realized something had to give. My son was clearly overtired and neither my husband nor I were able to be as engaged a parent as we wanted to be because we were completely exhausted. It was at that point that we decided to address the sleep issues that existed in our household and give something else a try. We taught (yes, taught) our son how to sleep in his own crib and how to put himself to sleep at night. We did it gently and incrementally but we did allow him to do some crying. He was protesting the change in habits and although we knew that he was not happy about the change, we also knew that what we were doing previously wasn't working and that this would benefit him.
Does this mean that I believe that co-sleeping is wrong? Absolutely not. Does it mean that co-sleeping did not work for my family. Yes. Both my husband and I miss sleeping with our son and cuddling that warm little body. But we definitely would much rather have the happy, energetic and engaged child my son has become now that he is getting the sleep he needs. I recently tried to co-sleep with my son while he was sick, thinking he might want that extra cuddle time with me. He tossed and turned until finally I put him in the crib where he heaved a huge sigh of relief and immediately went to sleep. During the day he is an extremely physically affectionate child but at night he wants his space to sleep soundly. It's how he sleeps best and I feel that I should honor that.
Some of the comments posted here have been so inflammatory and upsetting. Among the most accusatory of the comments is: "It makes me sick to think that a mother can listen to her baby cry for more than the few minutes it takes to get to him and comfort him...How absolutely, unbearably cruel...We co-sleep and practice attachment parenting...Are we tired? Yes. Does our baby know that someone is there for him when he is lonely or scared or hungry or uncomfortable? Absolutely…" Although my son sleeps in his crib, he knows that I am there for him if he is lonely, scared, hungry or uncomfortable. Just because we do not co-sleep does not mean that we do not go to him when he needs us.
Other posters have stated: "Sleep training is for the convenience of the parents to make babies fit into our adult world" and "So I'll ask again - are these people really concerned with the quality of children's sleep? Or are they just trying to make their children less troublesome?" I guess, as one of "these people" I feel the need to respond to these questions. Yes, I was definitely concerned with the quality of my son's sleep. He was clearly overtired and unhappy. Am I trying to make my child less troublesome? No, I am not. I am trying to be a good parent and meet his needs. In our case that meant not co-sleeping. In your case you may be able to meet your child's needs in a different way. I just ask that you not make accusations when you don't understand my or others' situations.
posted by : CFJ on 5/14/2008 at 9:25 AM Flag For Abuse
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I have made mistakes with both my kids aged 4 and 7 years but the one thing I feel we got more right was sleep! And as someone said here it does not mean we have no problems...we have picky eating as our albatross. BUT I am a poor sleeper and I knew that if I had kids who did not sleep and I was their primary caregiver (husband consultant who travels), I could not have handled it at all. So starting at 3 months both kids were sleep trained WITHOUT crying it out and learned to sleep in the crib. I had to let my now 4 year old cry it out for 20 mins for naps at age 8 months bc he was very very clingy and I carried him constantly during the day (night he slept but naps were a different matter) and he was very high needs. BUT once I set my mind to it and let him cry it out for naps...it took 3 days and he was sleeping 2 hour naps during the day. And was happier and less clingy over all! Both my kids are pretty good sleepers...we have had some sleep issues with bad dreams and begs to stay with them till they fall asleep but as long as its not a nightly thing...I have no problem indulging them once a week or so. They are absolutely not allowed out of bed and they can call us if they really need us but if its a silly reason then they lose privileges. It works...you need to be consistent and if you are wishy washy it will not work.
posted by : dallasmom on 5/14/2008 at 9:25 AM Flag For Abuse
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SBR---how the heck do you keep the child from wanting to play the video game, too? My 11 month old would be all over that, and I can't imagine an older kid not being interested.
posted by : gp4avie on 5/14/2008 at 11:03 AM Flag For Abuse
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I coslept with my daughter, who is now three. She tells us she's ready for bed at around 8pm(7 when it gets dark earlier), goes to sleep and then sleeps through the night. She never formally learned to "self soothe". We didn't force her to cry it out. She always had me to snuggle with at night, until one day she just decided that she'd rather sleep on her own, undisturbed.
