{"items": [{"author": "Bernadette", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=679821530082", "anchor": "fb-679821530082", "service": "fb", "text": "However much regression to mean, Lily's development or clever parenting are contributing, good work! I'm glad she and you are getting more sleep!", "timestamp": "1409257753"}, {"author": "Erica", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=679821784572", "anchor": "fb-679821784572", "service": "fb", "text": "glad everyone is getting more sleep!
Thank you Lily!", "timestamp": "1409257913"}, {"author": "Zdravko", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=679822348442", "anchor": "fb-679822348442", "service": "fb", "text": "[searching for some audial deadspot to escape her screams ]
earplugs are, by far, the mvp of my parenting toolbox. i am extremely sensitive to noise, and when things get crazy i put them on and i find that i can deal with my kids much better.", "timestamp": "1409258278"}, {"author": "Victor", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=679822717702", "anchor": "fb-679822717702", "service": "fb", "text": "Ferber wrote the book on this. I found the approach successful for dozens of families when I was a pediatrician.", "timestamp": "1409258462"}, {"author": "Abigail", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=679831584932", "anchor": "fb-679831584932", "service": "fb", "text": "Have you tried having her sleep in a separate room? Then you can try a more gentle Ferber approach\u2026 Both our kids did MUCH better when we were not there in the same room as them. When we moved Phoebe out of our bedroom at 6 months she went from nursing 3-4x a night to 2 almost instantly. Ear pugs are also helpful!", "timestamp": "1409264570"}, {"author": "Debbie", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=679831774552", "anchor": "fb-679831774552", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff, sleep training is one side to my postpartum business. I'd be happy to step in and assist if you're looking for help. My fees are reasonably priced and I offer packaged deals and I don't charge hourly.", "timestamp": "1409264754"}, {"author": "Janet", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680173035662", "anchor": "fb-680173035662", "service": "fb", "text": "Listen. Our pediatrician (a woman of infinite wisdom) recommended to us a book about infant and child sleep patterns by Dr. Richard Ferber...the unfortunate guy who got the \"let them cry it out\" label attached to him,....that recommended that we keep a careful chart of when our little 10 month old (a key age for metabolic shifts) biscuit slept, woke up, etc, over a few days. We looked at the data and found that the problem was that she was sleeping too much during the day. It seemed weird. The kid was taking a morning nap and afternoon nap, the way she always had, and I LOVED that nap schedule, it let me do thesis work. But when we (over a couple of days) combined the 10 am nap and the 3pm nap into one 1pm nap. Boom! Baby Girl started sleeping soundly at night, and stayed that way (until the 3 year old \"I want a drink of water\" phase....but that is another story).", "timestamp": "1409270500"}, {"author": "Danner", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680174023682", "anchor": "fb-680174023682", "service": "fb", "text": "Welcome to the land of old-wives tales, where experimentation and averages don't matter, so long as it works in one individual case. You seem to be doing really well at digging into the psyche of Lily however, keep it up!", "timestamp": "1409271235"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680175281162", "anchor": "fb-680175281162", "service": "fb", "text": "Prediction: since I wrote this today, she'll sleep terribly tonight.", "timestamp": "1409272223"}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1409275035673", "service": "gp", "text": "Baby sleep is super complicated. Good luck!\n
\n
\n(We were (heck, still are, with mister two and a half) solidly in the \"soothe and snuggle\" camp. Miss five and a half seems to have turned out fine, she sleeps happily by herself (and has for a couple years) like a log. But everyone is different.)", "timestamp": 1409275035}, {"author": "Joshua", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680525943432", "anchor": "fb-680525943432", "service": "fb", "text": "Ferber's approach never worked for us. I've heard (second hand) that he has changed his recommendations. Good luck.", "timestamp": "1409281812"}, {"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680535469342", "anchor": "fb-680535469342", "service": "fb", "text": "Absolute truth: EVERY KID IS DIFFERENT. Personally we couldn't stand the \"let'em cry\". I like Janet's idea of decreasing day sleep.", "timestamp": "1409287663"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680884554772", "anchor": "fb-680884554772", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff Kaufman I can't remember where I read it, but the quote went somethig like: \"Having a child instantly makes one superstitious\"", "timestamp": "1409314084"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680885507862", "anchor": "fb-680885507862", "service": "fb", "text": "\"Prediction: since I wrote this today, she'll sleep terribly tonight\"
