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One of the hardest thing about being a parent today is the constant shame and confusion about the “right” way to do it. We don’t live in a hunter gatherer socie

by gdubs 6y ago

One of the hardest thing about being a parent today is the constant shame and confusion about the “right” way to do it. We don’t live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just don’t. There’s lots of wisdom in that way of life, and sure we could learn from it — but there’s enough anxiety as it is, parents don’t need more of it. We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a pediatrician, standard disclaimer.) This article calls it an ‘extreme’ practice. For us, ‘extreme’ was the sleep deprivation we experienced with baby number one as we tried every ‘no cry’ method in the book. The baby cried and cried and cried. Once we started sleep training, there was a bit of crying and then - a sleeping baby! Through the night! Total amount of crying went from hours to zero. The kid became happier — they weren’t sleep-deprived anymore. And neither were we. I no longer felt like I was going to drop the ball due to extreme exhaustion. Babies two and three had the benefit of our experience, and they barely cried at all. The third one would lay down eyes-open and fall asleep. “So it actually does happen! — I thought the books must be lying.” By all objective measures our kids are happy, healthy, and well-adjusted. But that doesn’t mean we still don’t get the stink eye from people who think it’s a cruel practice. Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Find a doctor you trust. Don’t let people add to an already stressful endeavor.

eurusdac 6y ago
I agree, my advice to any new parent would be to listen carefully to advice about how not to drown your child while bathing them, and how to make sure they're not suffocated by their bedding. Both real issues where some simple practices avoid the small risk of an absolutely catastrophic outcome. Then take all other advice with a pinch of salt. Just follow your best instincts and do what seems right. Your child will be fine, plus you'll be more relaxed, you'll appreciate the time with them more. You'll have more time and emotional energy to understand and respond to how they are doing as well as how you and your partner are feeling, and your instincts will get better and better.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  For myself, the risk SIDS didn't even enter my calculus. (I confess I am a little skeptical that it exists at all.) Regardless, I perceived the emotional bonding with the mother & father to far outweigh anything else and so we shared our bed with our children until they were perhaps 1 year old or so. And even after, they moved into their own small bed just a foot from ours in the same bedroom for another year or so. I guess that was my "instinct". Although we received a crib as a gift, it just sat in another room, empty.
  - eurusdac 6y ago
    I think SIDS is a real thing and there is clear evidence that not using pillows or excessive blankets in cribs has reduced deaths. I think sleeping with or not with your kid, is a much more complicated question and probably one where your instinct is right. After all, with a baby in the bed you can't help but be aware of its comfort, needs and amount of movement.
    - CodeGlitch 6y ago
      In the UK the NHS have posters and leaflets about how parents should NOT sleep with their baby as deaths have occurred from parents "lying on and suffocating their new born". Of course this from drugged-up and/or drunk parents. If you don't fall into the "bad parent" category you'll be fine.
      - cma 6y ago
        Or if you take ambien or something like that it might not be a good idea.
        krageon 6y ago
        The post you are responding to mentioned drugged-up right there in the conclusion.
      - Talanes 6y ago
        I've woken up to nearly suffocating myself in blankets, completely sober. I wouldn't take that chance with myself in the bed.
- jqgatsby 6y ago
  Hey, wait, what is the advice to avoid drowning, other than not leaving them alone? Is there some subtle hazard I’m unaware of?
  - eurusdac 6y ago
    Not really, it's just the simple advice not to let go of them or leave them is correct, common sense and important in that case.
  - thebruce87m 6y ago
    Never leave them for even a second in the bath (drowning) and never leave them alone with food (choking).
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      It sounds so obvious, until your dog gets his head stuck in the ficus tree planter and you can hear him running around, destroying your entire living room. You have to resist that initial urge to go help him until you've cleaned up the 16 blueberry puffs you've been coaxing your child to eat.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      This is like saying "don't speed if you don't want a speeding ticket". Yes, you can use absolute qualifiers like "never" and "always" to stupid proof general advice to a greater extent than you can with phrases like "common sense" and "where reasonable" but that doesn't automatically make the advice any more useful.. I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk that comes with spending ~1min removing something from the oven when the timer goes off and other reasonable allowances like that. Of course I'm not gonna stop and watch TV with an infant in the sink. And if traffic's going 85 I'm going 85 but I won't be the first person going 85.
      - zamfi 6y ago
        It's not like that. Everyone knows the risk of a speeding ticket comes with speeding. Not everyone knows that it takes 20 seconds for a baby to drown in a bathtub. > I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk that comes with spending ~1min removing something from the oven when the timer goes off Completely making up numbers here, say you do this for every 20-minute bath, your child bathes 1x/day, and they fall over in such a way that they might drown were you not there once every 10000 baths. Doing the math... 5% chance of being absent at the critical moment * 1/10000 baths * 365 baths/year = 0.18% chance of death in first year of life. You may be willing to take that risk, but given the 4 million infants born each year in the US, that would be 7,300 infant deaths from drowning in the bathtub annually -- so as a societal rule, saving 7,300 infants a year seems worth the use of the word "never". The actual number of deaths attributed to bathtub drowning each year is much lower; I'm glad the vast majority of parents appear to take "never" to heart.
- kinghtown 6y ago
  Father here. I agree. So much of the parenting advice I see dips into micromanaging and min/maxing to an almost paranoid degree. Just learn about what could kill them in the first year and avoid that. Really, six months and under is the true window for SIDS with freak occurrences. Definitely be on the lookout for any poisonous cleaning products While you’re at it and put them high off the ground. The pro parents who did it all before you are super annoying. I’ve had to politely listen to questionable advice many times. I much prefer people like you who get it. You got to trust your instincts about your own kids. There is broad advice which applies to everyone but everyone’s kid is a little different from the norm as well and as a parent we know our kids better than anyone else.
  - exporectomy 6y ago
    Trusting your instincts is how intergenerational cycles of abuse and neglect happen. If you were raised well, then yes, otherwise you have to work consciously to reject your harmful instincts.
    - kinghtown 6y ago
      Well, sure but I’m advocating to trust your instincts in terms of their general health and well-being. Abuse or gross neglect are entirely different matters. Abusive parents are probably not going to be online doing heavy research on what is the optimum thing to do as a parent. They probably just feel tired and bitter about their children, or worse. A lot of modern, new wave parenting to me feels an awful lot like meddling in natural child development. Like too much of a good thing, helicopter parenting.
      - exporectomy 6y ago
        I'm talking about hardly visible emotional abuse and neglect, not some extreme criminal activity that only really bad people do. For example, not loving your child and going through the motions of looking after it without really caring. Or inconsistently responding to it with dismissal sometimes and kindness other times so it can't really trust you and feel secure. That can lead to harmful attachment styles as an adult.