I cosleep with my son(21mo). He's an awful sleeper. I doubt he'll be anything like my daughter and I suspect he'll be in my bed for an awful long time.
I slept on my own as a baby. I've always been a horrible sleeper. I remember my parents struggling with me to go to sleep for hours and hours, and I would almost always wake up at night and go bug them. I WAS "taught" to self soothe, but it didn't work for me so much! lol.
There's a thousand different scenarios and a thousand different outcomes. One parenting style may be right for on type of child, while on another child it may be useless. There is no one right way to do things.
posted by : anon on 5/14/2008 at 12:23 PM Flag For Abuse
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Well do I remember the days when, out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, we began sleep training with our first. It was brutal, over an hour of crying the first night, but then -- 20 minutes the second, and by the third night, not a wimper. Developmentally, he began making bigger strides when he got better sleep (that is, when he slept alone). And I actually felt HUMAN for the first time in 15 months. Learning to self-soothe and get yourself to sleep is a gift that parents must give their children.
posted by : girliegirl on 5/15/2008 at 8:13 AM Flag For Abuse
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I'll recommend a book called The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland, particularly the chapter on sleeping. Sunderland is an expert in the development of children's brains and uses research to cast light on effective approaches to several parenting topics, including sleep. She is not against what's known as "sleep training," as a whole, but has quite a bit to say on cry-it-out and its long term effect on brain function. Sunderland also discusses how the gradual development of higher brain function explains why older children naturally become more comfortable sleeping on their own.
If you look at this or other books from people trained in child development, it seems pretty clear that babies are bad sleepers - it is part of the definition of being a baby. Describing a six month old as having hair trigger emotions, when six month olds generally haven't developed emotional regulation, or as crying to manipulate an outcome, rather than from a direct stimulus of hunger or pain or fear, doesn't seem to reflect much of what this area of study has to say.
posted by : catmom on 5/15/2008 at 11:58 AM Flag For Abuse
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I'd like to join with some of the parents above who say that sleep-training was a wonderful thing for their families. I was so resistant to it for so long, mostly because when I looked around online all I saw were things like the above scare-mongering about how our son would be scarred for life and how we were terrible people if we let our son cry at all.
But our pediatrician (who by the way totally agrees with the thesis of this article that a rise in attachment parenting has made for a generation of poor sleepers!) encouraged us to give it a shot when our son was about 8 months old and nursing to fall asleep, then waking up several times a night.
I was sick about it, but tried it, and like some of the above posters found that it was miserable for about half an hour the first night, 15 minutes the next, and heaven ever since. I think our son was more ready than we were. Now when we put him to bed, he waves bye-bye to us, rolls over and falls asleep - for naps and at night.
I would also say that every kid is different, but overall of the kids I know who are happy, secure and well-behaved, pretty much every single one was allowed to cry some to fall asleep. And of the kids I know who are neurotic, almost every single one has parents who are afraid of them ever being upset for a second.
posted by : crying is part of life on 5/15/2008 at 1:10 PM Flag For Abuse
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I thought this article was a one sided as well. It only looks briefly into what direct lack of sleep appears to do in later years--makes children aggressive, overweight and bad sleepers, evidently. What the article doesn't even discuss is the positives of co-sleeping--not for the parent, but for the child. We have an entire society of detached children who don't understand empathy or compassion. I believe that if we allow articles like this to dictate how we are as parents, rather than following our intuition, we're going to be stressed and tired--not because our children aren't sleeping through the night in their own crib, but because we're doing something that feels wrong. Do I wish sometimes my 14 month old didn't need me to fall back asleep when she wakes at night? Absolutely. But I have to trust my intuition that says being their for her a a baby will help her to become a confident adult. She'll learn in her own time. (Right with you, CaliMama!)