Prediction disconfirmed. Yay!", "timestamp": "1409314975"}, {"author": "Melissa", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=680886490892", "anchor": "fb-680886490892", "service": "fb", "text": "Having a kiddo is just a lot of trial and error. I never bought into the whole sleep regression thing because I felt like I could never pideon-hole my kid. He either slept well or didn't, and it could have been for a myriad of reasons (wants us, doesn't want us, hungry, diaper, teeth, growing pains, threw his lovie out of the crib, AC too loud, cat too loud, neighbors too loud). Really, sounds like you are doing a wonderful job and you've figured out what your girlie's issue was at the moment. There will be many other things that disturb sleep, but you are there for her when she needs you and that's the most important thing. Prayin' you get many more nights of good chunks of sleep :) I didn't get a full night (i.e. 5 hours or more in a row) of sleep until H was 6 months....", "timestamp": "1409315878"}, {"author": "Paula", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681792330582", "anchor": "fb-681792330582", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff and Julia, it has been 27 years since I used Ferber's recommendations as part of our baby-sleep strategy. Two parts seemed most helpful to us. Make sure baby always falls asleep where baby always wakes up -- no rocking to sleep on the couch and then depositing in the crib. (What if you fell asleep on the couch and then found yourself in your own bed in the middle if the night, with no memory how you got there?) Even more useful to us: when you do get up at night, keep everything dark and unexciting. Use low watt night lights for your only light, don't sing or be entertaining in any way, whisper only what feels absolutely necessary. Our little one began to self-soothe, when waking and crying didn't provide him with excitement and lots of attention. Of course, every child IS different, and so you just keep trying things until something works, or until they move to the next phase. Best of luck!", "timestamp": "1409444702"}, {"author": "Rebecca", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681863123712", "anchor": "fb-681863123712", "service": "fb", "text": "Please, please do some more research on the long-term effects of letting a baby CIO. I'm not sure why people are so afraid of having their precious babies need their love and comfort! Is it so scary to just meet the needs of this little person you have brought into the world? I promise, the demands will not be so high forever. And when they are not, you may even miss them. If you provide the support they need now, they will more quickly grow into their own independence and show higher-self esteem. Some babies just need more support than others. I love Dr. Sears' take on co-sleeping. It worked so well (done in a SAFE manner) for all of my babies. He was a long-time pediatrician and raised many intelligent and successful children of his own. I recommend any of his books to any parent who needs guidance or just feels that there \"has to be another way\"... there is!
I wish you the best of luck with your little sweetie. I am not judging, but I had to reply here. This subject is near and dear to me.
http://www.askdrsears.com/.../co-sleeping-yes-no-sometimes", "timestamp": "1409489415"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681864201552", "anchor": "fb-681864201552", "service": "fb", "text": "@Rebecca: \"please do some more research on the long-term effects of letting a baby cry it out\"
As far as I can tell, the research on this is all very bad. I'm not aware of any studies showing long term harm from cry-it-out though. Links?
\"I'm not sure why people are so afraid of having their precious babies need their love and comfort!\"
If your baby is crying because they're lying in their crib alone and don't know how to soothe themselves back to sleep, then yes taking them into your bed and comforting them is one solution. But the real problem is they haven't learned how to fall asleep! You can try and teach them this, like I wrote in this post, or you can let them cry-it-out and figure it out on their own.", "timestamp": "1409490468"}, {"author": "Rebecca", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681870558812", "anchor": "fb-681870558812", "service": "fb", "text": "Is this your first baby? It's so hard to figure it all out with all the advice out there. It's a maze of information that you must navigate through, trying this way and that way until you figure out what works best for your whole family. What works best for parents isn't necessarily what works best for baby. And normally, less sleep for baby means less sleep for other family members as well. I will find some research for you! It's been a long time since I have looked at it. I fell into co-sleeping \"on accident\" and stuck with it because it worked so incredibly well.