- jl6 6y ago
  Generally agree, except I’m not sure there is a bright line between the obviously-worthwhile precautions you mention and the paranoid overprecautions that might themselves carry harm. Seatbelts... yes. Choking first aid... yes. Healthy eating, talking to them frequently... probably? Lots of sunlight and fresh air... maybe?
  - toxik 6y ago
    To be honest, the baby’s most important resource is the parents themselves. Sunlight and fresh air is good for that at least. Similarly, let somebody else take care of your baby every now and then so you can connect with your partner!
  - exporectomy 6y ago
    About to be a parent and the main conclusion I've come to is that being consistently reliable, caring and responsive to any distress the baby has in the first 6-9 months is number one more important thing to keep in mind. Those physical health things are either obvious or hardly matter but making a kid who grows up to experience a lifetime of emotional suffering due to poor attachment styles or mental health problems is extremely common and bad. The world is filled with these walking wounded who can't function well, can't form stable relationships, commit suicide, become drug abusers, etc. Far more common than SIDS or choking to death.
    - ericd 6y ago
      I'm curious, does your conclusion preclude sleep training, which frequently involves some amount of "crying it out"?
      - exporectomy 6y ago
        Yes, it precludes it in that early age range. I was taught this in parenting class and read it in a library book. I've never heard anyone advocating for leaving your baby alone to cry when it's that young except as a "least bad" choice if the parent is losing control of themselves and might shake the baby in frustration/anger. It's probably different when they're older but I'm not up to that yet.
- damontal 6y ago
  There’s also a right and a wrong way to install a car seat. Some local fire departments will check your installation for you.
enobrev 6y ago
I'm positive of two things in regards to being a parent (and a human): 1. I have no idea what I'm doing 2. Neither does anyone else.
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  and, 3. billions of parents have gotten through this before you, you will too.
- rustybelt 6y ago
  I'll add, the people saying something works and the people saying it doesn't are both right.
  - dr_orpheus 6y ago
    Definitely, every baby is different and what works for one baby may not work for another.
    - quercusa 6y ago
      When our second was 15 minutes, we knew "This one is different." 22 years later, still true.
watertom 6y ago
3 children, we only slept them in their rooms, starting day 10. Naps, day sleep, everything, they slept in their room and in their crib. The room was light controlled, meaning there was no light at all. They quickly associated any sleep with their room and their crib. We used a baby motion sleep mat for peace of mind for SIDS, the thing was so sensitive it could detect the breathing, but if the baby moved off the mat even a little bit it sounded an alarm. Unless a baby has colic, and we used baby dophilus for all our children to avoid any stomach or intestine issues, new babies aren't very fussy sleepers. The fussy sleeping usually happens when they get older, but by then they were accustomed to sleeping in their crib. We never once had a crying fit, we also never forced them to sleep, sometimes, just like adults they aren't ready for sleep, those moments were few and far between and we just surfed through those times. By 6 months all 3 children were sleeping through the nigh. Every soon to be new parent we coached on this method had the same success, probably 40+ babies.
- anw 6y ago
  If you don't mind, which motion-detecting sleep mat did you wind up going with?
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    Not OP, but we used a competing product, which is https://owletcare.com/ https://owletcare.com/ It is a foot attachment that basically watches heart rate and oxygen level all night, and freaks out if something is wrong. Only a very few accidental freakouts (like kicked off foot), but gave a lot of peace of mind. Not cheap but seems pretty solid engineering wise.
- choeger 6y ago
  That begs the question: How did you feed the little ones? Having a baby in its own room from day 10 implies a very high effort feeding schedule, no?
- tobib 6y ago
  Did you make up you own process or did you follow a certain technique? Could you share a few details?
nix23 6y ago
>Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Right and i would add, give them as many time with you as possible. Some of my greatest memory's was strolling around my dad workplace, when he had work todo. Children's don't need parent's as entertainment, but as adventure preparers.
- bordercases 6y ago
  As I've grown older I've found it necessary and desirable to tell my own father about these moments, to assure him that he's done a great job for what he's done even if it was sometimes hard. Thanks for putting this in this perspective. I hope to remember it when I'm a father.
- munificent 6y ago
  > give them as many time with you as possible. Children in the West today already spend more time with parents than at any point in the past: https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-time-with-their-kids-than-moms-and-dads-did-50-years-ago/ https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-ti... Quality time with parents is important, of course, but we have become so focused on parental time that children are sacrificing solo time where they learn independence and initiative, and peer time where they learn to create their own identity and cooperate. Also, this places an unsustainable burden on parents who are expected to work full time as well as be parent, teacher, playmate, and cruise director for their kids.
  - jjav 6y ago
    > Children in the West today already spend more time with parents than at any point in the past That's not what the article says. It compares to just 50 years ago, which is well into the industrialized world of two working parents in the office away from home. Just a bit farther back, like with my grandparents era, kids grew up on the family farm, with their parents 24x7, learning by example from them.
    - astura 6y ago
      How much of that "24x7" time was actually time spent together? When I was growing up kids and adults barely interacted with each other, most of the time kid(s) would be in one area of the house (or outside) doing their own thing and adult(s) would be somewhere else doing their own thing. This wasn't just my house either, it was normal. Nowadays it's totally the opposite (and it's completely insane)
mucholove 6y ago
What method of sleep training did you use? This article lists 6! https://www.todaysparent.com/baby/baby-sleep/most-popular-sleep-training-methods-explained/ https://www.todaysparent.com/baby/baby-sleep/most-popular-sl...
- dom96 6y ago
  I've been wondering the same, the BBC article explains: > the most extreme version of which involves leaving a baby on their own to "cry it out", in an effort to encourage their babies to sleep for longer stretches so their parents can get some much-needed rest. I'm not a parent but that sounds pretty sensible to me. Odd of the BBC to call it "extreme".
  - cashewchoo 6y ago
    We sleep-trained our first starting at about 6 months old, and we're about to do the same with our second. The strategy we used was some kind of incremental back-off. Put them down, light out, leave. Wait 5 mins. Go on, give them a little hug or back pat, leave. Wait 10. Then 15. Then 20. Then 30. Then stay at 30 until they fall asleep. Next night, 10, 15, 20, 30, 30, 30... next night, 15, 20, 30, 30, 30.... At some point it went up to like 30 mins for first check, then an hour for subsequent checks. I think if we'd gotten to that point we'd consider trying something else cause that's a lot of crying. But in practice we never had to really adhere to most of the structure because iirc it was like: Night 1: 5, 10, 15, asleep. Night 2: 10, 15, asleep. Night 3: asleep. Night 4: 15, asleep. Then he was sleep trained and has slept like a rock with 0-30 seconds of fussing (usually 0) (and ~never crying) since.
    - paddlepop 6y ago
