the dreaded "sleep thru night" thread

"Stephanie and Tim" wrote in message
...
"Jenrose" wrote in message
s.com...
But I do agree... CIO on babies younger than 8 months gives me the
willies,
and there are only very narrow situations on babies older than that
where
I'd be willing to go that direction.

On what do you base that age?

Possibly on Ferber's own recommendations. I am reasonably sure he does not
suggest using his technique on babies younger than 8 months old.
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [20mo] mom)

This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop:
"Rejuvinate your skin." -- Hydroderm ad

Daddy: You're up with the chickens this morning.
Aurora: No, I'm up with my dolls!

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

Thank you. That is what I meant in my post above, but did have the time nor
inclination to defend our actions as right or wrong. That's one thing you
learn with parenting... your preconceived notions of right and wrong will
change with experience and perspective.

Anyway, I agreed with everything in your post.

Dave

"Stephanie and Tim" wrote in message
...

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 17:59:30 GMT, "David Spear"
wrote:

The third night starts at 15 minutes, maxing out at 25 and so on. By
night
3 they are having to cry 15-25 minutes at a time over and over and
quite
frankly I think they get tired of it and really do learn that while we
may
go in and reassure them, they are not going to nurse to sleep and they
are
wasting their time asking.

Yep, that is what they learn. They learn they cannot trust their
parents to meet their need for closeness and reassurance too.



Every parent makes a determination about what a child needs and what a
child
wants at *some* point in the child's life and makes a begins to set limits
on how far they go to meet the child's wants. What constitutes a want and
a
need is wholey the domain of the parents, who look at their child and
follow
their instincts. You clearly beleive that closeness and reasurance is a
need
that must be met immediately whenever it is demonstrated. In the case of
my
son, with whom we used a gentlefied (I love making up words) Ferber
approach, the feeling that he was expressing, as clear as day, was anger
not
fear or abandonment. He was getting buckets of love and closeness all day
long. I never got a bit of housework done. We are still paying off the
credit cards from all our takeout. Like a mother can distinguish
between
a hungry cry and a hurt cry, a mother can also start to know by six months
fear vs anger. I would certainly agree that the child is learning that
their
parent is not meeting something. But the what that is not being met is
left
to the judgement of the parent. That is why you cannot use Ferber or pitch
a
kid in a crib and let them cry axiomatically. You have to observe your
child
and what is in his or her best interest.

One thing that never comes up in the evil cry-it-out debate is the CHILD's
need for sleep. When I was sleeping with my son, we both slept for total
****. I did not really realize that HE was also sleeping for **** until he
started sleeping for longer periods by himself. He became more cheerful
during the day and more able to play. Parents are lambasted for being so
selfish that they have to sleep at the expense of their poor crying child.
But this does not tell the whole picture. It is not much of a stretch to
me
that a parent who does not sleep well with others may spawn a like minded
child.

S

You are lucky or more skilled at parenting than I or perhaps a combination
of the two... it seemed right at the time.

I know people parent differently, and kids react differently... it just
worked for us. I probably exaggerated the "awfulness" of the crying, it
took maybe 5 or 6 trips into the room (an hour or a bit more) the first
night and the second was less than that. If hysteria was the result of
course we would have re-evaluated the appropriateness of this method but
that did not happen... as I said, it worked for us.

Dave


"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Dave wrote:

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...

The
OP's baby is only 6 months old. That's a far cry from
the situation with an 18 month old toddler.


We did it at 5 months old the first time, worked even faster, 1-1/2
awful
crying-filled nights.


IIRC, even Ferber does not advocate his method for
that age. I've never used CIO (with three children) and
have never had a single crying-filled night, nor have my
children had any difficulties going to sleep.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Hmm, when I see my parents at Christmastime I think there will be a
long-overdue confrontation with them about whether or not they let me cry it
out, as I have resented them for decades and could never pinpoint WHY.
Thank you, Dorothy I am well on my way to becoming more well-adjusted
already. Scar your relationship with them for life, MY ASS.