posted by : mountain_girl on 5/15/2008 at 1:38 PM Flag For Abuse
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You don't think twice about the sage advice given in case of emergency on a plane: "Place the oxygen mask over your face first before assisting your child." Why doubt it in other similar instances? Whether to sleep-train or not is dependent upon how well you and your family can survive the sleep deprivation that may come with co-sleeping or all-night nursing/soothing. If you can handle that kind of sleep deprivation and still be a great caregiver, no problem! On the other hand, if lack of sleep feels like lack of oxygen--if you are scatter-brained, depressed and beginning to resent the demands of your baby--by all means sleep-train. Your child's benefit will be twofold: s/he will learn to sooth him/herself to sleep AND wake each morning to a happy, well-rested caregiver.
posted by : excellentSleeper on 5/16/2008 at 2:50 PM Flag For Abuse
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I keep hearing "sleep train" and CIO and I want to say, yes, of course children cry. And yes, of course, you can't always prevent all crying. The question is can you make the child feel more comfortable and confident in sleeping without leaving them to cry for an hour, or even more. That's what Ferber advocates.
And just as some who used CIO methods resent the implication that they are unfeeling monsters (which, for the record, I have not said), I resent the implication that I am a permissive parent who is not teaching my daughter independence.
Attachment parenting is about building a secure bond SO THAT your child can be more independent.
And "no-cry" and AP don't ALWAYS mean co-sleeping. These are separate things. "No Cry" just means you don't leave the child alone to cry until he or she falls asleep.
excellentSleeper--
AGAIN the assumption is that co-sleeping equals poor sleep. Sorry, but there is only evidence that co-sleeping NEWBORNS sleep LIGHTER--which helps prevent SIDS.
There is no evidence that co-sleeping (or attachment parenting, which does not mean co-sleeping) results in poor sleep. In fact, many co-sleepers or no-cry soothers report the opposite.
Some nights my daughter sleeps the whole night through (12 hours) in her crib and other nights she calls to come into bed once and then sleeps the rest of the night with us. In either case, we get plenty of sleep.
posted by : CaliMama on 5/17/2008 at 9:22 AM Flag For Abuse
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This was a one-sided article that did not give any information other than what happens to older children when they do not get enough sleep. She unsuccessfully argued that infants who co-sleep are somehow bad sleepers later in life. This is simpply not true. I have coslept with my three children as infants/toddlers. They all are excellent sleepers now (11,10 and 4)
Infants need to eat every 2-3 hours. They are not supposed to be sleeping deeply through the night. Dr. James McKenna found that a mother's biological sleep needs change after giving birth. She becomes a light sleeper regardless of where the baby sleeps. It is nature's way of making sure mom's are responsive to their infants needs!
The author used his findings and misreprented them. She quoted his evidence that a mom sleeping with her infant sleeps more lightly as a basis for her argument that mom's can't sleep well with their infant! That is not what his findings were. A well written article tells about all the reputable research and findings in this area- then gives her opinion. Instead she picked what research would support her opinion. I can tell you that I slept much better with my infant snuggled beside me. Now that my children are older and sleep in their own rooms, I look back on that special time with tender fondness- it is such a short period of your life.
posted by : Real Mom X three on 5/18/2008 at 11:21 AM Flag For Abuse
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I slept well as an infant and then started having night terrors at a certain point, which continued into my early twenties. I think if I'd been invited to sleep in the same ROOM with other members of my family that I would have slept more soundly. Sleeping alone in the dark, with no one else even vaguely within earshot, was completely terrifying.
I'm not sure why more families don't have their infants and toddlers sleeping in a bassinet in the same room. Putting a child in a lonely room, far from other people, seems counterintuitive to me. I think co-sleeping makes a lot of sense while breastfeeding. Moving a weaned child into a small bed in the same room makes sense. Letting multiple children share a bed together makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is sending a child away to a room, alone.
Where did we get this idea that everyone needs their own room, their own bed, their own place far away from everyone else? The sound of another living being breathing is probably one of the most comforting sounds a human being will ever hear.