      This is called the Ferber method and it worked very well for us as well. Note to others considering using it, the method is just as much about the ritual leading up to sleep (bath, reading a book, etc)
      - cashewchoo 6y ago
agumonkey 6y ago
We are in an orthodoctic era. Lots of tensions about what principle is the best to follow, less patience and acceptance.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Would you please define that word? I can't find a definition online and I try to look up unfamiliar words to widen my vocabulary.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    Hm I improvised an adjective for orthodoxy. Maybe it's orthodoxic .. I hope you get the meaning now.
    - anw 6y ago
      The adjective form of orthodoxy is orthodox. Think of something like the "Orthodox" church. And it's antonym is "unorthodox", for example: "the unorthodox church" ;)
      - agumonkey 6y ago
        And what's the term for adding redundant adjective suffix to an adjective ? :)
  - anw 6y ago
    I'm not the OP, but my attempt through breaking down word etymologies would be something like: ortho: rigid, straight, correct doct: teachings, learnings ic: of, or pertaining to So orthodoctic seems to have the meaning of "pertaining to rigid or correct teachings".
  - eecc 6y ago
    I’ve heard of the word “orthorexia”
spamizbad 6y ago
Most of the hunter-gatherer parenting practices that get pushed on certain parenting blogs are pseudo-scientific and shouldn't be adopted. And some of claims that a baby crying is dumping enough cortisol into their bodies it will permanently damage their brains is NOT supported by science. What does have a strong scientific basis: the importance of sleep hygiene. Children don't need perfection or goofy hunter-gatherer hacks from their parents. They need love, support, and a measure of reasonable consistency[1] from them. [1] This is why having alcoholic parents can be so disruptive... children get a different experience sober vs intoxicated.
- NovaJehovah 6y ago
  "And some of claims that a baby crying is dumping enough cortisol into their bodies it will permanently damage their brains is NOT supported by science." This is misleading. You're correct that there is not conclusive scientific evidence either way, but there are decent studies that support the cortisol theory. Not necessarily that it will "damage their brains", but that cortisol levels spike during sleep training and remain elevated even after the baby learns to stop crying at night. We know that, in general, elevated cortisol levels are bad for humans. The studies that claim to support sleep training are all terrible, unless there are new ones I haven't seen. The most-cited ones use self-reports from the parents themselves to measure "wellbeing" of the infant, which is plainly ridiculous.
  - spamizbad 6y ago
    I get the impression you're equating sleep training with the old fashioned "cry it out" method. We loosely followed the Karp method and had very little crying and a very happy baby.
    - NovaJehovah 6y ago
      In my experience, "sleep training" is just a more palatable euphemism for "cry it out". My view is that however you slice it, you are conditioning the baby that no one will respond to its distress. I'm glad you feel it worked out well for you. I honestly hope it doesn't cause problems, because it's very widespread. Based on our reading of the available evidence, we weren't willing to take the risk. Our lives certainly would be easier if we reached the opposite conclusion.
InfiniteRand 6y ago
I think this anxiety exists in traditional society as well but instead of getting advice from books and news articles in traditional societies you get an avalanche of advice from relatives
NovaJehovah 6y ago
I'll probably get downvoted, but I strongly disagree with this mindset. Raising kids is not a fun hobby or a side project that will fit into a neat little drawer in your life. You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for. So step up. Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're a bad parent. Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" or search for online echo chambers of fellow shitty parents who will soothe your cognitive dissonance while your kid suffers. Make whatever sacrifices you need to, put the time in, and do better.
- thejackgoode 6y ago
  > You have an obligation to do the best that you can This reads like an expectation mindset that with high probability will end up hurting you, your kid and your relationship. Somewhere here belongs the put-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-first metaphor
  - twiddling 6y ago
    As someone with older children, I can attest. Also the attitude can lead to a lot of tension with your co-parent.
- ramblerman 6y ago
  > Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" Counter data point. My wife is Argentinian. I'd say the values you see in her family primarily is "love does come first" and strict boundaries on kids. E.g. the adults are talking, go away. When I compare that to my own nieces and nephews, they have little boundaries, are quite lethargic and can be quite arrogant. Yet their parents would all describe themselves by your standards. We also tend to put our elderly in homes, an idea that is abhorrant to my wife. So I guess what I'm trying to say is ideals are nice. But it's purely theory, mostly to serve your own sensibilities.
  - 6y ago
FlyingSnake 6y ago
> Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Find a doctor you trust. Don’t let people add to an already stressful endeavor. This, right here is the most important lesson we learned from our experience. There is no right or wrong way and others judging/criticising you for your parenting style have no clue what crazy cocktail of genetics+environment+hidden factors are affecting your family.
twiceinawhile 6y ago
> We don’t live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just don’t. What you describe isn't a "hunter gatherer society" issue. It's an innate human/pre-human/primate issue. Throughout human existence and our pre-human ancestor's existence, the infant/baby is with the mother 24/7 for the first few months/years of its life. This is something that stretches back millions of years. We really don't know what effects separating the baby from the mother at such an early age does for its emotional, psychological, etc development. Not to mention the mother's emotional, psychological, etc well being and of course the mother-child bonding. > The baby cried and cried and cried. It would be shocking if it started to lecture you on the pros and cons of the modern geopolitical world order. That a baby cried is par for the course. > Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Unless you need a good night's sleep? This is comes off as new age nonsense we just love in the US. It's trite and meaningless. Of course you raise it with love, it's your kid. Rather than the obvious, we should raise kids so that they are well prepared to compete and fend for themselves in the real world.
arbitrage 6y ago
> The baby cried and cried and cried. What did you expect having a child to be like?
deleted 6y ago
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leokennis 6y ago
To me, it’s very simple: I work and my wife works. After some maternity/paternity leave, we both need to get to work again to earn money to provide our kids with food, shelter, a future etc. To be able to work, we need to sleep. For us to sleep, our kids and the baby needs to sleep. So we put the baby in his own room on day three. Always had him sleep in his bed in his room. Didn’t let him sleep anywhere else (or when he fell asleep, put him in his bed). When in his room, he was there to sleep, not to play. So in short: sleep = bed = sleep = bed. He slept on his own through the night after seven weeks, with only two half awake feedings lasting maybe 15 minutes. Maybe in 1950 the wife was raised to not expect a career and could be up all night taking care of a crying baby, and the man could sleep and then on his own earn a living wage for the family during the day? Maybe in 10.000 b.C. parents could be up all night taking care of a crying baby and “the village” could then take care of the baby during the day while the parents slept? Maybe maybe maybe, but in 2021 there is almost no viable alternative apart from making sure your baby sleeps through the night sooner rather than later.
- krageon 6y ago
