Why I Don't Want to Let my Child "Cry it Out"

I want to write out my thoughts on another controversial subject after discussing "sleep training" with a colleague this morning. This colleague (mother of an 18-month-old) mentioned an article that was published in the Globe and Mail last year which said that the "Cry it Out" method of baby sleep training could actually be harmful to the baby. Oh, it does "work"... but at what cost?

I know some people feel like it was their only option -- and maybe it was, after they exhausted all the possibilities -- I'm not judging, I'm just writing what I would like to do. Of course, this may change...

From the article:
Penn State researcher Douglas Teti examined the role of emotional availability on infant sleep and found that regardless of a family's night-time routine, infants with parents who were responsive and warm had fewer night wakings and an easier time drifting off. In his study, which involved infrared cameras placed in families' bedrooms and nurseries, a lapse of more than a minute resulted in a lower emotional availability score.
While more research is under way to further test those findings, Dr. Teti, a professor of human development and psychology, says his work adds to a growing skepticism toward sleep training - not only that it may not work, but that it may, in turn, affect the parent-child relationship itself.

I've always thought that I would never be able to let my child cry himself to sleep-it goes completely against my natural instincts. (And my babysitting experience confirmed that I couldn't do it, even with babies that were not my own.)

MB and I have already had heated discussions on the topic, even if we don't have kids yet, because he believes something along the lines that after six months a child who cries at night is "manipulating" his parents and you shouldn't give in to his every whim. The child has to learn that he can't get everything he wants.

I agree to a certain extent that children can't expect to get everything they want.

But on the other hand, I also think that parents are there to respond to their child's needs. And if one of those needs is comfort at night, that's quite normal. Of COURSE, I want my child to sleep on his own, in his bed, through the night, as soon as possible. But I think the KEY to getting that to work is a consistent bedtime routine: calm play in the last few hours before bedtime, a bedtime story in a quiet voice, lights out, and sleep. It seems to me that if babies know what to expect at bedtime, AND they feel safe and secure knowing that if anything happens during the night their parents will come see them, they will sleep more soundly.

From the article:
"Bedtime heralds the longest separation of the day between parents and their children," he says. "I've always been curious about how well or poorly parents PREPARE their children for that separation, because I think that could be a pretty important index of parenting competence."

In the book How Children Learn, by John Holt, he explains that children who know that their parents "have their back" (i.e. they are always available, nearby, looking out for them) are less afraid to try new things, to explore the world, and thus they learn more quickly and easily. I worry that NOT responding to a child's need for comfort at night can hinder their development.

From the article:
In British parenting guru Penelope Leach's new book, The Essential First Year, she strongly advises against the Dr. Ferber/Cry-it-Out method, citing research on the role of the stress hormone cortisol as toxic to a baby's developing brain - and with possible permanent negative effects, especially at the age of six months or younger.
(...)
"If you leave a baby crying long enough, it will go to sleep and after crying enough nights in a row it will eventually not bother," she says. "Leaving aside the toxicity of stress hormones, it's hard to believe that people really want to teach babies not to bother to communicate."

I definitely DON'T want to teach my children that their parents won't always be there for them.
However, I DO want them to understand that their parents are not their slaves and won't respond to their every beck and call.
I DO want them to learn that the world is a hard place and they won't be able to get everything they want.
I DO want them to learn how to sleep on their own.
But properly preparing them for bedtime? Comforting them? That's my job as a parent. I will always be there for them.

Baby Books

I've gotten into the habit of giving children's books to my friends whenever I go to their baby shower. I just think the younger you start reading to your babies, the better!

And the other day I discovered another amazing perk of books: as I was holding my friend's 6-month-old, who wouldn't stop crying, I grabbed a soft book from the shelf in her room... and she stopped crying! She sat in my arms and looked at the pages of the book for a good half-hour. It calmed her right down and my friend was able to put her to sleep. Magic!

I'm going to a baby shower today and I bought a board book called "My Many Colored Days". It's an unknown (to me, at least) Dr. Seuss book about dealing with different emotions... perfect for toddlers! And I'm sure babies will love all the brightly coloured paintings.

