Before I jump into our personal stance and practices as far as sleep training, or Cry It Out, I want to take a moment to talk about labels, judgment, and support.
Before I became a mother I was totally unaware of label's like "attachment parenting", "lactivist", "intactivist", "crunchy"-- and now that I'm writing this out I wonder where the labels are for non-attachment parenting people, or non-crunchy mom's/parents/people, huh? Sometimes labels are good. They help us to find like-minded people, or use one word to convey a plethora of things or values. However, labels can also be bad. They can separate people, pit people against each other, and most often, when it comes to parenting labels, it seems that they separate and divide. We are parents, we all struggle with parenting choices, and I do believe that most of us are trying to make good choices for our children. We ought to be supporting each other, not fighting each other.
There is so much judgment between parents regarding their decisions. I have seen breastfeeding mothers attack and be attacked, co-sleeping parents attack and get attacked, and, as we are about to discuss, CIO (cry it out) supporters attack and get attacked. Because of such volatile responses it can be hard to talk about where we stand and why. It is definitely hard for me to share my own journeys because I want to be understood, not frowned upon, judged, or even labeled. But I think people need to be open about things because there are so many others out there that have doubts or questions or fears, but feel unable to talk about them for fear of being judged. So that is why I am sharing about our experience with CIO. I hope I am not judged, I hope I reach people who can identify with my struggles and are encouraged by my words, but if I am judged and do not reach anyone I will keep on sharing because someday my own children may ask about my decisions and I want to be able to tell them (I have an awful memory), and maybe someday I will reach someone who needed to read another's experience.
Cry It Out
As a new parent, this was new idea. Before Oliver was born I'd had no idea that there was such a thing as the Cry It Out sleep training method. All the experience I had with putting babies to sleep was with older babies who were either bottle-fed, or rocked and cuddled to sleep. I'd had no concept before that someone might leave a baby, in a crib, to cry themselves to sleep. That is a harsh way of putting it, but this is how I saw it then, and how I still see it now, at its very worst. This is what I experienced. What I hated, dreaded, but had been convinced was the best for all involved.
Some say that though it is hard at first, it gets easier, but that wasn't the case for me. It was hard all the time, and I mean HARD. I hated myself for it, and I often displaced my anger onto Andrew when he insisted that we stick with our choice. Looking back on that time, and writing about it now it seems like a no-brainer, if we hated it so much then why did we continue with it? The truth is that we were brand new parents. We barely knew anyone else our age, that were parents too. We were sleep deprived, confused, and searching for answers on how to be the best parents we could be. So, instead of going with our instinct, we went with the advice we were given.
Let me take a moment here to reiterate that I am not here to bash the CIO method, nor the parents who recommended it to us, nor anyone who uses it. I am simply sharing our feelings, our decisions, and the reasons behind them.
I do not know if the CIO recommendation came from the Ferber version, or the Babywise version, or another CIO plan, or a mixture of different ones. I do know that we started CIO shortly after it was suggested, and Oliver was between 2 and 3 months old. I know that the Ferber method has it starting at 6 months or later, and Babywise (to my knowledge) starts almost from the moment they are born. Honestly, it doesn't matter where the advice originated because we followed it, wherever it came from, and it did work eventually, but we did hate every moment of it.
I remember the inner turmoil that I felt as I listened to Oliver cry. Sometimes, I'd be counting down the minutes until I could go to him (we started at 1 minute of crying, and after several days were up to 30 minutes of crying). When the time was up I would rush out to his crib and pick him up and hold him and with every part of my being I would shower him with love. Then we had to start all over again. Again, we believed we were doing the right thing for our son. The truth is that often, as parents, we do have to make the hard choices and do things that our children don't like. We simply thought this was one of those things.
By now I'm sure you know where we stand on the cry it out sleep method for babies. It's pretty clear we didn't like it then and don't like it now. Obviously we don't and won't be using it for Wynter or any other future children. Wynter sleeps very well for a 4 month old, and when she does wake at night I simply nurse her back to sleep. I see nothing wrong with that, it works well for our situation and our family and I adore cuddling her in bed with me (most of the time).
However, though I personally don't like the CIO method, I do understand that there can be a time and a place for it. I also believe it can be done in a healthy way, and that there are many ways to do it incorrectly. If anyone decides that CIO is something they do need to do, then please research it. Be open minded so that you can make an informed decision on how to go about it. Please don't just research the different kinds of CIO methods and how they work, but also the impact that they can have on a baby medically speaking.
Before I end this topic, let me share some resources and facts with you.
The case against:
- Science Says: Excessive Crying Could be Harmful
- Letting Baby "Cry-it-out" Yes, No!
- Dangers of "Crying it out"
- AAP on Becoming Babywise
- 31 Ways to Get Your Baby to Sleep and Stay Asleep
- Dr. Sears' website lists many articles on sleep and babies
Personally, I think that the Ferber method is the best, with changes. The most important thing to me is that the recommendation by Ferber, not to start CIO until after 6 months old is taken seriously.
I want to end by saying that I sincerely hope no one is offended by what I've said. If you are reading this, and using CIO please know I'm not judging you. I am certain you have carefully thought about it and for reasons I do not know have decided it is best for you, your baby, and your family. If you are just doing it because that's what you thought you were supposed to do, I encourage you to go read for yourself the different opinions and research on babies and sleep (both for and against CIO).
Again, as someone who has been there, no judgment here, just a desire to help.
It takes bravery to pick something and then put it back down. I am glad you are making choices for your family based on what works best for your family.
ReplyDelete