  If you can't both give up time to care for the baby 50% of the time (as opposed to one giving up all the time for 100% of the care, which definitely is backwards) then you have to realistically consider whether or not you should argue online that this is peak parenting. If you don't have time for your children, don't have them.
- mojolozzo 6y ago
  I also see an alternative in 2021, even with both parents working. Just as a baby might be trained to sleep through the night, an adult can be trained to not sleep in one big chunk of 6-8 hours, but sleep in several chunks of a few hours. A little nap here and there, and some getting used to using your brain (=working) when tired is a viable alternative for me at least. While sleep is very important for ones health, having a child got me to realize that I can function with less sleep as well. This would be more in the spirit of „parents adapt to their new life as a young family“ in contrast to „the baby adapts to the parents pre-family lifestyle“. I am ready to sacrifice sleep for going out and working late, and so am I to comfort a crying brand-new descendant of mine. (Maybe I‘ll change my mind once the second baby is here ;) )
blub 6y ago
There's the extinction method which is the most hardcore and there's also the Ferber method which has the parent periodically check in with the baby. Extinction is extreme, as one is basically abandoning the child to cry. They're scared, they don't know what's happening and they're alone. Sure, they're (probably?) not gonna suffer long-term damage, but it's just an asshole thing to do. In the book recommending this method all parents had their instincts screaming that they're doing something wrong and they were feeling guilty even if it worked.
- jahewson 6y ago
  It’s not suitable for new babies, that’s for sure. But if you’re closer to the 1yr mark then they’re not crying because they’re scared, they’re crying because they know exactly what’s happening and they want to party and not go through the effort of figuring out how to go to sleep, again. Some kids are just nuts. Ours both were. We went from an hour-long party of rolling, chanting, screaming, head-butting the wall, pulling the hair of any nearby parent, multiple times a night, to... asleep in 10mins. It felt bad at first until we saw how much his mood improved in the daytime because he wasn’t exhausted.
99_00 6y ago
Is the article saying anything is 'right' or 'wrong'?
mywacaday 6y ago
My wife and I went through the usual western slepo traibit cry out etc, I read an article about sleep cycles before electricity wher people had two sleeps per night, first one after dinner for 4-5 hours then and hour or two away where people had a snack or talked etc then went back to sleep for another few hours, I would liked to have tried that schedule with our kids even as a experiment, the sleep deprivation is horrible, I wonder if we aligned our schedule with our kids would it be better for everyone especially when they are babies
flycaliguy 6y ago
I much prefer a “hot tip” over advice. Here’s my latest for example: Sometimes instead of telling my kid to do something, if I can just give the task a good “dad stare” then give him the same look, he’s less likely to try and argue against me. Just tapping into that part of his brain that already knows what I want from him without vocalizing it gives him less room to wiggle out.
sanderjd 6y ago
Yeah we waiting a pretty long time to sleep train our first. Just doesn't sound like something that can actually work. And seems really hard to do, psychologically. But we were kind of amazed how well and how quickly it worked. And yep, there are huge benefits to having a better rested baby and better rested parents. We'll probably do it earlier next time.
gamblor956 6y ago
We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a pediatrician, standard disclaimer.) This article calls it an ‘extreme’ practice. Sleep training appears to be standard for all the parents I know, in the U.S. and otherwise. I think it's more likely that the author of the article has extreme views on parenting that they're tying to impose on others.
- leipert 6y ago
  Not necessarily standard in Germany. Some literature explicitly calls it out as cruel, parenting books coming from the US recommend it Mileage varies, know of one couple who did sleep training and had success with it. Other couples shared a bed with their kid until it was about two and when they moved to a different apartment they took the opportunity to explain: hey you have your own room now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
sangnoir 6y ago
> For us, ‘extreme’ was the sleep deprivation we experienced with baby number one as we tried every ‘no cry’ method in the book. I was more generous in how I interpreted the article: the need for sleep-training is a consequence of the child having a whole different room to themselves. Parents in other cultures who share the room (or the bed) do not get the same level of extreme sleep deprivation and, as a consequence, will not need to sleep-train. To me, the article is not questioning how good the parenting in the west is - it's contrasting it with parenting elsewhere (and tracing the roots of the parenting practices)
- paganel 6y ago
  > Parents in other cultures who share the room (or the bed) do not get the same level of extreme sleep deprivation That was my direct experience as a kid growing up in a non-Western society (I'm 40 now, am from Eastern Europe). When I first read about the Western tabu of parents not being allowed to sleep in the same bed with their children anymore I was a little surprised at first, and then saddened for those kids: "do you mean 3-year or 5-year old me should have slept all alone in his bed at night with no parent close to me? That is pure madness!" More than that, one of my most vivid memories as a kid was sleeping with my brother and my two grand-parents in the same 3x4 meter room (give or take), my brother with my grandma and 6-year old me with my grandpa (there were two beds, a stove, a TV set and a small table in that room). I can still remember my grandpa peeling apples or pears and sharing them with my brother and me, just before we all went to sleep while we were watching some TV, very, very nice memories (in fact my nickname is taken from a Soviet TV series we were watching then [1]). Afaik neither me, nor my brother (who is 2 years older than me) were making any unwanted sounds while we were asleep at night. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088635/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088635/
skeeter2020 6y ago
My wife has joked about writing (yet another) book on parenting but "chill, just go with it and do whatever works" isn't much material for an entire book.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
The constant stream of "you should be doing X" is only shameful or confusing if you think the people imparting it on you have any credibility or their opinions have any validity.
jay_kyburz 6y ago
This whole thread is chaos, but I just wanted to share my experience in case its useful for anybody. Once our kids were out of the bassinet and into a larger cot, rolling and crawling around a lot, it was really clear they just wanted to be with us, and in the end we just found it best for everybody if they just slept between us or even lying on my chest.
iimblack 6y ago
The struggle we’re having is the baby scratches himself nonstop. No matter how much we trim his nails, if we leave him alone at night he’ll be bleeding everywhere. Other than that he sleeps relatively well.
- shard 6y ago
  Have you tried baby mittens? It looks like a pouch, there are no individual fingers on the mittens. We put those on our baby to avoid the scratching problem. Here is an example: https://www.amazon.com/RATIVE-Newborn-Scratch-Mittens-9-pairs/dp/B073GJY95J https://www.amazon.com/RATIVE-Newborn-Scratch-Mittens-9-pair...
  - iimblack 6y ago
    Yeah. He eventually figured out how to take them off. We switched to using socks because they stayed on tighter. Then when teething started he would suck on them and rub his face giving him some bad rashes.
D13Fd 6y ago
I’ve sleep trained 3 kids by myself (my wife wants no part in it) in the last 4 years or so. It takes a couple of days and then everyone involved is happier going forward (mother, father, and child).
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
Can you share more about how you sleep trained them? Thanks.

