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Strollerderby
The Baby Sleep Wars
The bedtime battle is as old as parenting. You want to sleep. Your kid wants to stay up all night watching cartoons and eating sugary cereal from the box, which is what he’s sure you do after bedtime.
It’s not just babies vs. parents anymore at bedtime. Moms (and dads) have opened up a new battlefield in the infamous Mommy Wars, and are tearing each other apart over whether – and how – to train their babes to sleep.
Sleep is such a fraught issue for new parents, many of whom are sleep deprived and perhaps a little testy. I’ve been told I’m abusing my kids by cosleeping with them, and seen the cry-it-out approach scorned as child abuse.
A few weeks ago I wrote an innocent little post here about a study that found parents were more likely to succeed at the cry-it-out approach to sleep training if they thought it would work and felt comfortable doing it.
The comments exploded with exactly the kinds of judgemental parenting ‘advice’ Ada Calhoun refers to in her piece on Salon.
I’m not a practitioner of the cry-it-out approach, but as I said in my own recent blog post on the topic, I’ve often wished I could be. It disturbs me to see parents judging each other over this decision. It bothers me even more to see different approaches to it labeled as child abuse.
So many children are victims of abuse. I can’t help but feel that the needed attention and help for their plight is diluted by parents blithely throwing the term around. I may not like the choices some parents make, but I can’t believe that a baby whose parents are invested in her health and safety is being abused because her dad leaves her to cry at bedtime, just like I can’t believe my kids are being abused because I let them sleep in my bed.
Can’t we all just get along? Whether we co-sleep or cry-it-out or something in between, almost none of us are getting enough sleep. We’re working too many hours, parenting with too little support from our communities and governments, and giving up the fun stuff for a few hours sleep where we can get it.
Instead of fighting amongst ourselves, we could turn some of that angry energy towards a government that still provides the worst family benefits and protections of any developed country, and a corporate culture that expects parents to work inflexibly as if their kids didn’t exist.
Or we could all just take a nap.
Photo: Sean Mcgee
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18 Comments
[...] everyone has chosen sides in the Baby Sleep Wars . I feel like whatever works for you as a parent is what you should [...]
Cry It Out Sleep Training Hurts Baby Brains | Strollerderby commented on Apr 22 10 at 3:35 pmHeather commented on Mar 18 10 at 3:42 pmI wish people would stop assuming that because they can do something easily, that other people can do it just as easily. We are all so very different, and what works for one person may not work for another. In its own way it is very judgmental. It is the same attitude people give about breastfeeding in public, or breastfeeding in general. My youngest (just turned 3) was a very difficult baby in all aspects. She still doesn’t sleep through the night consistently, and she was a horrible nurser. It didn’t help that she spent the first week of her life in the NICU on a feeding tube. When we finally did get her nursing she wouldn’t nurse with a cover. I have had people tell me that they make this kind of cover, or that kind of cover. None of which worked. I have had people tell me to just stay home. I had a 2 year old at the time, and a husband with a brand new job, staying home 24/7 was not realistic for us. Eventually I stopped nursing, and got comments about that as well, why couldn’t I nurse, was something wrong with me, they found it so easy and such a wonderful bond, etc..
The same thing goes for her with sleeping. Well I did this and it worked great, what are you doing wrong. Why are you sleeping in the guest bed with her, she will never sleep that way, put her in bed and let her cry. She will never trust you if you let her cry, you are damaging her for life. The comments go on and on. I still get looks when the find out that I still allow her to take a cup of water, and yes occasionally milk to bed. We have found what works for us. Just because I don’t do things your way doesn’t mean I am wrong, just a different person living in a different family, with different children. I wish people would stop worrying so much about what everybody else is doing and worry more about their own behavior and how it reflects on them.
ann05 commented on Mar 18 10 at 7:57 pmWe wished dearly that CIO would work for our kid, and thought it might. It didn’t. Sleeping is a developmental thing, like walking or talking. If my kid walks before yours, it doesn’t mean you’ve screwed up as a parent, and just because my kid didn’t sleep for 13 long torturous months, it doesn’t mean we didn’t “sleep train” correctly. He wasn’t having it. The end.
Diane commented on Mar 18 10 at 10:42 pmThere’s such a fine line between helpful sharing of my own experience, “this is what worked for me”, and judgment disguised as advice. I’m guilty of both. And I fine my “sharing experience” moving into “judgmental advice” most when I’m trying to feel better about my own decisions. My twins slept pretty easily. We did what I would call a gentle version of crying it out using a book I love called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. When my friends or anyone on a message board or blog wants sleeping advice I mention that book and wish them good luck in finding their own way. No judgement, just well wishes. But I have realized that when I talk about birthing experience, something that did not go the way I planned and about which I feel guilt, I find myself more judgmental and sure of the way things “should” be. Interesting how that works, at least for me.
