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Comparing a 9-month-old spending 15 minutes calming themselves down before falling asleep to physical abuse is laughably absurd. A big problem with this "debat

Comparing a 9-month-old spending 15 minutes calming themselves down before falling asleep to physical abuse is laughably absurd. A big problem with this "debate" is that people conjure images of newborn babies being left to cry for hours, when what is actually predominantly practiced is older infants 6-12 months old being allowed to cry for less than half an hour. After being fed and given a clean diaper and a safe place to sleep, being rocked to sleep just isn't a "need" for an older infant; they are crying because they want to be soothed to sleep. And it's fine to do that if you want to as a parent (which pretty much all parents do!), but it's also fine for them to learn to soothe themselves instead. It isn't "emotional abuse".

aaomidi 4y ago
Yeah…cause they’re human and as the parent you’re their only human interaction. Why is them wanting to be soothed seen as a bad thing? Like, what the fuck do we think these babies are actively scheming to find ways to get soothed? I swear our brains are looking for adversaries in infants now. Your infant child can not manipulate you. The brains barely understand action and consequence. Your infant child is trying to communicate its needs, and having it unmet with indifference is honestly hilariously sad.
- gregoriol 4y ago
  What if it is part of learning?
- sanderjd 4y ago
  It's not a bad thing, just like it's not bad for a baby to want to be spoon-fed. But part of growing up is learning new skills, like eating by themselves and soothing themselves to sleep. And a big part of parenting is figuring out the right times and ways to encourage this. You know what has been a far more traumatic growing experience for every kid I've known than learning to sleep independently? Learning to use a toilet. Way more tears, way more "emotional trauma", but it's all part of growing up. > I swear our brains are looking for adversaries in infants now. Also, sleep training is not some new-agey thing that we've just concocted out of a recent adversarial parenting trend; if anything it's exactly the opposite, it is the focus on "attachment" and concern over the impact of things like sleep training that is the newer trend.
  - mirsadm 4y ago
    One thing that has always bothered me is parents trying to justify sleep training as a positive for the child. The reason parents do it is for their own benefit.
    - sanderjd 4y ago
      So, it's both, for real. Waking up and crying five or six times a night really isn't good for infants and is even worse for toddlers. They need to be well rested for all the learning they do during their days. But it's also the case that anything that is bad for parents is bad for children. Especially when it comes to sleep deprivation. I'm completely convinced that in my almost-five year old's entire life, the most danger she has ever been in was when we had to drive half an hour to the pediatrician multiple times a week when she was a newborn and we weren't sleeping at all. I may as well have been three or four drinks in every time I drove to the doctor in those early weeks. But driving isn't the only problem. Parents are more irritable, less present, and just generally worse, when they aren't sleeping. Sleep deprivation isn't just some funny goofy little thing that parents adorably have to deal with; it's a major problem. I didn't even realize this until I started sleeping after a year and a half and had the experience of "waking up" after a few weeks of good sleep. It's an actual problem! It's not just some preference that parents have to be able to sleep.
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        > But driving isn't the only problem. Parents are more irritable, less present, and just generally worse, when they aren't sleeping. This. It's hard to not laugh at a remark like "the reason parents do it is for their own benefit". Of course we do it for our own benefit. Because our benefit is the benefit of the child as well. Temporary attachment or emotional issues, if they happen, can be fixed. Worst case, the parents may need some external guidance from a specialist in children psychology and emotional development. Keeping the parents sleep-deprived for months can cause them to become depressed (or exacerbate mother's postpartum depression - a very important topic that's not being talked about enough), or lose their jobs, or make them hate their own child, or hate each other and ultimately lead to divorce/broken family. All these consequences are orders of magnitude worse for future prospects of a child than anything a botched sleep training can cause.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > Like, what the fuck do we think these babies are actively scheming to find ways to get soothed? That's exactly what they do. Do you believe they're processing sophisticated ideas of love, attachment and comforting? That they're making a choice to ask their parents for soothing? Infants are acting on basic instincts. With very limited but rapidly expanding space of possible actions, they're actively learning what behavior will lead to their basic needs being satisfied. They can and will overfit on whatever pattern they can spot. > I swear our brains are looking for adversaries in infants now. In operational sense, they are - they're fighting for resources for their own survival. > Your infant child can not manipulate you. The brains barely understand action and consequence. Your infant child is trying to communicate its needs, and having it unmet with indifference is honestly hilariously sad. Of course they can and will manipulate you. That's, like, parenthood 101. The whole set of biological and psychological changes parents undergo, the whole deal with attachment, is to make the parents vulnerable to the child. The brain of an infant may understand little at first, but it understands enough of "action and consequence" to start doing gradient descent and quickly learn how to get what it needs from its parents. Of course it helps that the parents want to fulfill their child's needs - initially, the kid isn't really learning how to get the parents to respond, but rather training the parents to respond to specific cues. Eventually, children learn to speak, and that's when it's really clear just how devious and manipulative kids are. It's both amusing and rewarding to watch them push the boundaries of their intelligence to get you to react they way they want. Except in those cases where they succeed, and you only realize it moments later that you've been had :).