by gdubs 6y ago

eurusdac 6y ago

I agree, my advice to any new parent would be to listen carefully to advice about how not to drown your child while bathing them, and how to make sure they're not suffocated by their bedding. Both real issues where some simple practices avoid the small risk of an absolutely catastrophic outcome. Then take all other advice with a pinch of salt. Just follow your best instincts and do what seems right. Your child will be fine, plus you'll be more relaxed, you'll appreciate the time with them more. You'll have more time and emotional energy to understand and respond to how they are doing as well as how you and your partner are feeling, and your instincts will get better and better.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
For myself, the risk SIDS didn't even enter my calculus. (I confess I am a little skeptical that it exists at all.) Regardless, I perceived the emotional bonding with the mother & father to far outweigh anything else and so we shared our bed with our children until they were perhaps 1 year old or so. And even after, they moved into their own small bed just a foot from ours in the same bedroom for another year or so. I guess that was my "instinct". Although we received a crib as a gift, it just sat in another room, empty.
- eurusdac 6y ago
  I think SIDS is a real thing and there is clear evidence that not using pillows or excessive blankets in cribs has reduced deaths. I think sleeping with or not with your kid, is a much more complicated question and probably one where your instinct is right. After all, with a baby in the bed you can't help but be aware of its comfort, needs and amount of movement.
  - CodeGlitch 6y ago
    In the UK the NHS have posters and leaflets about how parents should NOT sleep with their baby as deaths have occurred from parents "lying on and suffocating their new born". Of course this from drugged-up and/or drunk parents. If you don't fall into the "bad parent" category you'll be fine.
    - cma 6y ago
      Or if you take ambien or something like that it might not be a good idea.
      - krageon 6y ago
        The post you are responding to mentioned drugged-up right there in the conclusion.
    - Talanes 6y ago
      I've woken up to nearly suffocating myself in blankets, completely sober. I wouldn't take that chance with myself in the bed.
jqgatsby 6y ago
Hey, wait, what is the advice to avoid drowning, other than not leaving them alone? Is there some subtle hazard I’m unaware of?
- eurusdac 6y ago
  Not really, it's just the simple advice not to let go of them or leave them is correct, common sense and important in that case.
- thebruce87m 6y ago
  Never leave them for even a second in the bath (drowning) and never leave them alone with food (choking).
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    It sounds so obvious, until your dog gets his head stuck in the ficus tree planter and you can hear him running around, destroying your entire living room. You have to resist that initial urge to go help him until you've cleaned up the 16 blueberry puffs you've been coaxing your child to eat.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    This is like saying "don't speed if you don't want a speeding ticket". Yes, you can use absolute qualifiers like "never" and "always" to stupid proof general advice to a greater extent than you can with phrases like "common sense" and "where reasonable" but that doesn't automatically make the advice any more useful.. I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk that comes with spending ~1min removing something from the oven when the timer goes off and other reasonable allowances like that. Of course I'm not gonna stop and watch TV with an infant in the sink. And if traffic's going 85 I'm going 85 but I won't be the first person going 85.
    - zamfi 6y ago
      It's not like that. Everyone knows the risk of a speeding ticket comes with speeding. Not everyone knows that it takes 20 seconds for a baby to drown in a bathtub. > I'm perfectly fine with the size of the drowning risk that comes with spending ~1min removing something from the oven when the timer goes off Completely making up numbers here, say you do this for every 20-minute bath, your child bathes 1x/day, and they fall over in such a way that they might drown were you not there once every 10000 baths. Doing the math... 5% chance of being absent at the critical moment * 1/10000 baths * 365 baths/year = 0.18% chance of death in first year of life. You may be willing to take that risk, but given the 4 million infants born each year in the US, that would be 7,300 infant deaths from drowning in the bathtub annually -- so as a societal rule, saving 7,300 infants a year seems worth the use of the word "never". The actual number of deaths attributed to bathtub drowning each year is much lower; I'm glad the vast majority of parents appear to take "never" to heart.
kinghtown 6y ago
Father here. I agree. So much of the parenting advice I see dips into micromanaging and min/maxing to an almost paranoid degree. Just learn about what could kill them in the first year and avoid that. Really, six months and under is the true window for SIDS with freak occurrences. Definitely be on the lookout for any poisonous cleaning products While you’re at it and put them high off the ground. The pro parents who did it all before you are super annoying. I’ve had to politely listen to questionable advice many times. I much prefer people like you who get it. You got to trust your instincts about your own kids. There is broad advice which applies to everyone but everyone’s kid is a little different from the norm as well and as a parent we know our kids better than anyone else.
- exporectomy 6y ago
  Trusting your instincts is how intergenerational cycles of abuse and neglect happen. If you were raised well, then yes, otherwise you have to work consciously to reject your harmful instincts.
  - kinghtown 6y ago
    Well, sure but I’m advocating to trust your instincts in terms of their general health and well-being. Abuse or gross neglect are entirely different matters. Abusive parents are probably not going to be online doing heavy research on what is the optimum thing to do as a parent. They probably just feel tired and bitter about their children, or worse. A lot of modern, new wave parenting to me feels an awful lot like meddling in natural child development. Like too much of a good thing, helicopter parenting.
    - exporectomy 6y ago
      I'm talking about hardly visible emotional abuse and neglect, not some extreme criminal activity that only really bad people do. For example, not loving your child and going through the motions of looking after it without really caring. Or inconsistently responding to it with dismissal sometimes and kindness other times so it can't really trust you and feel secure. That can lead to harmful attachment styles as an adult.
jl6 6y ago
Generally agree, except I’m not sure there is a bright line between the obviously-worthwhile precautions you mention and the paranoid overprecautions that might themselves carry harm. Seatbelts... yes. Choking first aid... yes. Healthy eating, talking to them frequently... probably? Lots of sunlight and fresh air... maybe?
- toxik 6y ago
  To be honest, the baby’s most important resource is the parents themselves. Sunlight and fresh air is good for that at least. Similarly, let somebody else take care of your baby every now and then so you can connect with your partner!
- exporectomy 6y ago
  About to be a parent and the main conclusion I've come to is that being consistently reliable, caring and responsive to any distress the baby has in the first 6-9 months is number one more important thing to keep in mind. Those physical health things are either obvious or hardly matter but making a kid who grows up to experience a lifetime of emotional suffering due to poor attachment styles or mental health problems is extremely common and bad. The world is filled with these walking wounded who can't function well, can't form stable relationships, commit suicide, become drug abusers, etc. Far more common than SIDS or choking to death.
  - ericd 6y ago
    I'm curious, does your conclusion preclude sleep training, which frequently involves some amount of "crying it out"?
    - exporectomy 6y ago
      Yes, it precludes it in that early age range. I was taught this in parenting class and read it in a library book. I've never heard anyone advocating for leaving your baby alone to cry when it's that young except as a "least bad" choice if the parent is losing control of themselves and might shake the baby in frustration/anger. It's probably different when they're older but I'm not up to that yet.
damontal 6y ago
There’s also a right and a wrong way to install a car seat. Some local fire departments will check your installation for you.