Stephanie: right on, tell it like you see it. I am always (way more) timid
(than I feel) about disagreeing to the point of ****ing people off but on
this one I don't have to!

Dave

"Stephanie and Tim" wrote in message
...

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 00:15:28 -0600, wrote:

Right now for 2nights in a row we went over 2hrs of letting him cry and
nothing. No progress. He's just hysterical.

If you really did this to a 6 month old child, I feel very sorry for
him. This is totally wrong and your child is learning that his
parents are not to be trusted to come and see to his needs when
he cries.


I energetically disagree with this. (Big surprise, hu?)

Infants don't cry for no reason and you cannot spoil them by letting
them sleep with you and picking them up when they cry.


I agree that spoiling is a hugely over rated fear. I agree that children
do
not cry for no reason. But a crying child is not the end of the universe
either. The REASON the child is crying may be one that the parent does not
deem approriate to interfere with. The age at which it is appropriate to
set
limits is a matter of judgement. For instance, from day one we "allow" our
children to cry when we put them in the car seat. If you are like me, the
first couple of times, you stop every three feet to nurse, check for
pokies
in the outfit, rock and reinsert into the car seat. You finally realize
that
the drama is dramatically lessened if you just endure the crying until you
get where you are going. And lo and behold, very quickly even the newborn
realized this car seat business is a fact of life and gets over it. I have
heard people say that you HAVE to and this is a matter of life and death.
Is
it? Have you never "caused" your child to endure crying in the car seat
for
something so life and death as meeting a friend for lunch? (Dorothy, I am
not speaking to "you" specifically when I say "you." I am just spewing
thoughts as they come up.




Eventually, he will give up and sleep, but this will scar your
relationship with him for life.




Utter bull****, if you will parden my bluntness. Now I think that what
this
poster did was unwise in that it was crying which was allowed to occur
ineffectively, this will not scar the relationship for life. Children are
flexible, they are not the emotionally tender and fragile things that
people
think they are. There are so many examples of children who were expected
to
sleep by themselves in their own bed with crying occuring to get there who
are healthy and happy and love their parents and vice versa.

S

"Melissa" wrote in message
news:jmrub.236519$Tr4.696084@attbi_s03...

"toto" wrote
"David Spear" wrote:

The third night starts at 15 minutes, maxing out at 25 and so on. By
night
3 they are having to cry 15-25 minutes at a time over and over and
quite
frankly I think they get tired of it and really do learn that while we
may
go in and reassure them, they are not going to nurse to sleep and they
are
wasting their time asking.

Yep, that is what they learn. They learn they cannot trust their
parents to meet their need for closeness and reassurance too.


I'm not buying that. I know that's what Dr. Sears says, but his advice
wasn't working for us. Perhaps his children didn't wake up night after
night
every hour needing to be rocked/bounced back to sleep for 20 minutes.

Our situation was similar, but it was rock/nurse or whatever for 2 hours for
1 to 2 hours of sleep.

Perhaps he had help so that he or Martha wasn't totally sleep deprived and
becoming a bad parent because of lack of sleep. Perhaps he just doesn't
need
as much sleep as I do. Whatever the reason, the entire household was
getting
ugly because no one was sleeping.

By using Ferber, which I believe is the gentlest way of CIO, dd learned to
fall asleep by herself in two nights. By the time we got to 15 minutes
without checking on her, she wasn't full-on crying anymore, she was simply
whining. That was the first night and it did go on for quite a while (and
we
did have to pick her up once because she was getting hysterical). The
second
night her total crying/whining was 20 minutes and we haven't had a problem
since.

I truly believe that if she was being treated horribly, it would have
taken
longer for her to learn to put herself to sleep.


Same here. It took like 3 nights and a total of 1 hour for him to "give up"
and "finally" fall asleep.


I'm sure that she was ready
and simply needed help from us. Just as she needs to be taught that biting
Mummy isn't ok, she needed to be taught that she had to put herself to
sleep.