Some days are yellow.
Some days are blue.
On different days I'm different too.
You'd be surprised how many ways
I change on Different Colored Days.
On Bright Red Days
how good it feels
to be a horse
and kick my heels!
On other days I'm other things.
On Bright Blue Days
I flap my wings.
Some days, of course,
feel sort of Brown.
Then I feel slow, and low, low down.
Then comes a Yellow Day.
And, wheeeeeeeee
I am a busy, buzzy bee.
Gray Day... Everything is gray.
I watch. But nothing moves today.
Then all of a sudden
I'm a circus seal!
On my Orange Days
that's how I feel.
Green Days. Deep deep in the sea.
Cool and quiet fish. That's me.
On Purple Days I'm sad.
I groan. I drag my tail.
I walk alone.
But when my days are Happy Pink
it's great to jump and just not think.
Then come my Black Days.
Mad. And loud.
I howl.
I growl at every cloud.
Then comes a Mixed-Up Day.
And wham! 
I don't know who or what I am!
But it all turns out all right, you see.
And I go back to being... me.

(Hmm, as I recopied that I noticed the strange capitalization in the book... I wonder if that's how Dr. Seuss actually wrote it or if that's the work of his editors? This book was published posthumously.)

Parenting Skillz

This I'm bookmarking, because I do NOT want to repeat what mornings looked like at our house growing up. No way.

This woman uses a system composed of:
1. Kitchen timer
2. List of tasks to be done
3. Reward (and consequence) chart

Censorship and children

An interesting discussion here about censoring children’s reading: http://www.librarything.com/topic/36788

Here are my thoughts:

I think I will try to guide my (future) children’s reading. (As knfmn put it: “suggesting books for them that make them stretch their limits”.) If my children are interested in a particular book, I don’t think I will try to stop them from reading it. I think trying to ban them will just make them want to read them even more. And in any case, I think it would be terribly hard to determine when my children are mature enough to read, for example, the rape scenes in The Color Purple. As someone said, “The world itself isn't censorable and I would much rather my kids found out about the nastier side by reading about it and discussing it with me or their dad than coming up entirely unprepared against the real thing.”

The important thing will be to discuss difficult books with my children before they read them AND as they go along, to make sure children know they can ask questions about traumatic scenes. Of course, what worries me is that children might not want to ask questions about what they just read, and they also might not make the distinction between fiction and reality, depending on their age and maturity. I do remember reading some pretty traumatic material early on, and I don’t think it left me scarred. In fact, I remember reading one book in particular that I just didn’t get. Something about the main character being old enough to wash his own sheets – it was only several years later that it “clicked”. It was uninteresting to me, at the time.

I agree wholeheartedly with cecilturtle when she says that the concept of guiding readings, expressing values and disagreement are just as important as giving access to books. “As a parent, I do have a responsibility to monitor my daughter's choices. As a citizen, it is my responsibility to make sure that all books are accessible - there is a nuance.”

A parenting goal

Many, many years ago I told my mom that I had realized how important it was to pick the "right person" to have children with, simply because children are constantly mimicking their parents.

Luckily for me, I've found the "right person" -- I definitely would want children who mimic MB.

I just happened upon a blog post that reinforces this realization that I had so many years ago:

"I heard Terry Gross's Fresh Air interview with Jason Schwartzman while I was driving to lunch last week and was totally struck by how he describes the environment that his mother (the actress Talia Shire) created in their home, specifically this:

'But, at a young age, what I really did witness, because she never forced it upon us, but I witnessed how movies and music can be nutritional, I guess, to a person. I would come home from school; she would always be downstairs with an old movie on. Every room in our house had a different book open, face down. There would be music on in one room, even though she wouldn't be in it, and she would kind of just go from room to room and pick up and read and go and listen and go downstairs and watch. She needs that. It's still the same way. If you go to my house, the same house I grew up in, she's there with movies on, music playing and books everywhere. And so I witnessed how important these things can be to you.'

After hearing Schwartzman recount that specific memory, I had to pull over so I could jot a little note to myself… Here’s what it said:

the type of mother I want to be...”walk the walk"

Schwartzman doesn't mention a mother that signed him up for a back-to-back roster of classes, helming an endless carpool circuit from one enriching creative activity to another. Rather what seemed to have (at least partially) formed him as a creative being is what he "witnessed" his mother doing (or rather living) -- her love of cinema and books and music…her passions."

Les enfants : "l'essence de la vie"?

“All the important things in life I have learned from my children,” he said in his speech.

(From David Johnston's swearing-in as the new GG of Canada.)

Funny, the other day my grandparents said something similar: we're living for you now (their kids and grandkids). It struck me as a bit odd, but then again...

My father-in-law has also told us that "children are the essence of life".

A great-uncle of mine passed away this week. He had never been married and never had any children. And when they found his wallet, there was only one photo in it: mine! A photo of me when I was about 4 years old apparently. I hadn't seen him in several years.