enobrev 6y ago

I'm positive of two things in regards to being a parent (and a human): 1. I have no idea what I'm doing 2. Neither does anyone else.

dimitrios1 6y ago
and, 3. billions of parents have gotten through this before you, you will too.
rustybelt 6y ago
I'll add, the people saying something works and the people saying it doesn't are both right.
- dr_orpheus 6y ago
  Definitely, every baby is different and what works for one baby may not work for another.
  - quercusa 6y ago
    When our second was 15 minutes, we knew "This one is different." 22 years later, still true.

watertom 6y ago

3 children, we only slept them in their rooms, starting day 10. Naps, day sleep, everything, they slept in their room and in their crib. The room was light controlled, meaning there was no light at all. They quickly associated any sleep with their room and their crib. We used a baby motion sleep mat for peace of mind for SIDS, the thing was so sensitive it could detect the breathing, but if the baby moved off the mat even a little bit it sounded an alarm. Unless a baby has colic, and we used baby dophilus for all our children to avoid any stomach or intestine issues, new babies aren't very fussy sleepers. The fussy sleeping usually happens when they get older, but by then they were accustomed to sleeping in their crib. We never once had a crying fit, we also never forced them to sleep, sometimes, just like adults they aren't ready for sleep, those moments were few and far between and we just surfed through those times. By 6 months all 3 children were sleeping through the nigh. Every soon to be new parent we coached on this method had the same success, probably 40+ babies.

anw 6y ago
If you don't mind, which motion-detecting sleep mat did you wind up going with?
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Not OP, but we used a competing product, which is https://owletcare.com/ https://owletcare.com/ It is a foot attachment that basically watches heart rate and oxygen level all night, and freaks out if something is wrong. Only a very few accidental freakouts (like kicked off foot), but gave a lot of peace of mind. Not cheap but seems pretty solid engineering wise.
choeger 6y ago
That begs the question: How did you feed the little ones? Having a baby in its own room from day 10 implies a very high effort feeding schedule, no?
tobib 6y ago
Did you make up you own process or did you follow a certain technique? Could you share a few details?

nix23 6y ago

>Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Right and i would add, give them as many time with you as possible. Some of my greatest memory's was strolling around my dad workplace, when he had work todo. Children's don't need parent's as entertainment, but as adventure preparers.

bordercases 6y ago
As I've grown older I've found it necessary and desirable to tell my own father about these moments, to assure him that he's done a great job for what he's done even if it was sometimes hard. Thanks for putting this in this perspective. I hope to remember it when I'm a father.
munificent 6y ago
> give them as many time with you as possible. Children in the West today already spend more time with parents than at any point in the past: https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-time-with-their-kids-than-moms-and-dads-did-50-years-ago/ https://news.uci.edu/2016/09/28/todays-parents-spend-more-ti... Quality time with parents is important, of course, but we have become so focused on parental time that children are sacrificing solo time where they learn independence and initiative, and peer time where they learn to create their own identity and cooperate. Also, this places an unsustainable burden on parents who are expected to work full time as well as be parent, teacher, playmate, and cruise director for their kids.
- jjav 6y ago
  > Children in the West today already spend more time with parents than at any point in the past That's not what the article says. It compares to just 50 years ago, which is well into the industrialized world of two working parents in the office away from home. Just a bit farther back, like with my grandparents era, kids grew up on the family farm, with their parents 24x7, learning by example from them.
  - astura 6y ago
    How much of that "24x7" time was actually time spent together? When I was growing up kids and adults barely interacted with each other, most of the time kid(s) would be in one area of the house (or outside) doing their own thing and adult(s) would be somewhere else doing their own thing. This wasn't just my house either, it was normal. Nowadays it's totally the opposite (and it's completely insane)

mucholove 6y ago

What method of sleep training did you use? This article lists 6! https://www.todaysparent.com/baby/baby-sleep/most-popular-sleep-training-methods-explained/ https://www.todaysparent.com/baby/baby-sleep/most-popular-sl...

dom96 6y ago
I've been wondering the same, the BBC article explains: > the most extreme version of which involves leaving a baby on their own to "cry it out", in an effort to encourage their babies to sleep for longer stretches so their parents can get some much-needed rest. I'm not a parent but that sounds pretty sensible to me. Odd of the BBC to call it "extreme".
- cashewchoo 6y ago
  We sleep-trained our first starting at about 6 months old, and we're about to do the same with our second. The strategy we used was some kind of incremental back-off. Put them down, light out, leave. Wait 5 mins. Go on, give them a little hug or back pat, leave. Wait 10. Then 15. Then 20. Then 30. Then stay at 30 until they fall asleep. Next night, 10, 15, 20, 30, 30, 30... next night, 15, 20, 30, 30, 30.... At some point it went up to like 30 mins for first check, then an hour for subsequent checks. I think if we'd gotten to that point we'd consider trying something else cause that's a lot of crying. But in practice we never had to really adhere to most of the structure because iirc it was like: Night 1: 5, 10, 15, asleep. Night 2: 10, 15, asleep. Night 3: asleep. Night 4: 15, asleep. Then he was sleep trained and has slept like a rock with 0-30 seconds of fussing (usually 0) (and ~never crying) since.
  - paddlepop 6y ago
    This is called the Ferber method and it worked very well for us as well. Note to others considering using it, the method is just as much about the ritual leading up to sleep (bath, reading a book, etc)
    - cashewchoo 6y ago

agumonkey 6y ago

We are in an orthodoctic era. Lots of tensions about what principle is the best to follow, less patience and acceptance.