I think putting a small child alone in a room is a strange thing to do, really, unless that particular child enjoys sleeping alone. If segregated sleeping is clearly a problem, why assume that the child is the problem and not the lonely bedroom?
posted by : HoneyHaze on 5/19/2008 at 3:12 AM Flag For Abuse
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Sorry I think this article is tommyrot. It says "Babies who can't self-soothe quickly grow into preschoolers who won't sleep unless there's a cuddly parent in their bed." This is nonsense. It leads to the even more nonsensical argument that you'll have a college student in your bed if you don't sleep train.
Let's think back to all the partners/roommates/friends who came for sleepovers we've had since we were 4. Can you tell which were sleep trained and which weren't? No.
Kids will sleep through the night when they're ready. They'll self-soothe when they're ready. Even if you do absolutey nothing. It might not be at 3 weeks as you might wish. Or at 6 months which is when the pediatricians and busybodies start nagging you to sleep train. But it ALWAYS happens. Which belies the argument that it is somehow necessary to sleep train.
My son was not ready until he was 11 months old. Yes my husband and I were exhausted by then.Yes he woke EVERY TWO HOURS every night from birth until then. But he wasn't tired. He was perfectly fine with the broken sleep that left us exhausted. He didn't feel the difference between a "straight through" night and a broken night until he was nearly 2 years old and was up a lot with illness.
It is nothing more than parental desires to have the child sleep through the night from a young age. The child doesn't need it to be well rested. And there are detriments to sleep training which are not acknowledged by the article.
This is just another installment in making parents feel a)bad if they don't make their kids scream in terror and abandonment from 6 months on, b)make parents who are willing to put their kid through that feel good about themselves.
It totally misses the point that there are loads of well rested kids out there who don't sleep through the night (at least until they're 2 years old). Yes they have exhausted parents but hey, you signed up for that. They'll sleep through and self soothe when they're ready and I suspect that those who are poor sleepers at 3 and 4 are the ones whose parents tried and failed to sleep train, not the ones whose parents let them find their own way in their own time.
posted by : opusprime on 5/19/2008 at 10:26 PM Flag For Abuse
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Someone said "I co-slept with my son for the first 6 months of his life and neither of us slept well. We were both up every 1 to 3 hours during the night and we were all exhausted."
No - you were exhausted and that is normal and part of your role. Your son was fine. He probably needed to wake that often for feeds anyway and to the extent he woke more frequently he would be just fine with broken sleep and lighter sleep because THAT IS WHAT BABIES DO!
So you think he was out of sorts most of the time? Did it occur to you that he was just fine and you were out of sorts? Not that that is an excuse for sleep training.
What you described is perfectly normal for every baby until AT LEAST 6 months, if not longer. And yes breastfed babies will need a night feed for longer than formula fed babies. IS that a good reason to give them inferior nutrition? There are lots of good reasons to use formula, but getting a night's sleep isn't one.
Being completely exhausted as a parent is NORMAL. It shows you're doing exactly what they need, responding to them when they need it rather than focussing on pretty baby parties and other things you might do if you were not tired.
I think you've been conned (conveniently) into thinking you're doing the best for your son or that he NEEDED it. No doubt at some point babies do start to sleep better on their own and naturally gravitate to that. No doubt at some point they switch to needing deeper sleep and more unbroken sleep like we do. That is NOT true for ANY child in the first 6 months. Your actions simply punished your son for not being a mini-adult. Perhaps he does sleep deeper now. Perhaps that is because he was trained (ie trained like an animal not taught like a human using reason) to have more stress hormones and pass out exhausted knowing Mommy would never come and get him. Perhaps that leads him to be more affectionate in the daytime because he instinctively wants to please you and make you show more love than when you wouldn't go get him at night. Ever thought that might be the underlying reason for your "effects" of sleep training?
posted by : appalled mama on 5/19/2008 at 10:48 PM Flag For Abuse
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None of these parents (except one) has mentioned their own childhood memories of sleeping alone in a room by themselves.
