The Great Sleep Debate
Please note: The following is strictly my opinion, based on my own experiences. This is not an official Happy To Be At Home stance. I do not even know if Joy and Toni agree with me. But because our family has reaped the rewards of this decision, I feel inclined to share.
Our children are fantastic sleepers. They have no problems falling asleep on their own or staying asleep. I’m sure a bit of that has to do with the temperaments that they were born with. But on the flip-side, I also believe my husband and I nudged them just a bit in this direction.
You see, when they were babies, we let all of our kids “cry it out.” It wasn’t always easy, especially for me, but we have been benefiting from this practice for over 8 years now.
Each child is obviously different, so our methods were equally different. With our oldest, it took three days of crying at night when she was 10 months old. And I spent one long night laying on the floor in front of her bedroom door while she cried. Since then though, she is a phenomenal sleeper, at least when she decides to stop reading and actually go to sleep.
Things were easier with our next child. He was actually a great sleeper right from the start. You know, one of those babies that I actually had to wake up to feed. If I remember right, there were only one or two nights of letting him cry for about 15 minutes when we first put him down before he began sleeping through the night.
Our third child was the most difficult for me. She was very much a mama’s girl and was attached to me all day long. She would fall asleep laying next to me, and then I would move her to her crib. When she woke at night, I would put her in bed with us. Since her crib was in our room, this just seemed like the easiest thing to do.
After months and months, I knew my husband was getting tired of my resistance to letting her cry it out. So we finally decided it was time. She cried for a few hours the first night. It was hard for me to not get up and just get her. Eric had to actually hold me in bed a few times and remind me it was for the best. It probably took a week, with the crying times getting less and less each night, until she did not wake up until morning. I remember feeling victorious that first night when she did not cry. Once she slept through the night for a week straight, we moved her out of our bedroom. And now, she can sleep anywhere, any time, under any circumstances.
With our youngest, I had a bit of an easier time, although I was still prone to just picking her up. I think part of the reason was that I was tired, plain and simple. I wanted to sleep and I knew if I picked her up and put her in our bed, we could both just go back to sleep. So once again, my husband reminded me of the benefits of letting her cry it out. And he had a great example to prove to me that it worked - our three sound-asleep other children. There wasn’t much to it for her. She cried a few times throughout the night, but never for very long. Within a few days, she did not cry at all.
Those few difficult days with each child have led to children who sleep soundly at night and have no problems falling asleep on their own. Personally, I know it works because I was a child of the method myself. Growing up, I heard many stories about my mom laying in the hallway outside my room while I cried, my dad holding her in bed, and finally, my dad actually staying with my grandparents for a few days so that he could get some sleep in order to function at work. Apparently I was more stubborn as a baby than my own children. But, it worked just the same.
Now I am by no means a professional, but I did take advantage of professional advice. We did not begin to let any of our children cry it out until they had reached a certain weight and their doctor said it was okay. In fact, each of the pediatricians we have seen actually recommended it and encouraged us to start long before we ourselves were ready. So, we did what made sense for our family and what worked best. I would not do it differently if we had another. Plus, our kids our happy, well-adjusted, emotionally-secure children who sleep through the night. Why would I want to do it any other way?
AUTHOR | Kate Miller
Kate, one of the original 3 Moms, is a happy wife and stay-at-home, homeschooling mother of 4 children, ages 9, 4, 3, and 1 1/2. She and her family have spent the past few years purposefully living a simple and frugal life. Along the way, she has learned many frugal and financially-wise tips to help her family save and intelligently spend money while still enjoying an immensely full and wonderful life. You can read more about Kate on her personal blog, A Simple Walk.
I always appreciate hearing of other people’s experiences. When my daughter was tiny, I scoured the internet looking for sleep stuff. In hindsight I suspect she got overtired and just couldn’t get caught up - she screamed for up to two hours when I’d put her down and it went on for months. Talk about breaking a first time mother’s heart (and spirit)! Even after all that crying it out, she’s still a lousy sleeper at almost 20 months. But, it’s much better than it was. Thanks for sharing that it really does work sometimes -
I did this with my children, too. It was especially hard when we were at their grandparents house as they wanted to go pick them up. They are great sleepers. My daughter did have a time where she was having night terrors, but thank God those are gone.
Each of my three children actually slept with me on my side of the bed for their first year or so (usually in a little side-sleeping wedge). The reason? I wanted to be able to nurse them in the middle of the night without getting out of bed and also wanted to be able to check to make sure they were okay at any time during the night—again, without having to get out of bed. As a result, I had only one sleepless night during all three kids, and that was with my first child because I tried to follow the child-rearing books and stick him in his own crib in his own room at first. I quickly changed to a co-sleeping situation and we were both much happier. (I should add that even when they we co-sleeping, I would still put them down in their cribs for naps and let them cry it all. All three were good sleepers, and if I put them down for a nap when they were actually tired, the crying didn’t last long).