jimbob45 6y ago
Would you please define that word? I can't find a definition online and I try to look up unfamiliar words to widen my vocabulary.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  Hm I improvised an adjective for orthodoxy. Maybe it's orthodoxic .. I hope you get the meaning now.
  - anw 6y ago
    The adjective form of orthodoxy is orthodox. Think of something like the "Orthodox" church. And it's antonym is "unorthodox", for example: "the unorthodox church" ;)
    - agumonkey 6y ago
      And what's the term for adding redundant adjective suffix to an adjective ? :)
- anw 6y ago
  I'm not the OP, but my attempt through breaking down word etymologies would be something like: ortho: rigid, straight, correct doct: teachings, learnings ic: of, or pertaining to So orthodoctic seems to have the meaning of "pertaining to rigid or correct teachings".
- eecc 6y ago
  I’ve heard of the word “orthorexia”

spamizbad 6y ago

Most of the hunter-gatherer parenting practices that get pushed on certain parenting blogs are pseudo-scientific and shouldn't be adopted. And some of claims that a baby crying is dumping enough cortisol into their bodies it will permanently damage their brains is NOT supported by science. What does have a strong scientific basis: the importance of sleep hygiene. Children don't need perfection or goofy hunter-gatherer hacks from their parents. They need love, support, and a measure of reasonable consistency[1] from them. [1] This is why having alcoholic parents can be so disruptive... children get a different experience sober vs intoxicated.

NovaJehovah 6y ago
"And some of claims that a baby crying is dumping enough cortisol into their bodies it will permanently damage their brains is NOT supported by science." This is misleading. You're correct that there is not conclusive scientific evidence either way, but there are decent studies that support the cortisol theory. Not necessarily that it will "damage their brains", but that cortisol levels spike during sleep training and remain elevated even after the baby learns to stop crying at night. We know that, in general, elevated cortisol levels are bad for humans. The studies that claim to support sleep training are all terrible, unless there are new ones I haven't seen. The most-cited ones use self-reports from the parents themselves to measure "wellbeing" of the infant, which is plainly ridiculous.
- spamizbad 6y ago
  I get the impression you're equating sleep training with the old fashioned "cry it out" method. We loosely followed the Karp method and had very little crying and a very happy baby.
  - NovaJehovah 6y ago
    In my experience, "sleep training" is just a more palatable euphemism for "cry it out". My view is that however you slice it, you are conditioning the baby that no one will respond to its distress. I'm glad you feel it worked out well for you. I honestly hope it doesn't cause problems, because it's very widespread. Based on our reading of the available evidence, we weren't willing to take the risk. Our lives certainly would be easier if we reached the opposite conclusion.

InfiniteRand 6y ago

I think this anxiety exists in traditional society as well but instead of getting advice from books and news articles in traditional societies you get an avalanche of advice from relatives

NovaJehovah 6y ago

I'll probably get downvoted, but I strongly disagree with this mindset. Raising kids is not a fun hobby or a side project that will fit into a neat little drawer in your life. You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for. So step up. Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're a bad parent. Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" or search for online echo chambers of fellow shitty parents who will soothe your cognitive dissonance while your kid suffers. Make whatever sacrifices you need to, put the time in, and do better.

thejackgoode 6y ago
> You have an obligation to do the best that you can This reads like an expectation mindset that with high probability will end up hurting you, your kid and your relationship. Somewhere here belongs the put-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-first metaphor
- twiddling 6y ago
  As someone with older children, I can attest. Also the attitude can lead to a lot of tension with your co-parent.
ramblerman 6y ago
> Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" Counter data point. My wife is Argentinian. I'd say the values you see in her family primarily is "love does come first" and strict boundaries on kids. E.g. the adults are talking, go away. When I compare that to my own nieces and nephews, they have little boundaries, are quite lethargic and can be quite arrogant. Yet their parents would all describe themselves by your standards. We also tend to put our elderly in homes, an idea that is abhorrant to my wife. So I guess what I'm trying to say is ideals are nice. But it's purely theory, mostly to serve your own sensibilities.
- 6y ago

FlyingSnake 6y ago

> Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Find a doctor you trust. Don’t let people add to an already stressful endeavor. This, right here is the most important lesson we learned from our experience. There is no right or wrong way and others judging/criticising you for your parenting style have no clue what crazy cocktail of genetics+environment+hidden factors are affecting your family.

twiceinawhile 6y ago

> We don’t live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just don’t. What you describe isn't a "hunter gatherer society" issue. It's an innate human/pre-human/primate issue. Throughout human existence and our pre-human ancestor's existence, the infant/baby is with the mother 24/7 for the first few months/years of its life. This is something that stretches back millions of years. We really don't know what effects separating the baby from the mother at such an early age does for its emotional, psychological, etc development. Not to mention the mother's emotional, psychological, etc well being and of course the mother-child bonding. > The baby cried and cried and cried. It would be shocking if it started to lecture you on the pros and cons of the modern geopolitical world order. That a baby cried is par for the course. > Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Unless you need a good night's sleep? This is comes off as new age nonsense we just love in the US. It's trite and meaningless. Of course you raise it with love, it's your kid. Rather than the obvious, we should raise kids so that they are well prepared to compete and fend for themselves in the real world.

arbitrage 6y ago

> The baby cried and cried and cried. What did you expect having a child to be like?

deleted 6y ago

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leokennis 6y ago

To me, it’s very simple: I work and my wife works. After some maternity/paternity leave, we both need to get to work again to earn money to provide our kids with food, shelter, a future etc. To be able to work, we need to sleep. For us to sleep, our kids and the baby needs to sleep. So we put the baby in his own room on day three. Always had him sleep in his bed in his room. Didn’t let him sleep anywhere else (or when he fell asleep, put him in his bed). When in his room, he was there to sleep, not to play. So in short: sleep = bed = sleep = bed. He slept on his own through the night after seven weeks, with only two half awake feedings lasting maybe 15 minutes. Maybe in 1950 the wife was raised to not expect a career and could be up all night taking care of a crying baby, and the man could sleep and then on his own earn a living wage for the family during the day? Maybe in 10.000 b.C. parents could be up all night taking care of a crying baby and “the village” could then take care of the baby during the day while the parents slept? Maybe maybe maybe, but in 2021 there is almost no viable alternative apart from making sure your baby sleeps through the night sooner rather than later.