LindaLou commented on Mar 19 10 at 4:25 amI think it’s stupid to ask people who care about infants being neglected to sleep (Which is what CIO IS), to just get along with one another. Maybe we should say nothing about all other forms of abuse and neglect too. :::huge eye roll:::
Heather commented on Mar 19 10 at 7:55 amOkay, LindaLou did you get the point of the article at all?
Andrea commented on Mar 19 10 at 8:08 amSo many articles this week that talk about “abuse” and “neglect”. LindaLou, just because you don’t agree with something doesn’t mean that it’s abusive, and abuse is a very serious word to use. Not every unpleasant experience a child goes through is abusive, and even if something is harmful to them it’s not automatically abusive. It’s not even usually abusive. Comments like that devalue the experience of children and adults who have truly been abused.
liberrian commented on Mar 19 10 at 10:52 amAmen! It amazes me how much energy we parents spend criticizing each other. We don’t have that much energy to spare!
jenny tries too hard commented on Mar 19 10 at 12:12 pmNew rule: If you wouldn’t personally call Child Protective Services over a parenting practice, you can’t call it abuse or neglect.
Next new rule: If you would call CPS over sleep-training, when social workers are already overworked dealing with REAL problems, you should have to spend six months in said socialworker’s shoes. Unpaid.
Andrea commented on Mar 19 10 at 12:41 pmJenny: I’d say go ahead and pay them for that six months. So that they can see the barely living wage social workers who deal with the most heartbreaking cases get paid.
Donna commented on Mar 19 10 at 2:30 pmI think that whatever works (short of actual abuse) for individual families as far as sleep is concerned is their own business. I do have to wonder though, if you think it is abusive for your child to cry, what are you going to do when you have a toddler who seems to cry for any and every reason sometimes? What are you going to do when you have to tell your child “no” and surprise, they cry. I feel that the ability to set limits is an important skill for parents to have and disappointment is a feeling that everyone will have at some point, even young children. This doesn’t mean that you dump a newborn in the crib and let them wail, it means that when you have an infant/child who is capable of learning to sleep on their own, that you can in fact help them learn to do so.
Ellen commented on Mar 20 10 at 2:45 pm“Abuse” may be a very serious word to use, but that’s exactly what many medical researchers feel that crying it out does to developing infant brains. There’s a host of resources (see http://askdrsears.com/html/10/handout2.asp for one of many listings) to learn more about the dangers of sleep training, and I wish the CIO folks would read them before dismissing concerns about infant distress as “not a REAL problem”.
Jenni commented on Mar 20 10 at 7:41 pmPerhaps such parents are dismissing the “dangers of sleep training” because it’s based on junk science and misinterpretation of data?
Laure68 commented on Mar 23 10 at 12:07 am@Jenni – thanks! Dr. Sears is notorious for pushing misinformation, disguised as science. (His son, who wrote The Vaccine Book, is even worse.)
Gretchen commented on Mar 23 10 at 10:32 amI don’t see how you can label one “misinformation” and another “fact”…it’s all interpreted by whoever. I don’t really need studies to tell me that its wrong to leave an infant crying…and by infant, I mean a baby under the age of one. It’s just my instinct as a mother. I think, based on so many of the articles, posts and comments I read on Babble, that women have seriously lost their way in terms of their mothering instincts. Now they are trying to justify it all with science…the leaving their infants to cry, the lack of commitment to breastfeeding, the rushing back to work. I hope that over time the pendulum will swing back to some more healthy practices.
JBoogie commented on Mar 26 10 at 9:28 amI think the point of the article, Gretchen and LindaLou, is to stop judging and start supporting! Every mom, every baby, and every family is different. We are all doing what is best for our babies, and until you can visit every household in America with a baby at bedtime and your idea of the right way to be a mom works every time to get that baby to sleep, then please, get off your soap box.
Jack commented on Apr 06 10 at 5:32 amAnd how about baby sleep positioners? Do they really provide safe sleeping for the baby? http://www.sleeppositioner.net/articles/baby-sleep-positioner.html
CandaceApril commented on Apr 25 10 at 6:48 pm@Donna – not to wade into this larger debate, but just a clarification: “crying” isn’t at issue–it is an infant crying without a response. Regardless of how you feel about CIO, there is a difference between a toddler tantrum and an infant crying in someone’s arms and an infact crying alone.
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