  - metabagel 4y ago
    But infants aren't capable of looking after their own needs. You're really mixing up different stages of childhood development.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > But infants aren't capable of looking after their own needs. That's my point. They aren't capable of looking after their own needs. They need their parents for that. But what they are capable of is correlating their behavior with their needs being fulfilled, and doing more of the thing that correlates well with those needs being met.
afandian 4y ago
“A little rap on the knuckles” is less severe than full on beating, but it’s on the gradient of physical violence. Teaching a child that their call for help will not be answered is unkind and damaging. And I’m not sure a baby has the same perspective on 15 minutes as the average adult. I’m pretty sure most adults are walking around with unresolved emotional trauma issues that do not serve them, or those around them, well. Again, on my opinion as a human. Opinions clearly vary wildly.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >Teaching a child that their call for help will not be answered is unkind and damaging. I just commented elsewhere and asked you what your understanding of "sleep training" or "crying it out" entails, but I think this answers it for me - you're ignorant to what actually happens. You do not teach a child that their call for help will be unanswered. You observe them closely as they wake up, listen to how they're crying (each parent knows what their child's cries mean), listen for the highs and the lows of the crying, watch them as they try to learn how to put themselves back to sleep. But you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT abandon them. You go in frequently at first, and slowly extend the amount of time you give them before going in as "sleep training" progresses. You slowly give them more and more space to figure it out, but you still always go in at some point, when they need it. You are giving them the space to learn something while still being there for them. To suggest otherwise, and judge others as abusive you have been doing repeatedly in this thread, is ignorant and uncalled for. It's not constructive, and it's rude.
  - afandian 4y ago
    I apologise, I’ve not read literature on it, or the particular methodology you describe. I’m not judging you. That said, whatever the merits of a structured approach, for every parent that diligently follows them, there are others that are less careful. And I’ve met them. I’m responding to sentiments like “I just ignore them and they go to sleep eventually”, “don’t go and check, he only wants attention” from other parents, and other reports from someone I know who is a midwife. The model we followed was “Hand in hand”, which resonated for us. And we were saddened that that philosophy does not seem to be very mainstream amongst parents I have met.
oskarpearson 4y ago
From the article: > For others, it can be hours of crying, even to the point of vomiting (common enough to be a frequent topic of conversation on sleep-training forums and addressed by baby sleep books including Ferber's The article also includes a reference to 2-3 hours.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  It’s a spectrum between “spend 24/7 attached to a baby” and “ignore them all night”. Everyone thinks that the position even 1% different from what they adopted is abhorrent.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Fair enough. I'm not supportive of letting kids cry for 2-3 hours even to the point of vomiting. But even then, I'm sympathetic to it if the parents have tried everything else and they have a kid that just won't sleep. I'm not like an absolutist or anything, I just think parents should have space to try to figure out what works for their own families without random strangers calling them abusive.
  - metabagel 4y ago
    It's abusive to abandon an infant. https://www.attachmentparenting.org/ensure-safe-sleep-physically-and-emotionally https://www.attachmentparenting.org/ensure-safe-sleep-physic... "Research shows us that an infant is not neurologically or developmentally capable of calming or soothing himself to sleep in a way that is healthy. The part of the brain that helps with self-soothing isn't well developed until the child is two and a half to three years of age. Until that time, a child depends on his parents to help him calm down and learn to regulate his intense feelings."
    - sanderjd 4y ago
      And yet, sleep training is not abandoning an infant. Mind your own business and stop accusing strangers who you know nothing about of abuse. You're being an a-hole. Edit to add: attachmentparenting.org is not an objective arbiter of the research on whether or not the dogmas of attachment parenting are correct! They have a dog in this fight...
unity1001 4y ago
[flagged]
- sanderjd 4y ago
  This is a load of unadulterated bullshit. Kids cry all the time. It doesn't psychologically scar them for life. Take a chill pill! It's actual insanity how people have come up think that every. little. thing. they do as a parent has these life long ripple effects. I'm sorry to tell you: these little details of parenting just aren't important either way. What matters is food and shelter and a loving home. Focus on those things for your own family and stop driving yourself crazy with these details, and especially stop getting so riled up by what other parents are doing, it's none of your business!

