Being a new mom, I am around lots of other new moms. My Facebook is loaded with pregnant belly and baby pictures. One of the topics that often comes up with new moms is whether or not to "sleep train" your baby, and how to go about doing it. There are more books on this topic than you can imagine.
A popular method, being used by lots of new parents is letting a baby cry it out (CIO), or letting them cry for a predetermined amount of time in their crib before you go in and provide comfort. This process is repeated over and over until the baby self soothes themselves to sleep.
Let me say, that the need for sleep as a new parent is PROFOUND. It has been like nothing else I have experienced. I truly believe it when they say that you will die of lack of sleep before you will die of lack of food. I understand the desire to have your baby sleeping through the night as soon as possible. That being said, after researching CIO and talking to RJ, we decided that CIO was something that we would not do.
First, we realized that we were bringing into this world a little baby, not a little adult. In the womb, a baby's need for sleep is met automatically. The feeling of being tired is only experienced after birth. Couple that with a baby who is separated from mommy for the first time, and you have a VERY scary experience. I'm 27, and I don't like to cry alone in the dark. Why would I expect my baby to endure it? Second, crying is a baby's only way of communicating a need to a parent. I did not want to undermine that line of communication. I didn't want to say to my baby that I would only come sometimes when she cried, but not every time. How unsettling would that be for a baby? For a baby to CIO and then fall asleep, they have to "give up" on mom coming in and comforting them. I didn't want my baby to give up on me. I wanted her to know that I will ALWAYS come when she cries for me. Third, the need to be close to and held by mommy is a VERY real need for a baby. Mommy equals safety and survival. It's a primal need. It is my job to meet her needs. I believe God has given mothers wonderful instincts. The physical discomfort we feel when our baby cries is no accident. It makes us go to the baby even when we are tired, hungry, or have to go to the bathroom. I see moms crying because during CIO they are having to ignore their instincts to go to their baby, and that causes a real feeling of panic inside. I chose to embrace that instinct. And lastly, developmentally, babies are not made to sleep through the night (We, as adults, do not even sleep through the night. We just don't remember the brief awakenings we experience). They wake often to eat, which in turn prevents SIDS. CIO, also, floods the brian with stress. I didn't like that idea either.
So what do our nights look like? We bathe, read, nurse, swaddle, and rock to sleep. At 6 months, Iris goes to bed around 8:00 and wakes about 2 times to eat a full feeding during the night (sometimes, like last night, it's just once). During a growth spurt, she will wake up more to eat. Am I tired some days? Yes. But I try to rest when I can, and RJ does a great job of getting up with her first thing in the morning before he goes to work. He also takes her in the mornings on the weekends, so I can get some extra sleep. This set up is what has worked for us.
A great book to read on alternatives to CIO is The No Cry Sleep Solution, and you can get it here.
And here are some research articles about CIO and infant sleep:
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