I slept well and still tend to sleep well. However, I have very strong, frightening memories of waking alone in the middle of the night as a young child and being terrified (of monsters, ghosts, etc.). My parent's room was across the hall and I was also frightened to get out of bed and expose myself to whatever monsters were out there. My parents never let me into their bed (I would often sleep at the end on the floor, in the puddle of covers there).
I felt alone during the night and afraid, often. Certainly that would disappear when I awoke the next morning and I would think of other things. Did it affect my relationships with my mother and father?
Yes, I think it did. I did not trust them to know what I might need. I didn't trust them to take care of me emotionally. I learned to keep my fears to myself and not show any strong emotion. No doubt other behaviors they exhibited contributed to this result, but I believe the nighttime treatment of me did contribute strongly.
My son is 2.5. He sleeps on a separate bed from us, but in our room. We comfort him if he needs it. He no longer naps and sleeps about 11 hours a night.
Why do people sleep with their dogs but banish their children to another room? It puzzles both my husband and I.
posted by : SJR on 5/20/2008 at 11:19 AM Flag For Abuse
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My goodness, this is a hot topic. I would love to see some of the co-sleepers stop with the name-calling...I mean, really, appalled mama is your screen name? We are all moms here...would you be so rude in person at the park?
I would like the co-sleepers to read a book called "Baby Wise". It is written by several authors who have different specialties i.e. Pediatricians, moms, child psychologists. The ideas in this wonderful book not only focus on sleep training, but eating habits as well. It's main focus is that "a baby is welcome addition to our family who should adapt to the family's schedule, not the family adapting to an infants' schedule". The book discusses how rested parents are better parents, and when your infant adapts to the family instead of the inverse, they become more "we" centric than "me" centric. Children who are more "we" centric are more likely to adapt better to their surroundings i.e. the real world (or daycare, preschool, or kindergarten). The books states very that a child who is on-demand fed or needs the comfort of a parent for sleep will have more trouble when they are in an environment that does not cater to their every need at the moment they want it. To me, that makes a ton of sense. The book also discusses how CIO can actually help children feel secure as they know that even when their parents are not right there with them, they are still in a safe environment which builds and enhances self esteem. It's kind of like paper training a puppy--why do you want to teach it to pee on a paper inside the house when the ultimate goal is to teach him how to pee outside. I don't think it is any less frightening to let a child sleep with you for months or years to then push them to sleep alone when they are old enough to be aware that they are alone. I used "BabyWise" techniques and had both of my babies sleeping through the night within 8 weeks. It's not just letting them CIO, there are more steps that involve feeding, playtime, awake time, etc...Was it the sleep training or just their hard wiring? We'll never know for sure. What I do know is that I am a rested and fully-functioning parent with children who adore me. I do not mean for this to sound bitchy, but it may to some. After reading all of the posts, it is very clear to me who is getting rest at night and who is not. The co-sleepers come off so angry and accusatory, using charged words (such as cruel and appalling) and communicate in such an unproductive way. I really hope that sort of talk is reserved for ranting on websites and not to your children because you are so exhausted.
posted by : Erica on 5/23/2008 at 3:16 AM Flag For Abuse
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Erica, when I went to the new mom's class at my local hospital, "Babywise" was the only book that the group leader - a veteran nurse, lactation consultant and the best respected parenting advocate I know - actually warned us away from. These apparently are ideas about childrearing that originate in the Ezzo's fundamental religious beliefs that revolve around a child's unquestioning acceptance of authority. The original curriculum was called "Growing Kids God's Way," and On Becoming Babywise was the same book with references to God stripped out for the mainstream audience. The feeding recommendations led to some pretty scary incidents of failure to thrive across the country, which the authors brushed away as people not really understanding their recommendations, but it bothered the AAP enough to react to it and a growing number of people of faith have rejected it. Not many people share your view of the authors as experts.
