My wife found letting the baby cry out very difficult so I did have to be quite firm about it...
But my daughter is 8 now and doesn't seem the worse for it ... As far as I can tell.
Edit: only mentioning this in case anyone is in despair and wants to try something different.
My mom tells me it was standard practice back when I was born, they used to say it was good for their lungs as well, but she couldn't do it either.
They will eventually shut down in self-defense to escape the terror of being abandoned by their parents.
All I can say is it doesn't sound like a very good idea to me, no matter how convenient.
Just can't do it, it feels wrong. Obviously not science-based, but we haven't been able to do it for more than a few days at a time.
It's also worth noting with kids that once you figure out how to deal with them, they enter a new developmental phase and all the rules change.
What sorts of techniques did you try? Sort of a gradual letting them soothe themselves for longer and longer periods of time?
But my feeling is that if nature makes babies cry (and do so in such a way that arises feelings of urgency, as every parent will know from experience) it's because it wants us to attend to them.
Of course, sometimes overriding nature's defaults can be a good idea, especially if one knows what they're doing. But it's not the case, so I'd rather err on the side of caution.
> They will eventually shut down in self-defense to escape the terror of being abandoned by their parents
Perhaps. I don't think we actually know what's going on in a baby's mind. Children appear to be amazingly resilient and also quite logical.
But as with all such advice you have to respect your own instincts as a parent and take cognizance of what the child's temperament is like. It's always different.
Lack of sleep wouldn't be as big of a problem if we didn't force parents to work as well as raising children. Children are our future, messing them up to fit our messed up society is not a long term solution.
I agree about trusting your instincts, but that's not what I'm seeing. When a child cries the typical parental instinct would be to hold them.
The fact is, parents and babies both need to sleep to be healthy and happy. Most parents are trying to achieve that, and have to try a bunch of things before they figure out what works for their situation. Try not to judge.
Most sleep training I have seen says to let them cry for up to 15 minutes before getting them.
We usually let ours cry for up to 5 minutes before picking her up. She would rarely cry for more than a minute or two before just falling asleep.
We slept, oh sweet sleep. Zero guilt.
The second one was sleeping in his bed 3 seconds after putting him in. He still does at 14 yo.