DD knows that when she cries she is picked up and cuddled. When she cries
(a
real cry, not just whining) in the night she's also checked on (to ensure
that she hasn't rolled and caught her hand so she's stuck) but that we
don't
play at night.

--
Melissa (in Los Angeles)
Mum to Elizabeth 4/13/03

Hu, I cannot see my own post.

I hate that.

S
"Dave" wrote in message
news:J%rub.48789$1K.29009@edtnps84...
Thank you. That is what I meant in my post above, but did have the time
nor
inclination to defend our actions as right or wrong. That's one thing you
learn with parenting... your preconceived notions of right and wrong will
change with experience and perspective.

Anyway, I agreed with everything in your post.

Dave

"Stephanie and Tim" wrote in message
...

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 17:59:30 GMT, "David Spear"
wrote:

The third night starts at 15 minutes, maxing out at 25 and so on. By
night
3 they are having to cry 15-25 minutes at a time over and over and
quite
frankly I think they get tired of it and really do learn that while
we
may
go in and reassure them, they are not going to nurse to sleep and
they
are
wasting their time asking.

Yep, that is what they learn. They learn they cannot trust their
parents to meet their need for closeness and reassurance too.



Every parent makes a determination about what a child needs and what a
child
wants at *some* point in the child's life and makes a begins to set
limits
on how far they go to meet the child's wants. What constitutes a want
and
a
need is wholey the domain of the parents, who look at their child and
follow
their instincts. You clearly beleive that closeness and reasurance is a
need
that must be met immediately whenever it is demonstrated. In the case of
my
son, with whom we used a gentlefied (I love making up words) Ferber
approach, the feeling that he was expressing, as clear as day, was anger
not
fear or abandonment. He was getting buckets of love and closeness all
day
long. I never got a bit of housework done. We are still paying off the
credit cards from all our takeout. Like a mother can distinguish
between
a hungry cry and a hurt cry, a mother can also start to know by six
months
fear vs anger. I would certainly agree that the child is learning that
their
parent is not meeting something. But the what that is not being met is
left
to the judgement of the parent. That is why you cannot use Ferber or
pitch
a
kid in a crib and let them cry axiomatically. You have to observe your
child
and what is in his or her best interest.

One thing that never comes up in the evil cry-it-out debate is the
CHILD's
need for sleep. When I was sleeping with my son, we both slept for total
****. I did not really realize that HE was also sleeping for **** until
he
started sleeping for longer periods by himself. He became more cheerful
during the day and more able to play. Parents are lambasted for being so
selfish that they have to sleep at the expense of their poor crying
child.
But this does not tell the whole picture. It is not much of a stretch to
me
that a parent who does not sleep well with others may spawn a like
minded
child.

S

"Circe" wrote in message
news:4Yrub.8580$iS6.5749@fed1read04...
"Stephanie and Tim" wrote in message
...
"Jenrose" wrote in message
s.com...
But I do agree... CIO on babies younger than 8 months gives me the
willies,
and there are only very narrow situations on babies older than that
where
I'd be willing to go that direction.

On what do you base that age?

Possibly on Ferber's own recommendations. I am reasonably sure he does not
suggest using his technique on babies younger than 8 months old.


5 to 6 months is what his book says. I was just curious because everyone has
their own age when they consider a child "old enough."

--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [20mo] mom)

This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop:
"Rejuvinate your skin." -- Hydroderm ad

Daddy: You're up with the chickens this morning.
Aurora: No, I'm up with my dolls!

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Stephanie and Tim wrote:


There are so many examples of children who were expected to
sleep by themselves in their own bed with crying occuring to get there
who
are healthy and happy and love their parents and vice versa.


Nevertheless, there are many roads to better sleep
habits, and each have their downsides.

Absolutely.


When possible, it's
nice to go with a strategy that makes life easier all around.
I personally think that past behavior predicts future
behavior, all other things being equal. Every time your
child cries makes it more likely your child will cry again.
Sometimes, as in the car seat situation you describe, you
have little choice (unless you're willing or able to avoid
the car trip). But I have certainly seen what CIO tactics
seem to do! For instance, if my baby wants to eat and I
can't feed her right away (as usual), not only does she
wail this time, but she'll wail for the next several
feedings instead of just fussing a bit to let me know
she's ready.