aaomidi 4y ago

Yeah…cause they’re human and as the parent you’re their only human interaction. Why is them wanting to be soothed seen as a bad thing? Like, what the fuck do we think these babies are actively scheming to find ways to get soothed? I swear our brains are looking for adversaries in infants now. Your infant child can not manipulate you. The brains barely understand action and consequence. Your infant child is trying to communicate its needs, and having it unmet with indifference is honestly hilariously sad.

gregoriol 4y ago
What if it is part of learning?
sanderjd 4y ago
It's not a bad thing, just like it's not bad for a baby to want to be spoon-fed. But part of growing up is learning new skills, like eating by themselves and soothing themselves to sleep. And a big part of parenting is figuring out the right times and ways to encourage this. You know what has been a far more traumatic growing experience for every kid I've known than learning to sleep independently? Learning to use a toilet. Way more tears, way more "emotional trauma", but it's all part of growing up. > I swear our brains are looking for adversaries in infants now. Also, sleep training is not some new-agey thing that we've just concocted out of a recent adversarial parenting trend; if anything it's exactly the opposite, it is the focus on "attachment" and concern over the impact of things like sleep training that is the newer trend.
- mirsadm 4y ago
  One thing that has always bothered me is parents trying to justify sleep training as a positive for the child. The reason parents do it is for their own benefit.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    So, it's both, for real. Waking up and crying five or six times a night really isn't good for infants and is even worse for toddlers. They need to be well rested for all the learning they do during their days. But it's also the case that anything that is bad for parents is bad for children. Especially when it comes to sleep deprivation. I'm completely convinced that in my almost-five year old's entire life, the most danger she has ever been in was when we had to drive half an hour to the pediatrician multiple times a week when she was a newborn and we weren't sleeping at all. I may as well have been three or four drinks in every time I drove to the doctor in those early weeks. But driving isn't the only problem. Parents are more irritable, less present, and just generally worse, when they aren't sleeping. Sleep deprivation isn't just some funny goofy little thing that parents adorably have to deal with; it's a major problem. I didn't even realize this until I started sleeping after a year and a half and had the experience of "waking up" after a few weeks of good sleep. It's an actual problem! It's not just some preference that parents have to be able to sleep.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > But driving isn't the only problem. Parents are more irritable, less present, and just generally worse, when they aren't sleeping. This. It's hard to not laugh at a remark like "the reason parents do it is for their own benefit". Of course we do it for our own benefit. Because our benefit is the benefit of the child as well. Temporary attachment or emotional issues, if they happen, can be fixed. Worst case, the parents may need some external guidance from a specialist in children psychology and emotional development. Keeping the parents sleep-deprived for months can cause them to become depressed (or exacerbate mother's postpartum depression - a very important topic that's not being talked about enough), or lose their jobs, or make them hate their own child, or hate each other and ultimately lead to divorce/broken family. All these consequences are orders of magnitude worse for future prospects of a child than anything a botched sleep training can cause.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
> Like, what the fuck do we think these babies are actively scheming to find ways to get soothed? That's exactly what they do. Do you believe they're processing sophisticated ideas of love, attachment and comforting? That they're making a choice to ask their parents for soothing? Infants are acting on basic instincts. With very limited but rapidly expanding space of possible actions, they're actively learning what behavior will lead to their basic needs being satisfied. They can and will overfit on whatever pattern they can spot. > I swear our brains are looking for adversaries in infants now. In operational sense, they are - they're fighting for resources for their own survival. > Your infant child can not manipulate you. The brains barely understand action and consequence. Your infant child is trying to communicate its needs, and having it unmet with indifference is honestly hilariously sad. Of course they can and will manipulate you. That's, like, parenthood 101. The whole set of biological and psychological changes parents undergo, the whole deal with attachment, is to make the parents vulnerable to the child. The brain of an infant may understand little at first, but it understands enough of "action and consequence" to start doing gradient descent and quickly learn how to get what it needs from its parents. Of course it helps that the parents want to fulfill their child's needs - initially, the kid isn't really learning how to get the parents to respond, but rather training the parents to respond to specific cues. Eventually, children learn to speak, and that's when it's really clear just how devious and manipulative kids are. It's both amusing and rewarding to watch them push the boundaries of their intelligence to get you to react they way they want. Except in those cases where they succeed, and you only realize it moments later that you've been had :).
- metabagel 4y ago
  But infants aren't capable of looking after their own needs. You're really mixing up different stages of childhood development.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > But infants aren't capable of looking after their own needs. That's my point. They aren't capable of looking after their own needs. They need their parents for that. But what they are capable of is correlating their behavior with their needs being fulfilled, and doing more of the thing that correlates well with those needs being met.