When a baby cries it out, she is essentially giving up on your comfort when she needs it the most. All she is learning is that the people who she loves and trusts the most are turning their backs on her. And really, the season during which she needs you so intensely is very short in comparison to her entire life. She will feel more comfortable coming to you with problems later in life if that trust relationship is established early on.", "timestamp": "1409495221"}, {"author": "Rebecca", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681872564792", "anchor": "fb-681872564792", "service": "fb", "text": "This is a great article! Starts by telling how crying it out became a popular choice and why it may not be best in the long term.
http://m.psychologytoday.com/.../dangers-crying-it-out", "timestamp": "1409495894"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681873183552", "anchor": "fb-681873183552", "service": "fb", "text": "@Hollidy: Please don't post text as images. I've removed your comments, but feel free to repost them as text.", "timestamp": "1409496338"}, {"author": "Hollidy", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681873837242", "anchor": "fb-681873837242", "service": "fb", "text": "I posted a graphic that said everything I wanted to say. I don't see the point in retyping it. I was on mobile. Also when you delete comments it makes it so people on mobile no longer see updates.", "timestamp": "1409496788"}, {"author": "Hollidy", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681875763382", "anchor": "fb-681875763382", "service": "fb", "text": "Babies don't learn to self comfort in isolation. If they are left alone to cry, they learn to shut down in the face of extensive distress. Stop growing, stop feeling, stop trusting.
I want my children to know when they have a problem, I will be there for them. Just because I don't think their problem is a big deal, doesn't mean that it isn't a big deal to them. Children NEED to be held just as badly as they need food.", "timestamp": "1409496987"}, {"author": "Hollidy", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681875992922", "anchor": "fb-681875992922", "service": "fb", "text": "Have you ever cried? Have you ever cried as hard as a child left to \"self soothe\"? How did you feel afterwards? Your head pounded, your throat was so dry and raw you needed a drink, your breathing was affected, you may have felt nauseous or your eyes were swollen..
If I were ever crying that hard I would hope someone would come comfort me.", "timestamp": "1409497122"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681877879142", "anchor": "fb-681877879142", "service": "fb", "text": "@Rebecca: Thanks for the Psychology Today link! It makes some very strong claims. Imagine cry-it-out were everything that the article argues. Adults whose parents used cry-it-out when they were babies would have major deficits, major trust issues, poorly functioning vagus nerves, poorly regulated emotions, irritable bowel syndrome, a lifetime of inner emptiness, lower intelligence, lower empathy, higher aggression, higher incidence of depression, and social incompetence. But this isn't what we see! Adults whose parents used cry-it-out are hard to distinguish from adults of similar backgrounds whose parents didn't.", "timestamp": "1409497919"}, {"author": "Hollidy", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681878228442", "anchor": "fb-681878228442", "service": "fb", "text": "But wouldn't you want your child to turn out great BECAUSE of the way she was raised rather than DESPITE the way she was raised? I want more for my children than for them to be \"just fine\".", "timestamp": "1409498045"}, {"author": "Rebecca", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681880473942", "anchor": "fb-681880473942", "service": "fb", "text": "I admit that I skimmed the article. I am guessing that those things are worse case scenario for babies who lack proper attention in general, including crying it out. Going by my own experience, I can already see how my children are doing well having not been through crying it out. I will continue to try to keep that trust relationship strong, and time will tell what kind of adults they will become. As