This illustrates that different children and parents are different. I have
not observed this with my child at all. My daughter is too young to observe
any such apttern. But for my son, the *overall* expectation over time was
what counted for him, at least past the newborn stage. If, say we were
driving when he became hungry and I needed to find the next safe turn off to
feed him, he would cry insisting to be fed. I observed no increase in crying
consistent with expecting another delay in any future feedings. I suppose it
could be a lack of observation skills on my part, but I do not think so.

The other thing that is bad, aside from applying the wrong solution to the
wrong child, is applying the wrong solution to the wrong problem. I cannot
remember if you read the other thread on mkb, but I have gotten the
impression that some folks use it as a way to extend sleep regardless of the
problem, including a hungry baby. That give me the shivers. You have to know
the problem you are trying to solve as well as have an idea of the
likelihood that it will be effective for your child.

But the characterization that I beleive I was replying to that to allow your
child to cry is going to cause irreparable damage to your relationship, I
continue to maintain is utter bull.


She clearly gets the message that she had
to raise her voice to get fed last time, and she's going
to do it again until she's convince that her nice voice
will do the trick. Same with sleeping. If she has to
fight to get my attention, then quickly she will escalate
every matter to full volume.
When I come when she asks
nicely, she only asks nicely and only asks when she needs
me.
Obviously, once you're in the soup and have sleep
issues, it's much more difficult than if you've managed
your way into a good situation all along. If there are
problems, there may be no really easy way out. But I
do think people ought to be aware of what they can be
setting themselves up for with CIO tactics. Babies are
resilient, yes, but they are also smart cookies.



And the smart cookies part of the equation is what is RELIED upon to make a
Ferber type method work. A baby can be smart enough to understand that they
are not abandoned and whether they like it or not, they have to sleep by
themselves rather than attached to mom's breast or whatever.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Stephanie and Tim wrote:

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message

For instance, if my baby wants to eat and I
can't feed her right away (as usual), not only does she
wail this time, but she'll wail for the next several
feedings instead of just fussing a bit to let me know
she's ready.

This illustrates that different children and parents are different. I have
not observed this with my child at all. My daughter is too young to observe
any such apttern. But for my son, the *overall* expectation over time was
what counted for him, at least past the newborn stage. If, say we were
driving when he became hungry and I needed to find the next safe turn off to
feed him, he would cry insisting to be fed. I observed no increase in crying
consistent with expecting another delay in any future feedings. I suppose it
could be a lack of observation skills on my part, but I do not think so.


I dunno. All my kids have done this, but they all
cried very infrequently (e.g., would sometimes go days
without actually reaching a full cry), so I really noticed
any little increase. I do think part was temperment, as
they were all relatively laid back babies (and certainly
not all babies are that way regardless of parenting).
On the other hand, I think some of it does have to
do with expectation management. I think managing
expectations is what Ferber (and others) are trying
to get at. I just think that there are usually easier
ways to get there, though perhaps if things have gotten
bad enough you may be forced to choose between desperate
measures or a really long recovery period. I think if
you start from the beginning with an idea of where you're
headed, and if every day you keep tending towards that
goal (with some days being more successful than others,
of course), you tend to get there without a lot of trauma.
In the case of sleep, to me that meant always tending
towards a bedtime, a sleeping place, etc. even though
I'd always go resettle or feed or occasionally even
bring the baby in bed if the baby really fussed. That
way there were never histrionics, but there were always
opportunities for success (with "success" defined as
what suited us as a family, which will obviously
differ among families). With this sort of strategy,
we just never had sleeping problems--either the sort
that come from ending up co-sleeping when that's not
what you want, or the sort that can come from extended
crying. Might not work for everyone, but I think it's
heaps simpler and easier than the alternatives. The
downside is that it's a long, gradual path, so if you
don't start early it might not work to get you out of
a bind once you're in it.


