cio, crying it out, the ferber method

a friend of mine ended up unwillingly causing a debate about CIO on facebook and things quickly got not so pretty. for some crazy reason i felt compelled to respond, too and then decided if i put that much time into writing something on friggin facebook, i might as well share it here for everyone to enjoy. ;)

it seems that whenever parents from "both ends" come to discuss CIO it very quickly gets very harsh. that's because we're all easily offended because we're all very passionate about trying our very best to provide our children with what they need. often (especially in the beginning) our knowledge of what they need is limited. it's difficult to understand a babies different cries and what they mean, then it becomes difficult to understand our toddler's tantrums and then we have a hard time connecting with our teenage who disappears into his room as soon as we try to have a conversation with him. so we seek help. i think all of us do. i haven't met a single parent who hasn't asked friends, family, a pediatrician for advice or read articles or books on subjects they sought answers for.
"CIO parents" do that and "Attachment Parents" do it and everyone in between does, too. because we all want to do the best job possible.
depending maybe on how we were raised, on how our friends or siblings are raising their children or simply what book was given to us first during pregnancy we are steered into one of many directions.

i feel that sadly, there is so much prejudice coming from both sides. i've seen both and i can assure you that APs don't just stay up til the wee hours of the morning every day thinking "oh well, he's just figuring out his schedule" and end up depriving their kids and/or themselves of valuable sleep. i also know that CIO doesn't neccessarily mean an angry disconnected mom carelessly dropping her baby in a babybed every night without a lullaby and then sitting comfortably in the living room drinking wine and watching movies while the poor baby cries for hours.

before i became a mother i was a very dedicated nanny (50+ hours/week plus frequent datenights). i started taking care of a little boy when he was seven weeks old. his parents are wonderful, loving, hard working, dedicated and very educated people who both come from equally wonderful families.
when the LO was a couple months old, they became concerned with his sleep and read a book which i then offered to read too. we all read "healthy sleep habits..." and it was clear to all of us, that his sleep duration, quality and timing where crucial factors to his well-being and we'd have to make sure he'd sleep (no matter what!) just like we made sure he'd only have healthy breastmilk and wouldn't sit in a wet diaper. we tried many of the suggestions, i wrote sleep log after sleep log and very often nothing other than letting him cry it out seemed to work.
we all did what we thought was best for him. we were going on information from pediatricians which were backed up by all sorts of studies and engrained in us fears of this poor kid having serious issues later in life if he didn't sleep as much as doctor soandso deemed necessary. we were worried. because we love him.
now, if you've read anything about CIO you will have read mentions of how mama's "heart was aching, hearing the baby cry." and how "hard it was to not go in there to soothe him". yes. i was not this little boys mother. in fact, i wasn't anybody's mother at that point. but my heart was bleeding every single time he cried. it was complete and utter torture (i know it was for him, too!). every pore in my body told me "go in there and pick him up and hold him!" but the book (and my employers who were surely suffering at least as much as i was) told me that this would damage him.
point? i repeat, every pore in my body told me to pick him up!
and i'm sure that all mother's who hear their baby crying in another room feel that physical ache to help their baby. it's nature. it's supposed to work this way. us feeling this way means we're doing exactly what evolution has given us to ensure our species survival.

to me, personally, therein lays the answer to almost all challenges i've experienced so far as a young mother of two girls. why is nature causing them to act this way? what are my instincts telling me? can i afford to go against my instincts or will it make me and my children miserable (whether in the long or short run). i've learned since becoming a parent that these instincts are the one and only thing i can truely rely on as long as i allow enough room for them. nothing brings me and my children more peace than to recognize, understand and follow those instincts.

in our society though, instinctual living is often less than convenient or even seemingly impossible. i was lucky enough to have been raised in an environment that strongly encouraged instinctual decision making even if that meant having to take on the role of outsider of a group at times or if it wasn't fitting my school or work schedule or that of my parents. so now, that i am a mother and my husband and i make the decisions (luckily, he's a very passionate and instinctually gifted man) our children are not crying it out. and we don't stay up past ten with them. in fact, for a long time we had a very good "strict" seven o'clock bedtime because at the time it worked well. we will most likely go back to that soon btw.
our oldest was nursed and cuddled to sleep every night until she was 13months old. not long after that she decided to move to her big girl room into her big girl bed and has slept there confidently ever since. we comforted and protected and cuddled her while she needed and wanted it and we let her go when she felt the need to be let go off.
our younger daughter is now ten months old and has lately fallen asleep in bed next to me but on her own frequently. she usually nurses to sleep and especially when she's going through times of rapid change i can tell she needs the help to wind down. but there are times when simply knowing that mama is there is comfort enough for her to lay her head down and fall asleep peacefully.
this is what works for us. no doubt, sometimes it's tiring. sometimes i want to yell "what the hell? can i just have ONE night to myself?" but i know that if i did, i'd miss something, too.

so i think, the key is realizing what works for you and your family. i wish with all my heart that all people had the same freedom that i had and have to live true to their nature and not hurried or molded or forced or lured or whatnot into simple "functioning" the way anyone other than themselves expect it. and i think if more babies were parented in an unconditional manner, more children would grow up to become instinctual adults again.
but until then, we can't expect everyone to have the same patience, ideas, convictions, education, feelings we have.

so peace should be the message, ladies!
let's keep the lines of communication open and learn from each other. i'm pretty sure, if we just listened and talked to each otehr more, we could all gain much more valuable confidence and knowledge than any parenting book written by a success driven doctor can. ;)


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