We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
July and August 2004
September and October 2004
November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2004 - (Mamma)
To Cry it out, or not to cry it out...
We are an AP family. Well, sort of, anyway.
AP stands for "attachment parenting" and it was popularized by Dr. William Sears in the 1990s. But parents have been inventing it, based on instinct and common sense, for a very long time.
I "invented" the method for myself while Dr. Sears was still in medical school -- and my Mom "invented" it for herself twenty years before that.
The basic theory is that the most important thing parents can do is to nurture a strong, trusting bond with their children. Everything that supports that is good. Anyhting that stands in the way of that is bad.
And, to a degree, I believe that. If you have a close trusting bond with your kids, they can survive and even thrive in spite of the fact that all parents are human and we make mistakes -- even the occasional "real doozy".
One coda of the popularized version says that letting a baby "cry it out" is a very bad thing. Although I believe that Dr. Sears was actually referring to leaving a child alone to scream to the point of exhaustion as is recommended by the baby-trainers, the common wisdom has it that all crying it out is bad.
Reality, as I experience it, is different.
Reality with my kids is that sometimes crying is a way to release tension so that they can sleep or settle down to quieter play. And so, I go with it.
I don't leave them to cry alone, of course. And I never use it as a way to enforce my will. (It's nap time and you will cry until you nap!)
Starting when Jack was just hours old, Rod and I would do what we could about Jack's tears -- but if he was inconsolable, we would lie down with him laying face town on our chest.
Like this:
And it worked.
At first we used it only when Jack was inconsalable. Then later, I started to use it when Jack needed to sleep but was too keyed up. As he got older, I started giving it a try at bedtime, if Jack was being goofy and refusing to sleep. Sometimes it worked then, and sometimes it didn't.
Tonight, though, was the first time that Jack ever asked for my help. He was exhausted -- he had started telling me it was bedtime at around two hours before bedtime. I tried to put him down, but he'd toss and turn, and then pop up like a "Jack in the box", with a big sleepy smile. Since it's my policyt to wait for bedtime to force the issue, I got him up and we went to do somrhthing else.
When bedtime came, Jack was still too keyed up to sleep, although he was exhausted and whiny. We tried the usual method -- he nursed on both sides, and then when that didn't work, he tried it again. Then he rolled over to try to fall asleep on his own. I rubbed his back. I patted his bum. I lay nearby, not touching him -- but he just kept flopping around and complaining.
After several minutes, he crawled up on my chest and said, quite clearly "boo hoo" (one of his books shows a child crying, and the text says "boo hoo".)
So, I put my arms around him and settled him into the "usual spot". He cried -- it almost sounded like a stage cry -- and keened, and then I felt him relax, as he always does. I asked if he was ready to sleep now. His sweet little voice popped up with a most cheerful "OK". He crawled off my chest, and I scooped him into the "going to sleep" postion. He was asleep in minutes!
So, cry it out is a tool I think belongs even in the kit of the most caring parents. Whatever the "common wisdom" says.