You might want to take a look at these sites for more information:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/08/cov_06feature.html
http://www.ezzo.info/
Here's a nice summary from a faith perspective
http://charitygrace78.blogspot.com/2006/02/gary-ezzo-and-babywise.html
along with one of my favorite websites
http://www.gentlechristianmothers.com/
And while I am truly glad your kids adore you, the reports I've read say the Ezzos are estranged from several of their adult children. I doubt that had to do with their sleeping arrangements, but I think it's important to know, since I'm hoping for a different parenting outcome.
posted by : catmom on 5/24/2008 at 12:20 AM Flag For Abuse
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Catmom,
I appreciate your information and I did read nearly all of the articles. The articles did not seem to be based on any fact other than 2 articles written by doctors who seemed to be speculating. I didn't see any statistics of studies or research that was completed on children reared this way. It also seems to be a bit of debate between faiths rather than debate about parenting...i.e making broad statements about "principles in the bible". I am a non-practicing Christian--respectful of organized religions but still hesitant of them. I would not allow the word god in my marriage ceremony, nor have I decided to baptize my children. If there were a single word of religious propaganda in that book, I assure you, I would have picked up on it. There is no advice on discipline given in the book, only that we should strive to have our children to have structure and teach them to be considerate of others. By no means do they encourage you to starve babies and they encourage moms to follow their instincts. The only eating habit they discourage is allowing babies to "snack". They recommend that babies be fed every 2.5 to 3 hours, however they encourage a wake, eat, play/awake/ sleep cycle within those 3 hours. They suggest this is as a guideline, not an absolute time schedule. Sleep, eat, and wake times are determined by the parent based on the baby's needs. I have read so many more articles (and have had personal experience with a lactation nurse) about babies who are failing to thrive because mom's milk hasn't come in yet and the lactation specialist advise them not to give a bottle. It happened to me and two of my friends. Newborn babies are at the highest risk for dehydration and the La Leche league's advice is to keep trying and to not give a bottle. That kind of information seems far more dangerous to me than trying to implement good eating habits in your child. Lactation specialists in general believe in on-demand feeding as a general rule and does not concede to any other possibilities. I bet if you do some research you'll find that those articles can actually be traced to people in LLL. If I have time, I will try and trace them back myself...my husband is in a profession where he has access to lots of databases. I do appreciate your kind tone of voice, and strongly encourage you to read this book for yourself to decide.
posted by : Erica on 5/24/2008 at 1:18 AM Flag For Abuse
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Erica, I'm pretty sure the debate that caught the attention of the AAP wasn't about religion, but about whether adhering to this book was leading to cases of failure to thrive. It's pretty clear the Ezzos think of the La Leche League as a nemesis, but that's not an argument I'm particularly interested in since my daughter, adopted at birth, was formula fed.
I hope you've had a chance to read this pediatrician's review of the issue for the AAP's journal, after he studied several accounts of low weight gain and failure to thrive associated with the book:
http://www.ezzo.info/Aney/aneyaap.htm
He says the book's advice is in direct opposition to the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for newborn feeding. He says the book is marketed as medically supported but makes many unsubstantiated medical claims, and lists them. Perhaps his key critique is this:
"Unfortunately, the schedule in "Babywise" does not take into account differences among breastfeeding women and babies. According to one report, differences of up to 300 percent in the maximum milk storage capacity of women's breasts mean that, although women have the capability of producing the same amount of milk over a 24-hour period for their infants, some will have to breastfeed far more frequently than others to maintain that supply. Babies must feed when they need to, with intervals and duration determined according to a variety of factors in temperament, environment, and physiological make-up. Averages may fit into a bell-shaped curve, but some babies will require shorter intervals. (Daly S., Hartmann P. "Infant demand and milk supply, Part 2. The short-term control of milk synthesis in lactating women." Journal of Human Lactation; 11; (1):27-37)."