When the kids not longer needed to be nursed during the night, I would put them down in their crib awake and let them cry it out—although they usually didn’t cry much. It didn’t take long at all and all three of my kids eventually had no problem going to bed or taking a nap in their crib.
I also consciously avoided rocking them to sleep each night so they wouldn’t be used to only going to bed after they’ve fallen asleep. OIf they happened to fall asleep before I put them to bed, that was fine. I just didn’t make it a habit to rock them to sleep.
Noise was another factor. I was never a mom who made sure it was completely quiet during nap time; I wanted my kids to be able to sleep through noise and distractions. My husband and I have always slept with some kind of white noise maker at night, so having having the kids sleep with me during their first year, and hearing the white noise during the night, I think helped them learn to sleep with noise. As a result, they could sleep through almost anything (like me teaching piano lessons during nap time!).
We let our daughter cry as well. We made the 15 minute rule and would check to make sure she was okay, but for the most part we let her cry. Babies cry. That’s what they do. After a few days, she was the most content baby I had ever seen. She ate well, grew well and slept well. Happy, healthy girl!
My kids are older, so I can barely remember the time of “crying it out”!! That makes me kinda sad.
Anyhow, I had my kids sleep with me when they were babies, at least part time. Because I was nursing… Then when they were about a year or maybe a year and a half, they slept mostly on their own in a regular bed. It may have been a little older, now that I think about it.
They all are what I would call “normal” sleepers now. They each have their own peculiar traits, though. And they have pretty much never changed from then to now!!
My 13 yo is a night owl. She loves to stay up late and then sleep in late. She has always been this way, although it has got worse as she has been dealing with the teen stuff
My 11 yo is a morning person! She goes to bed early, and gets up with the sun (or earlier sometimes)
She can get cranky if she has had some late nights, because even if she stays up late, she is up at the crack of dawn.
My 9 yo is just a sleeper, period. She likes to go to bed around 8 pm. She sleeps in as long as you let her, even if she is in bed early. When she was smaller, I could put her to bed at 7pm, and she’d sleep until 10am!!
My youngest, age 4, is another story. She is a late night owl, but is still up early. Not as early as her 11 yo sis, but still early… I have been having problems with her sneaking out of her bed to sleep with either me or one of her sisters almost every night this week, so I don’t know what is going on there… But I have learned not to sweat the small stuff. As long as I am getting my sleep, I am not too picky
haha
(Sorry so long!!!)
All that and I forgot to tie it in with the “Cry it out” !!! *doh*
I meant to say that I let them cry sometimes in their beds when I knew they were just wanting extra attention.
I love Nanny Jo, and her method of putting difficult children to bed. You stand at the door, or as far away as you can, and ignore them. LOL
I can’t describe it, but watch Super Nanny, and you’ll see what I mean
haha
There came a point when we had to let each of ours cry it out too. Unfortunately for our youngest, she was just 3 months old and had taken to the habit of not sleeping AT ALL unless we were standing up holding her. AFter 3 nights of desparately trying anything we could, we fell into bed exhausted and slept all night. In the morning I remembered hearing her crying off and on all night long, but I tell you we couldn’t stand up while she slept for another minute. I figured that we had started it, so we would finish it. I did still feed her in the middle of the night, but really she slept through from then on other than the once a night feedings. It definitely worked for us.
Well, now that our kids are like: 16, 14, 12, 11 and 3, they all sleep through the night. Sometimes I think I would have more of a sanity bucket if I had encouraged them to “cry it out” a little more… Alas… Thanks for coming to my blog and encouraging me. Blessings.
We did this with our first two and it worked great.
Then we adopted.
And you just don’t leave a child that has been abandoned and given away and had their world completely changed 2x while being asleep to cry it out. Now you are concentrating on getting that child to rely on you and bond with you.
I had a very hard time training myself to do this - it was so against the grain with what I did with my first two.
But after 3 years she regulated herself…and I was ever so glad I listened to the adoption specialists and NOT the doctors. And I learned a lesson about thinking the cry it out method was better. It all comes down to the people involved.
I think lack of sleep is the hardest thing to cope with when you have a young child. As if it isn’t hard enough working out what you are meant to do with a new baby, you’re supposed to do it on a couple of hours sleep!!! Not fair.
But babies do wake. It’s what they do. In the first year of a baby’s life it’s normal, natural and neccessary for them to need you at least a couple of times. Please don’t leave babies under 10 months to cry for hours.
If the trouble is in getting them off to sleep in the first place, well, that’s a different story. You know they are fed, dry and tired, so they should be able to sleep. Personally, I’d stick with a controlled crying program for babies under 18 months rather than just ignoring them.
The best bit is that everything changes so rapidly, so the bits you don’t enjoy just fade away after a while. Unfortunately, so do the delightful bits.
We’re so lucky we have children to enjoy and love, aren’t we?!