Thanks for reminding me of Bright From The Start, Brandy. I’d completely forgotten about the information in there!!

2nd time it’s to eat. feed her, lay her down and she’s back out.

USUALLY there is no third time. But with teething lately she’s been unpredictable. So I go in and see what she needs.

I think there is a difference between ignoring your childs cries until they pass out and assessing the cry and responding (like Jessica does with her two) and another between patting them back down and leaving.

There have been nights where I’ve wanted to CIO just because I’ve not wanted to go in for the 3rd or 4th time, but at that point I stop what I’m doing and just go to bed with her. We also couldn’t do CIO because she’d just climb off the bed and come to me I’m sure.

There’s a book on brain development called “Bright from the Start” that discusses how the level of cortisol (stress hormone) released during crying spikes and can leave permanent changes to the brain after only 10 minutes of crying. 10 minutes. That’s not a long time for most situations, waiting for a bus, talking on the phone, taking a shower. But for babies that’s a HUGE time span for their brains to be in ‘panic’ mode. And that’s what they are in, panic mode, will they get comforted? will someone come to them? will they be left there alone? will their diaper stay wet/dirty? etc etc etc. Heck, MY cortisol level spikes when she cries!

She has all the study information in her book that any one could go look up the study themselves and read it. In fact, I’m sure there are several studies out there on cortisol effects on the developing brain.

And yes, most kids are totally fine with CIO methods after the CIO is over. But, for us, we don’t simply see no need to let her CIO to learn to sleep on her own. For many of your reasons, like families having slept together for ages. But most of all, we just like it. We like meeting her needs and stopping her crying, we like comforting her when she’s upset. At some point, when she’s older and more mature, there will be a point where she learns she doesn’t need us to fall asleep or put her back to sleep or whatever, but at this stage/age we choose to soothe her back to sleep by laying down with her or whatever she needs us to do.

On that note, she just shifted in bed and whacked her head on the wall.. time to go!

That’s not to say we didn’t let Liam cry - sure we did - but we were right there with him, soothing him through it, talking to him about it and teaching him that falling asleep on his own is a normal, natural process and that even though he might be crying because it was scary, that it was something he could learn to do on his own. The thing I loved most about PU/PD was that he had his needs immediately met - BUT - at the same time, as soon as he stopped crying we put him back down and he learned very quickly (within a few days) that when he cried we would be there but that he didn’t need to cry just for the sake of crying. Its hard to explain… anyway…. just think, when they’re 16 you’ll be begging Gwen to get out of bed and clean her room!

I remember nothing about the experience but I do remember very well realizing very early that I was different from my brother and sisters and that my feelings for my parents were very different.

Gwen has the unfortunate ability to sit upright while still completely asleep and that’s most often what she’s done when she wakes during the first part of the night - either sat up in bed or tried to stand up in her sleep. She’s completely disoriented and often is still mostly asleep when we go in to re-settle her That poor girl just CANNOT turn off her brain!

Both our boys are super social people. Like super social. Like so much so when we did a 26 hour drive up north over Christmas Judah was awake for all but a couple hours because he could chatter away to the driver and watch all the cars go by.
We have a relatively long bedtime routine with our boys, we cuddle, sing, read, pray, etc.
Once they’re placed in their beds with the lights out we sit at the door of their room and sing several more songs to them and then we leave. 95% of the time they are totally ok with this and chatter with each other for upwards of TWO hours - usually Wesley falls asleep first and then Judah, with no one to talk to, falls asleep too.
But there is the occasional time where they just don’t want to sleep and they want someone in the room so they (generally Judah at this point) can try to stay awake. He’ll cry for a matter of minutes and then be over it and either fall asleep or take up chattering to his brother.

Now, sometimes they cry because they’ve dirtied their diaper, they want water or they are scared and those times I meet their needs right away - I guess, bottom line is, I meet my boys emotional and physical needs and won’t let them cry for NEEDS but I will let them cry if what they want is me sitting in their room so they can keep themselves awake… and it comes down to me knowing my kids cries and what each one means - it’s freaky how well we get to know our kids!

One of them can start crying and I’ll tell Paul “Oh, so and so has pooped.” Or “Wesley got his leg stuck in between the cribs slates” or “Judah just dropped his stuffed animal” and Paul just looks at me like I am crazy, but I pretty much always nail the problem based on their cry.