"Crying it Out" - My Experience

Before I became a parent, I was under the assumption that all babies had to cry themselves to sleep. After I had Joel, I realized that this was not a practical solution for me. I assumed that the "cry it out" (CIO) method meant leaving my baby alone and crying for hours (or as long as it took for him to fall asleep), which seemed awfully cruel to me.

I did a little research, and found that (as with every other parenting issue) there are basically two extreme sides of the matter. There are those that think leaving a child crying is unnatural, unkind, and a betrayal of the trust your baby is developing in adults and the world around him. They believe these techniques can give your child negative associations with bedtime and sleep that could last forever. On the other side of the issue they say it isn't at all traumatic for babies to cry alone for short periods of time with frequent check-ins by Mom or Dad, and the end result is a well-rested, happier child. They say no-tears sleep strategies may cause babies to be overly dependent on comfort from a parent at bedtime, making it harder for them to learn to soothe themselves to sleep.

I didn't necessarily mind nursing or rocking Joel to sleep because it was all I knew, but I realized that at some point he was going to have to learn to go to sleep on his own. Because he was rocked to sleep, when he woke up (as we all do as part of the natural sleep cycle), he would panic when he realized he wasn't being held anymore. Even though he was in a cradle right next to my bed, he would wake up crying several times throughout the night. When he was four months old, we decided to see how he would do if we put him in bed when he was sleepy, but not actually asleep. It did not go well. Every time we would check on him, comfort him and leave the room again he would grow more and more hysterical. We concluded that he either a). just wasn't ready yet, or b). was going to need to be rocked to sleep until he was a teenager.

By the time he was six months old, rocking him to sleep for every single nap and every night for bed was getting a little frustrating. We decided to try the CIO method again, and braced ourselves for battle. This didn't mean that were were going to endure hours of crying and sobbing until he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. The idea is to put him to bed when he is drowsy, not sleeping. When he starts to fuss, go in a comfort him then leave the room. If he starts to cry, wait a few minutes before going in and comforting him again then leave the room. Wait a little longer before going in the next time, and so on. I promised myself that I would give it a fair shot for a few nights. The first night when he started crying I went in immediately and gave him his pacifier, then left the room. I waited a couple minutes before going in the 2nd time. I found a good movie on TV and waited for the crying to begin again. It never did. A couple nights like that is all it took. Now he rarely cries at all when he is put down for a nap or for the night. If he happens to wake up in the middle of the night, he goes back to sleep immediately when I give him his paci. I can't tell you what a relief it has been. It sounds silly, but I swear it has changed my life!

The bottom line is that every child is different, and every child's timeline is different. Though the CIO method worked for Joel, it may not work for our next child. Hey, we may get lucky and have one that just goes to sleep when they are tired (though I'm not holding my breath). I have realized that, though there are differing extreme views on most issues (with passionate advocates on both sides), it isn't always so cut and dry and reality usually lies somewhere in the middle.