I struggle when hearing friends talk about sleep training..

@fawou This is all very true, and every child is so unique, so parental instinct is very important to follow. However, most children (even us cosleepers) do need to learn how to fall asleep on their own eventually. Say at daycare and, yes, in the car seat. Crying is almost inevitable for many, especially once you have multiple children who all go to sleep at say 7pm. For this reason it’s important to understand these techniques so parents know how to manage this. These techniques can certainly be your friend, one that you should modify to meet your family, and child’s needs.

This might be kind of silly, but consider that women are made to have many babies and only two arms to hold and feed them all. I don’t think that 5 mins of crying every night, for most 9mo.+ ish children, is necessarily unnatural. But leaving them to cry at all cost is not ideal for anyone involved. The key is to make them wait say 5 mins every single time(if 5 mins is what it usually takes you to get to them)and to verbalize to them that you’ve heard their cries. So that they can at least know what to expect. This builds trust and reduces anxiety in said situations. Ideally we could hold them all day forever, but sadly it’s not that simple.
 
@fawou Sorry I also want to mention that babies are that smart, they are crying in the car seat to technically manipulate you and illicit a response. They want to make you help them. But that is a very healthy and natural thing for them to do and you should always respond when you can. It would be concerning if your child did not do this behaviour or gave up trying to manipulate you. This is partially why cry it out training can be sad. Because you’re potentially teaching your child to give up. Buuut.. I think there can be ways to achieve independent sleeping while also negating these effects. I sure hope so at least.
 
@katrina2017 I think you’re over complicating things here. Babies are not “technically” manipulative. Manipulation is an advanced social skill. Babies cry because they perceive something they need (comfort counts), and only have the one way to signal a caregiver.

And again, babies don’t learn to sleep on their own by anything we do or don’t do within the first year. They just develop the skill sets to do it. And it’s a relatively advanced skill, too. When/if my LO wakes up in the middle of the night, the first thing I try is pretending to still be asleep and giving her an opportunity to work out a little energy and lull back down. That’s how she’s exploring that skill. With me there as security for her. 9/10 times she is able to get herself back down— because all her needs are met. The moment she starts actually crying, I intervene, because she’s telling me she needs something from me in order to sleep again.

I’m really just not on board with the idea of letting a baby cry unattended to for any reason. Of course there are times/situations where I can’t do anything right away (& I find those situations extremely stressful to my nervous system lol), but if I have the ability to comfort and intervene, I don’t purposely withhold that. I mean, now that my LO is 6mo, I know when she is fussing/protesting vs bored vs hungry vs distress crying. I may ignore a fuss/protest or bored cry for a few minutes to see if she moves on on her own, but that’s it.
 
@fawou This is so funny to me, that moment where you realize that your baby is watching you, and so you fake sleeping haha. And yes I am being picky over your word choice. But not because the meaning has been lost, but rather because it is inspiring me to point out that babies are quite clever. Anywho thanks for the engagement! Unfortunately, I’m going to have to bow out of this thread. My mini boss is doing performance reviews.
 
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