I’m thrilled to have found your blog!

Sure, sometimes I kick myself for not teaching my daughter better sleep habits (she’s going on 8 and still has a rough time falling asleep, and often sleeps with me)… but she’s such a poised, confident, balanced kid that I think this bonding must have something to do with it.

I’d love to add you to my blogroll!
http://singlemomseeking.com/blog/

I know people who did CIO, and it was totally fine, and the right thing to do. I know people who never have, and still have kids who are 4 years old and crawl into bed with them every night … and that works too.

Those who won’t CIO feel likes those who do are saying “You should have!”, and then those who DID CIO, feel like those who say “I *love my* baby, I would NEVER do CIO!” are implying that those who DID do CIO – whatever their reasons might be or have been – just don’t love their kids as much.

Maybe we’d all be less angry iat these moments, if we stopped judging one another, and debating it, and said “We trust mothers.” We trust mothers to know their kids, and to know whether CIO is a good idea or a bad idea, or not…with any given child in any given situation…because by far the vast majority of mothers, whether they CIO or don’t CIO, whether they co-sleep or whether they feed their kid Spaghettios (gasp) do love (and know) their kids…

They love them very very much, and they know them better than anyone else does. The kids I worry about aren’t those eating Spaghettios, or having to CIO while their anxious, sleep-deprived and guilt ridden parents pace the halls. They aren’t the ones whose mothers leave them to go to work with a heard full of tears like lead. The kids I worry about are the ones whose mothers don’t care or don’t notice…let alone ever concern themselves with any of these dillemmas, because they are too busy trying to score dope, or cope with their abusive relationship of the month.

Lets just be glad we’re all focused enough on the right things in life to worry about our kids…to know them, to love them…to listen to them. Things could be worse.

We have friends who share their war stories with great pride and sense of accomplishment, having gotten their child to sleep alone “finally!” etc……they have hearts of steel, which is nice. Each child has her of her rhythm in life…why go in to a “fix it mode?” I just do not see the point. My little V_ is secure, happy and in her element most of the time…as a parent, I am satisfied with that. Doctors, experts, and pedia-psychologists’ advice to the contrary…hmmm…

Sarah V. – sounds like you are exactly the kind of parent that is willing to work with her child’s needs instead of against them. you used a method of sleep training in a way that worked for both of you. that’s the kind of parenting that i think is productive parenting. what i don’t think works, and what i think can be a little cruel is parenting that is inflexible with sleep training, or as you put it, “simplistic and one-size-fits-all.”

it also worries me that the term “sleep training” has such a negative connotation to me, when clearly it can work in a positive way, such as for yourself. i’m a pretty well-educated person with a background in early childhood education and yet this “method” has still been over-simplified to me, and, obviously, to many other parents, to the detriment of its success.

amberjee – yay for a lie in! aren’t those a lovely treat?!

I’ve done sleep training with my son. There were two stages of his life where we had to leave him crying alone for short periods of time to get him to sleep, and sleeping through the night wasn’t the issue in either case. In both cases, it was because it was the only way to get him to settle and go to sleep in the evening. I’d have been happy to sit with him and comfort him to sleep if that had been working, but it wasn’t. The issue, I found, wasn’t that he needed comfort. It was that he wanted to get up and play and was fed up that he wasn’t being allowed to. Sitting with him only ended up making him cry for longer, which I believe is because he was getting a mixed message – if I was still there, maybe it was still playtime. I had to walk out of the room for him to get the message. He was never left for more than a few minutes without me going in to comfort him again, but I did have to leave him for that period of time.

Now, because I was there and with the situation and I know my child, I know that that was the right thing to do. I don’t feel offended or upset by people who are anti-sleep-training or who think you should never leave a child to cry under any circumstances. But I do think that that view of life is as simplistic and one-size-fits-all and ultimately unhelpful as the view that states that all babies should sleep through the night after age X.

yes, absolutely. the other thing that gets relegated to the back burner (or thrown out entirely) is flexibility. every child is different in so many ways. even with different ways of “crying it out,” it’s still, in the end, just one solution and it works for fewer children than we like to admit. so many parents are scared of being flexible, as if it will make their child worse. when, in fact, flexibility it usually a good thing.

flexibility and routine are not mutually exclusive.

i am also truly sorry that you have a child who likes to play at 3am. i’ve always been grateful not to have to handle that on a regular basis. the few times i did, we were both exhausted the next day, and the day after that too! i don’t think you’re not strong for making choices about how to handle your child’s sleep patterns. that was also my point, none of us is any stronger than any other simply by making choices. they are just choices. and if we make a choice one night that doesn’t work, we can make a different choice the following night until we figure out what works.