afandian 4y ago

“A little rap on the knuckles” is less severe than full on beating, but it’s on the gradient of physical violence. Teaching a child that their call for help will not be answered is unkind and damaging. And I’m not sure a baby has the same perspective on 15 minutes as the average adult. I’m pretty sure most adults are walking around with unresolved emotional trauma issues that do not serve them, or those around them, well. Again, on my opinion as a human. Opinions clearly vary wildly.

jjulius 4y ago
>Teaching a child that their call for help will not be answered is unkind and damaging. I just commented elsewhere and asked you what your understanding of "sleep training" or "crying it out" entails, but I think this answers it for me - you're ignorant to what actually happens. You do not teach a child that their call for help will be unanswered. You observe them closely as they wake up, listen to how they're crying (each parent knows what their child's cries mean), listen for the highs and the lows of the crying, watch them as they try to learn how to put themselves back to sleep. But you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT abandon them. You go in frequently at first, and slowly extend the amount of time you give them before going in as "sleep training" progresses. You slowly give them more and more space to figure it out, but you still always go in at some point, when they need it. You are giving them the space to learn something while still being there for them. To suggest otherwise, and judge others as abusive you have been doing repeatedly in this thread, is ignorant and uncalled for. It's not constructive, and it's rude.
- afandian 4y ago
  I apologise, I’ve not read literature on it, or the particular methodology you describe. I’m not judging you. That said, whatever the merits of a structured approach, for every parent that diligently follows them, there are others that are less careful. And I’ve met them. I’m responding to sentiments like “I just ignore them and they go to sleep eventually”, “don’t go and check, he only wants attention” from other parents, and other reports from someone I know who is a midwife. The model we followed was “Hand in hand”, which resonated for us. And we were saddened that that philosophy does not seem to be very mainstream amongst parents I have met.

oskarpearson 4y ago

From the article: > For others, it can be hours of crying, even to the point of vomiting (common enough to be a frequent topic of conversation on sleep-training forums and addressed by baby sleep books including Ferber's The article also includes a reference to 2-3 hours.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago
It’s a spectrum between “spend 24/7 attached to a baby” and “ignore them all night”. Everyone thinks that the position even 1% different from what they adopted is abhorrent.
sanderjd 4y ago
Fair enough. I'm not supportive of letting kids cry for 2-3 hours even to the point of vomiting. But even then, I'm sympathetic to it if the parents have tried everything else and they have a kid that just won't sleep. I'm not like an absolutist or anything, I just think parents should have space to try to figure out what works for their own families without random strangers calling them abusive.
- metabagel 4y ago
  It's abusive to abandon an infant. https://www.attachmentparenting.org/ensure-safe-sleep-physically-and-emotionally https://www.attachmentparenting.org/ensure-safe-sleep-physic... "Research shows us that an infant is not neurologically or developmentally capable of calming or soothing himself to sleep in a way that is healthy. The part of the brain that helps with self-soothing isn't well developed until the child is two and a half to three years of age. Until that time, a child depends on his parents to help him calm down and learn to regulate his intense feelings."
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    And yet, sleep training is not abandoning an infant. Mind your own business and stop accusing strangers who you know nothing about of abuse. You're being an a-hole. Edit to add: attachmentparenting.org is not an objective arbiter of the research on whether or not the dogmas of attachment parenting are correct! They have a dog in this fight...

unity1001 4y ago

[flagged]

sanderjd 4y ago
This is a load of unadulterated bullshit. Kids cry all the time. It doesn't psychologically scar them for life. Take a chill pill! It's actual insanity how people have come up think that every. little. thing. they do as a parent has these life long ripple effects. I'm sorry to tell you: these little details of parenting just aren't important either way. What matters is food and shelter and a loving home. Focus on those things for your own family and stop driving yourself crazy with these details, and especially stop getting so riled up by what other parents are doing, it's none of your business!