it stands, I have a gifted 2nd grader, and my four are all well-rounded and intelligent and (bonus!) rarely get sick. Nary an ear infection as infants. I am far from a perfect parent, so please don't take this the wrong way. I just follow my instincts, and that normally is the best solution. Our best, with the knowledge we have, is really all we can do. Again, I wish you the best!", "timestamp": "1409499013"}, {"author": "Rebecca", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681880763362", "anchor": "fb-681880763362", "service": "fb", "text": "Dr. Sears' children are living examples of success in this type of parenting. I forgot to add that.", "timestamp": "1409499180"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681880803282", "anchor": "fb-681880803282", "service": "fb", "text": "@Rebecca: \"I can already see how my children are doing well having not been through crying it out.\"
I also know lots of well-adjusted kids whose parents did bring them though cry-it-out at some point. This is just not very much to go on.", "timestamp": "1409499221"}, {"author": "Rebecca", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681881267352", "anchor": "fb-681881267352", "service": "fb", "text": "I still think there is a wealth to be said about following your instincts. My motherly intuition has not failed me yet. I understand that one person's anecdotal experience is not enough for you, and that's expected and a reasonable response. Take care and blessings to your family.", "timestamp": "1409499624"}, {"author": "Guggie", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=681952878842", "anchor": "fb-681952878842", "service": "fb", "text": "Although it's fairly normal for infants to wake up every 1-2hrs, even into the toddler years, for your infant to wake up every 40 minutes sounds like you need to spend some time investigating. She might have an underlying medical condition that needs to be addressed. Leaving her to cry with her medical condition will not support her physically or emotionally, and over time the medical condition might only worsen. You have the infamous 9-12 month stage coming up where infants tend to really get anxious and antsy at night, so I can only imagine how she might start to act for you pretty soon without taking steps to help her.
Conditions to consider that might be interrupting sleep or causing pain at night:
Allergies, food intolerances, general gut disorders or injuries, blocked intestines, constipation, overeating or undereating (hunger tends to peak at night when babies realize they were distracted all day and didn't eat enough.) Parasites, especially the pesky and highly contagious pinworms that tend to only cause symptoms at night. Encephalitis, encephalitic scream, brain swelling, transient ischemic hemorrhaging, ear pain, ear infections, congestion in the sinuses, eustachian tubes or upper lungs that can give the baby a sensation of drowning or cause sharp pain since infants are expected to lie completely flat on their backs at night.
If she has always slept like this, it might indicate birth trauma and she might benefit from having her spine and neck examined, along with ruling out scoliosis, torticollis, or any other congenital defects that might be interfering but have gone unnoticed otherwise.
If she is with a different caregiver during the day so that the parents can work, she might also be waking frequently in an attempt to desperately spend time with the parents, especially the mother if she is a breastfed/pumped baby. Moms who work and breastfeed when they are home commonly report the babies attempting to get more time not only to catch up on needed caloric intake but also to bond with the mom. If the mom pumps her milk, she should be aware that melatonin shows up at different levels throughout the day in her milk and she should write down the time she pumped so the baby can drink at the matched time of the day to reduce wakefulness at night.
If this is an exclusively breastfed baby that stays with the mother all day, there could be a dozen different issues going on here. Tongue ties, oversupply, foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, yeast infection, low supply, etc are the most likely culprits to review first.
