“Give it time.”
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“She just needs to get used to it.”
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“It’s so hard, but it will get easier the longer you do it.”
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“Give it at least two weeks or else you will confuse the baby.”⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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𝐂𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧’𝐭 ‘𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫’. If leaving your child to cry is going against every fibre of your instincts, 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 wait for things to ‘improve’. If it feels wrong to you, then it likely feels wrong to your child too. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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And, the most important thing to remember, despite what those in the sleep training industry say, extinction based techniques 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 teach your child to sleep better or longer. They 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 teach your child to ‘self soothe’ (this is not something small babies are capable of doing). Extinction based techniques teach your child to stop signaling; to stop asking for help; and that their caregivers will not reliably come to them when they are in need. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Cry it out may make life easier for parents, but it makes life infinitely more confusing and difficult for a baby who just needs the comfort of a loving caregiver. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Sleep training doesn’t do babies any favours – the only skill you are teaching them is that they have to rely on themselves. And if you took sleep out of the equation, I don’t think any parent would want their child to feel like they couldn’t depend on them – so why is it okay for sleep?⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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If you’re using a form of sleep training because you’ve felt pressure to do so, 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘨𝘶𝘵 and don’t wait for cry it out to get easier, because if we’re looking at the big picture, it won’t.