In other words, what Ezzo might consider forbidden midnight snacking might be absolutely essential to the health of some children. Which is why demand feeding is the recommendation of the AAP.
posted by : catmom on 5/24/2008 at 3:47 AM Flag For Abuse
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I am surprised by the angry responses to the author's approach on the subject matter. Look at the opinions of others and then develop your own. I actually have a somewhat moderate opinion but found it interesting the way she interpreted the research.
I have seen, in my own experience, that some children become attached to the stimulation at night and do not get good sleep. I am not talking about even a six month old or a year old who eats at night. I have seen parents carry this pattern on well past nine years as the child still did not sleep through the night until the parents basically let him CIO. He now sleeps through the night.
Sometimes, the parenting practice does not match the personality of the child and the health of everyone in the family must be taken into account and give a context to your decisions regardless of who your favorite parenting author has been.
I can see the areas of grey in the debate and I also understand the importance of sleep.
There are many levels of co-sleeping and sleep training. Some are extreme others are not. I just can't see why those of you who co-sleep are so angry that someone has a different point of view based on their own research.
I know families who have co-slept with their infants who have had good results. I know people who have been extreme in their co-sleeping who also do not allow a child to self-soothe in any situation (even after they have long since left toddlerhood) these results were terrible. Of course, it these cases it is always more than just co-sleeping.
I know families who have used other "sleep training" methods and who have secure, attached and healthy children who are good sleepers. I know authoritarian parents who left children to fend for themselves at all times with a terrible cost as well.
I think it is the extreme approaches to parenting and the extreme stances regarding parenting that lead to problems. I think this author stated her stance well. Ask yourselves - why does this make you so angry?
posted by : The Big Picture on 5/27/2008 at 4:06 PM Flag For Abuse
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I really believe that kids are born with their personalities, and that includes their sleep personality.
I'm a lousy sleeper. I always have been, and trust me when I say my parents were NOT cuddling me and gently coaxing me to sleep. In the early '70s, starting when I was about 4, they used to drug me with prescription sleeping medicine to get me to sleep because they just didn't want to deal with it. I stopped taking the drugs when I was about 8 or 9, but I still took hours to fall asleep, and still often do.
My husband, on the other hand, falls asleep within about 3 minutes of his head hitting the pillow. It kills me sometimes as I'm tossing and turning trying to fall asleep and he's snoozing away already.
Unfortunately, my daughter inherited my sleep gene instead of my husband's. As an infant, she never napped for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. She took frequent naps through the day, five or six sometimes, but very, very short ones. And yes, I absolutely indulged her. I learned early on that she slept better and longer if I held her and nursed her while she napped, becoming that human pacifier I always swore I would never be. (Of course, she refused from birth on to take a regular pacifier ...)
And we learned early on that she slept better and longer if we co-slept, so we did until she hit age 2.
Now, at age 3.5, she still needs a parent (usually daddy) to lie down with her to get her to sleep in the evening. (And yes, he often falls asleep next to her for 30-45 minutes. And then gets up and gets online to do more work ... all those bad things you mention.)
But she's finally sleeping through the night, at least half the time, on her own. And we're not feeling sleep deprived, and really haven't since she turned a year old if not before.
You hear about the kids who co-sleep until age 10 or 12, or constantly need to be put back to sleep by a parent. But really, I think they're the minority. Almost all of my friends co-slept, at least while nursing, and all the kids are now in their own beds and most of them sleep through the night just fine.
A previous commenter said that she thought different kids need to be parented differently, and I totally think that's true. I look at my siblings and myself and I see how different our personalities are and think how much better our childhoods would have been if our parents had treated us like individuals instead of using one-size-fits-all parenting techniques.
posted by : Best Mom I Can Be on 6/9/2008 at 3:07 PM Flag For Abuse
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FYI catmom...there are links on the home page of the LLL for this article...hmn...I think you are the misguided one. Special interest groups are everywhere, learn to see between the lines.