The other thing that is bad, aside from applying the wrong solution to the
wrong child, is applying the wrong solution to the wrong problem. I cannot
remember if you read the other thread on mkb, but I have gotten the
impression that some folks use it as a way to extend sleep regardless of the
problem, including a hungry baby. That give me the shivers. You have to know
the problem you are trying to solve as well as have an idea of the
likelihood that it will be effective for your child.


Absolutely. And some kids will be far more affected
by a CIO solution than others.


But the characterization that I beleive I was replying to that to allow your
child to cry is going to cause irreparable damage to your relationship, I
continue to maintain is utter bull.


Perhaps that, too, depends on the temperment of
one's child. I don't know if it would have caused
irreparable damage to my kids, as irreparable is a really
strong word. I do believe, given their personalities,
that a CIO solution would have caused *US* longer term
difficulties. I did try something along those lines
when I got tired of the midnight nursing session (the
last one to go with both my older kids). I figured
they ought to have been done with it by then, so I decided
I was, by golly, gonna stop it. Well, a sleepless week
later after hours and hours of histrionics despite all
manner of comforting and a willingness to do *anything*
but nurse the baby, we weren't a single millimeter closer
to giving up that feeding and I decided I'd be more
sane providing a midnight nursing session until the kid
went off to college than trying to go through this crap ;-)
I gave up. Baby #1 gave it up on his own about three or
four months later. I never even tried with baby #2. He
gave that feeding up at the same time #1 ended up giving
it up--but I never had to go through the fussing, nor
did I have to go through the recovery period afterwards
where baby #1 was suspicious of all bottles (because I'd
tried gradually watering down a bottle in lieu of nursing
at night) and didn't want to let me out of his sight
(because we'd tried having Dad wrangle the midnight
feeding instead) and generally fussed a lot more than
usual for about two weeks after the whole debacle.
I don't think it scarred him for life, but the whole
process made for an ugly several weeks, and hey, I'm
all for the easy way when it doesn't compromise core
values ;-)

Best wishes,
Ericka

David Spear wrote in message
news:mO7ub.16207$1K.12344@edtnps84...
If they are always nursed to sleep, they learn to associate
nursing with sleep and the two become inseparable, can't
have one without the other. Hence if they happen to wake
up in the middle of the night (which is normal, everybody
does) of course they are going to want (need) to be nursed
back to sleep.


This has not been my experience. My daughter always nursed before going
to sleep and she slept through the night from when she was 3 months old.
Once she was older, she went to sleep just fine if I were away and she
couldn't nurse at bedtime. She weaned herself at 14 months and it did
not have any effect on her sleep. I just always put her down in her
crib as soon as she was done eating. As she got older, she remained in
a gradually more awake state after eating, so she gradually learned to
fall asleep on her own from a more and more awake state. She dropped
her nighttime feeds entirely on her own. The only influence I gave was
to keep nighttime very dim and silent, with no eye contact, and made
daytime very bright and stimulating and talked to her a lot. I am
following the same approach now with my two month old son. He nurses
before going to sleep, but only wants to nurse during the night if he is
hungry when he wakes up. This currently varies and can be anywhere from
one to three times per night, but has been trending toward one. The
other times that he wakes up (e.g. due to a temporary gas bubble) he
goes back to sleep without nursing, and often without my even going to
his room. Neither of them has required any "sleep training" method or
crying to learn to sleep well.

I think that sleep is a biological need, and the less you do to "help" a
baby sleep from day one, the better off you are. Newborns know how to
sleep. That's about all they do. They often make noise while sleeping,
but not every sound a baby makes requires a response. I think sometimes
parents react too quickly to every little sound babies make in their
sleep and end up shooting themselves in the foot because then the baby
learns to expect "help" getting back to sleep when they wouldn't have
needed it if the parents hadn't woken the baby up in the first place.
--
Cheryl S.
Mom to Julie, 2 yr., 7 mo.
And Jaden, 2 months

Cleaning the house while your children are small is like
shoveling the sidewalk while it's still snowing.