krageon 6y ago
If you can't both give up time to care for the baby 50% of the time (as opposed to one giving up all the time for 100% of the care, which definitely is backwards) then you have to realistically consider whether or not you should argue online that this is peak parenting. If you don't have time for your children, don't have them.
mojolozzo 6y ago
I also see an alternative in 2021, even with both parents working. Just as a baby might be trained to sleep through the night, an adult can be trained to not sleep in one big chunk of 6-8 hours, but sleep in several chunks of a few hours. A little nap here and there, and some getting used to using your brain (=working) when tired is a viable alternative for me at least. While sleep is very important for ones health, having a child got me to realize that I can function with less sleep as well. This would be more in the spirit of „parents adapt to their new life as a young family“ in contrast to „the baby adapts to the parents pre-family lifestyle“. I am ready to sacrifice sleep for going out and working late, and so am I to comfort a crying brand-new descendant of mine. (Maybe I‘ll change my mind once the second baby is here ;) )

blub 6y ago

There's the extinction method which is the most hardcore and there's also the Ferber method which has the parent periodically check in with the baby. Extinction is extreme, as one is basically abandoning the child to cry. They're scared, they don't know what's happening and they're alone. Sure, they're (probably?) not gonna suffer long-term damage, but it's just an asshole thing to do. In the book recommending this method all parents had their instincts screaming that they're doing something wrong and they were feeling guilty even if it worked.

jahewson 6y ago
It’s not suitable for new babies, that’s for sure. But if you’re closer to the 1yr mark then they’re not crying because they’re scared, they’re crying because they know exactly what’s happening and they want to party and not go through the effort of figuring out how to go to sleep, again. Some kids are just nuts. Ours both were. We went from an hour-long party of rolling, chanting, screaming, head-butting the wall, pulling the hair of any nearby parent, multiple times a night, to... asleep in 10mins. It felt bad at first until we saw how much his mood improved in the daytime because he wasn’t exhausted.

99_00 6y ago

Is the article saying anything is 'right' or 'wrong'?

mywacaday 6y ago

My wife and I went through the usual western slepo traibit cry out etc, I read an article about sleep cycles before electricity wher people had two sleeps per night, first one after dinner for 4-5 hours then and hour or two away where people had a snack or talked etc then went back to sleep for another few hours, I would liked to have tried that schedule with our kids even as a experiment, the sleep deprivation is horrible, I wonder if we aligned our schedule with our kids would it be better for everyone especially when they are babies

flycaliguy 6y ago

I much prefer a “hot tip” over advice. Here’s my latest for example: Sometimes instead of telling my kid to do something, if I can just give the task a good “dad stare” then give him the same look, he’s less likely to try and argue against me. Just tapping into that part of his brain that already knows what I want from him without vocalizing it gives him less room to wiggle out.

sanderjd 6y ago

Yeah we waiting a pretty long time to sleep train our first. Just doesn't sound like something that can actually work. And seems really hard to do, psychologically. But we were kind of amazed how well and how quickly it worked. And yep, there are huge benefits to having a better rested baby and better rested parents. We'll probably do it earlier next time.

gamblor956 6y ago

We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a pediatrician, standard disclaimer.) This article calls it an ‘extreme’ practice. Sleep training appears to be standard for all the parents I know, in the U.S. and otherwise. I think it's more likely that the author of the article has extreme views on parenting that they're tying to impose on others.

leipert 6y ago
Not necessarily standard in Germany. Some literature explicitly calls it out as cruel, parenting books coming from the US recommend it Mileage varies, know of one couple who did sleep training and had success with it. Other couples shared a bed with their kid until it was about two and when they moved to a different apartment they took the opportunity to explain: hey you have your own room now.
deleted 6y ago
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sangnoir 6y ago

> For us, ‘extreme’ was the sleep deprivation we experienced with baby number one as we tried every ‘no cry’ method in the book. I was more generous in how I interpreted the article: the need for sleep-training is a consequence of the child having a whole different room to themselves. Parents in other cultures who share the room (or the bed) do not get the same level of extreme sleep deprivation and, as a consequence, will not need to sleep-train. To me, the article is not questioning how good the parenting in the west is - it's contrasting it with parenting elsewhere (and tracing the roots of the parenting practices)

paganel 6y ago
> Parents in other cultures who share the room (or the bed) do not get the same level of extreme sleep deprivation That was my direct experience as a kid growing up in a non-Western society (I'm 40 now, am from Eastern Europe). When I first read about the Western tabu of parents not being allowed to sleep in the same bed with their children anymore I was a little surprised at first, and then saddened for those kids: "do you mean 3-year or 5-year old me should have slept all alone in his bed at night with no parent close to me? That is pure madness!" More than that, one of my most vivid memories as a kid was sleeping with my brother and my two grand-parents in the same 3x4 meter room (give or take), my brother with my grandma and 6-year old me with my grandpa (there were two beds, a stove, a TV set and a small table in that room). I can still remember my grandpa peeling apples or pears and sharing them with my brother and me, just before we all went to sleep while we were watching some TV, very, very nice memories (in fact my nickname is taken from a Soviet TV series we were watching then [1]). Afaik neither me, nor my brother (who is 2 years older than me) were making any unwanted sounds while we were asleep at night. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088635/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088635/

skeeter2020 6y ago

My wife has joked about writing (yet another) book on parenting but "chill, just go with it and do whatever works" isn't much material for an entire book.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

The constant stream of "you should be doing X" is only shameful or confusing if you think the people imparting it on you have any credibility or their opinions have any validity.

jay_kyburz 6y ago

This whole thread is chaos, but I just wanted to share my experience in case its useful for anybody. Once our kids were out of the bassinet and into a larger cot, rolling and crawling around a lot, it was really clear they just wanted to be with us, and in the end we just found it best for everybody if they just slept between us or even lying on my chest.

iimblack 6y ago

The struggle we’re having is the baby scratches himself nonstop. No matter how much we trim his nails, if we leave him alone at night he’ll be bleeding everywhere. Other than that he sleeps relatively well.

shard 6y ago
Have you tried baby mittens? It looks like a pouch, there are no individual fingers on the mittens. We put those on our baby to avoid the scratching problem. Here is an example: https://www.amazon.com/RATIVE-Newborn-Scratch-Mittens-9-pairs/dp/B073GJY95J https://www.amazon.com/RATIVE-Newborn-Scratch-Mittens-9-pair...
- iimblack 6y ago
  Yeah. He eventually figured out how to take them off. We switched to using socks because they stayed on tighter. Then when teething started he would suck on them and rub his face giving him some bad rashes.

D13Fd 6y ago

I’ve sleep trained 3 kids by myself (my wife wants no part in it) in the last 4 years or so. It takes a couple of days and then everyone involved is happier going forward (mother, father, and child).

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

Can you share more about how you sleep trained them? Thanks.