Before you spend time voluntarily ignoring your infant, who cannot communicate any other way with you and cannot help herself in any other way, I would urge you to take a close look around to see if something is hurting your baby.", "timestamp": "1409534924"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=682321984152", "anchor": "fb-682321984152", "service": "fb", "text": "@Guggie: \"For your infant to wake up every 40 minutes sounds like you need to spend some time investigating. She might have an underlying medical condition that needs to be addressed. Leaving her to cry with her medical condition will not support her physically or emotionally, and over time the medical condition might only worsen\"
As I wrote in the post, we didn't actually use cry-it-out:
\"While cry-it-out still seemed like something we might try at some point, it seemed to me that the real problem is that the environment in which Lily was going from awake to asleep was different than the one in which she would wake up. Falling asleep one of us would be there, patting or bouncing her, but when she woke up she would be on her own. So I decided to try something else. During my turns putting her to sleep, where I had previously been patting her until she was well asleep I switched to stopping as soon as she stopped crying. Several times in a row she would start crying, I would pat her stomach, she would stop, I would stop, and we'd begin again. But then she would close her eyes and go to sleep, on her own, without any touch or movement! It seemed she was learning to fall herself asleep.\"", "timestamp": "1409570948"}, {"author": "Laura", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=682328151792", "anchor": "fb-682328151792", "service": "fb", "text": "Children respond to incentives and behavioral training. If the child is immediately comforted every time it cries it will have no reason to stop. The method of periodic comforting is well established to be effective and lead to increased parental happiness and no evidence it's harmful. If your child only cries a little, it might not be worth bothering with, but if your kid is screaming throughout the night, and you're exhausted, then it makes sense to try this. I have friends whose kid would not sleep unless it was being held, and they were completely miserable until they let the kid cry it out. Things got much better for them in a week.", "timestamp": "1409577381"}, {"author": "Guggie", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=682351285432", "anchor": "fb-682351285432", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff, sorry to imply you were leaving her to cry it out. I would still urge you to look around to see if something is interfering with her sleep, regardless of method for getting her back to sleep.
I've noticed in my own kids that although they opt for their own pattern of waking every 4-5 hours as infants (highly unusual, I know, and it freaked me out with my firstborn lol) they will begin to wake more frequently if they are not eating well during the day. This is a common issue in the 4-6 month stage, it seems, when the child is working on becoming mobile and can be accidentally distracted from eating enough.
I've come across this so often that I eventually wrote a quick post on it:
http://guggiedaly.blogspot.com/.../6-breastfeeding-tips...", "timestamp": "1409587530"}, {"author": "Julia", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=682369289352", "anchor": "fb-682369289352", "service": "fb", "text": "Guggie, the waking-every-sleep-cycle thing only happened a few times. She usually sleeps 2-4 hours at a stretch.", "timestamp": "1409597049"}, {"author": "Victor", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=682714941662", "anchor": "fb-682714941662", "service": "fb", "text": "During my 15 years as a pediatrician, sleep problems were never the only sign of an \"underlying medical condition\". Extra anxiety not needed!", "timestamp": "1409599058"}, {"author": "Denise", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=683404794192", "anchor": "fb-683404794192", "service": "fb", "text": "What worked for me was having my baby in my bed directly next to me so I could fall asleep during breastfeeding again. For the few times breastfeeding didn't work I used a YouTube White noise Video.
I'm also not really in favor of cry-it-out, though I don't really care whether there are long term negative effects. I also wouldn't beat or neglect my child in other ways even if there was no proper evidence that it harms her in the long term.", "timestamp": "1409679892"}, {"author": "Victor", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=683407054662", "anchor": "fb-683407054662", "service": "fb", "text": "Denise-Seems weird to consider letting a child cry for a few minutes and learn self-comforting skills similar to beating a child. Also hard to understand not caring about long term negative effects.", "timestamp": "1409681384"}, {"author": "Denise", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=683412833082", "anchor": "fb-683412833082", "service": "fb", "text": "Of course I do actually care about long term negative effects, I would just consider it irrelevant if there were no long term negative effects.
Only crying for a few minutes it might seem to you, but not for the baby who doesn't have a sense of time and is totally dependent on its parents. In the ancient environment, a baby who has been left alone would have been a dead baby. So the baby is desperate to get its caretakers back.", "timestamp": "1409684660"}, {"author": "Victor", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=683413531682", "anchor": "fb-683413531682", "service": "fb", "text": "Well, the dozens of families I helped when I was a pediatrician reported happier children and parents after 2 or 3 days. I'm not sure how much babies know about the ancient environment. To some extent, parents have to prepare their children for today's environment.", "timestamp": "1409684913"}, {"author": "Laura", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/679820572002?comment_id=683913918902", "anchor": "fb-683913918902", "service": "fb", "text": "People often ignore how important parental happiness and restedness are to the well-being of a child. Better to have 3 unhappy nights followed by well rested parents than months of zombie parents.", "timestamp": "1409794743"}]}