posted by : open your mind on 8/13/2008 at 9:54 AM Flag For Abuse
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Another book recommendation is The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers by Elizabeth Pantley. This book, contrary to the title, does not offer a single solution. Instead, it encourages parents to examine their family sleeping arrangement and see if it is working for the family, disregarding unsolicited advice from well-meaning relatives, friends, etc. If a sleep problem does exist, Pantley offers numerous solutions that can be tailored to your child's personality and your parenting style.
posted by : mumus on 10/7/2008 at 5:01 PM Flag For Abuse
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That article is pseudo-scientific and insulting. It's not fair to say that not sleep training a child means they get less sleep - in fact it may be the opposite. I taught my child to take naps in his crib, but he still sleeps much longer when we nap together. The article claims we're "wired" for deep sleep, but if that were really true why do so many babies wake so frequently? If they were really "wired" for that we wouldn't have to train them. If you need to sleep train for your own sanity, fine - but to try and claim that NOT doing it somehow makes you a bad parent is highly suspect.
posted by : sparklish on 10/11/2008 at 7:59 PM Flag For Abuse
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I think some sort of sleep training is necessary. That being said, I am not a fan of "crying it out"...I feel like there is a middle ground. Starting early definitely helps but there are infants who are easier than others. My daughter wasn't an easy baby, when she was first born, I had to nurse her 4-5 times a night. I was so tired and thought she was never going to sleep through the night. But I tried to be consistent w/her naps and make sure she was never awake for more than 2 hours, sometimes putting her down for a nap after 1 hour. I tried putting her in her bassinet or pack n' play most of the time but sometimes she slept well on the couch (w/me watching) or even in my arms. The important point for me was that she was sleeping. And after 2 and a half months of exhaustion, she started sleeping all night on her own...a miracle for me! I was one of those crazed parents who read lots of books on sleep training and although they were a useful guide, it honestly made me stress out more. In the end, I used some of their advice but watched my own child and did whatever worked for me. She's almost 7 months now and I still rock her to sleep and try to put her in her crib when she's drowsy but awake. 9 times out of 10 it works and if it doesn't, I just pick her back up and do it again until she's out. I'm hoping to be able to stop rocking her soon but for now, it works for me b/c she sleeps all night.
posted by : coopmom on 10/18/2008 at 1:11 PM Flag For Abuse
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I am not parent yet, but I do have a question for those who co-sleep - if your child is in bed with you, how do you and your partner go about being intimate with each other? Just curious.
posted by : Amanda B on 11/16/2008 at 10:05 PM Flag For Abuse
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I'm not against co-sleeping if people want to do that. My parents didn't, I like my privacy, like my husband, and don't intend to do it. However, I don't think people should constantly quote their reasons for doing it as other cultures or historical prominence. Historically speaking and in many cultures it was normal to have sex with children lying in bed with you and your partner. In some cultures it is considered normal for children to explore their sexuality by indulging in sex play with their siblings, even up into adolescence. Historically rolling over on your infant was how people got rid of extra kids when times were hard. Our culture does not feel those things are okay, in general. This is this culture and the co-sleeping movement grew out of this just as other forms of parenting are also part of the culture we live in now.
posted by : mchaos on 1/14/2009 at 7:38 PM Flag For Abuse
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All interesting perspectives and comments. When I was a baby, I slept with my parents until age three. For a few years after that, a parent always had to stay with me until I fell asleep. My daughter, now 13 months, co-slept for eight weeks. My husband loved it, but I couldn't sleep with her there. She made so many sounds in her sleep that I rarely slept at all. We moved her to her crib at eight weeks. She never cried, and we gradually increased the time in her crib until she was there all night. She began to sleep through the night (8PM-8AM) at 3.5 months old. We never "cried it out". We fed her and waited until she was asleep until she was about 6 months old, and then put her down awake. She falls asleep right away, or sings and plays in her crib until falling asleep.
I think that we were calm about the process, so she was, too. I can't imagine waking up at night after a few months. I think we're lucky, but I also think we did a lot of work to allow our daughter to fall asleep on her own easily.
posted by : bethjen on 5/15/2009 at 11:02 PM Flag For Abuse
