Didn't even Ferber say.....

[PrincessFiona]

a minimum age of 6 MONTHS?

I almost had a heart attack reading the Dooce blog...which I think I won't even read again now after her whole 'honest moment' about ferberizing (in sort of sickening detail) her 4 month old. She had people piping in there about ferberizing 2 and 3 month olds....

The post I agree with in response: If you want sleep .... get a kitten.

So...what pediatrician recommends ferberizing a baby at 4 months?

I'm not opposed to hearing a child cry...and I was the first to sit, read my 1 year old his good night story, lay with him a few minutes, say "I love you, night-night and then leave him...to cry about 4 minutes or so.....But....this woman describes this as "15 days of hell" and says that if you are planning on ferberizing, you should prepare yourself for trauma.

Good Lord...Maybe her ferberizing wasn't over in a few days like the book said because the infant was too small and was possibly....HUNGRY or WET in those 6 and then 12 hours? Babies crying so hard that they vomit all over themselves?

Obviously, this really bothers me....not because she chose a CIO method, but because of the young age of her baby and the fact that she let it scream for hours on end.....

kris

edited to add:

She said that they didn't go in to comfort the child like Ferber suggested because she "cried even harder" if they did. So....how did she know that the child didn't get itself wedged in the bed somehow or get injured...or wasn't sick?

When andrew was 10 monhts old, we tried the whole CIO thing and he acutally shook his crib so violently that it broke...I finally couldn't stand the crying anymore and went up and he was laying in a mess of broken crib. We actually had to replace the crib. What if he had been injured?

Oh...and I got a phone call once when Aidan was little. I left Aidan on his play blanket in my room and walked out so that I could answer it. He cried when I walked out and I heard him crying for about 5 minutes while I finished up. I walked back into the room and he was no longer crying (fallen asleep), but he had ROLLED himself under my BED. He was also only 4 or 5 months old. I CRIED over it.....I wonder if he was terrified.

If you can't tell..her description of ferberizing her child has me quite upset...I won't ever read her blog again....really.

I'm not even opposed to letting them cry a little...or wait, etc. But...in general, I just think she's selfish.

[spotty_dog]

"And then she would scream two hours after that and I wouldn’t go back in because it had only been a total of four hours since her bedtime."

Oh my god I'm going to cry. I don't think even Ferber ever *wrote* that you should leave a child for more than 45 minutes, and he recently recanted *that*.

"Dr. Ferber now says that letting children cry 'was not meant to be the way to treat all sleep problems' and his updated book, coming this spring, will make it clear that he offers other solutions besides crying."

"Ferber also said that 'letting a child cry it out for a long time is cruel.'"

[PrincessFiona]

What she actually did wasn't ferberizing...it was just putting a baby into bed in a room by itself and leaving it until it was convenient to her needs no matter how long or awfully it cried. Ferber suggests staggering visits and eventually extending them, etc...he never suggested NOT comforting the child.

gag

We did the CIO thing with DD (I forget how old she was) but it was AFTER I was certain that she was crying out of habit, not crying because she was hungry or for some other reason. It was horrible for me to hear her cry, but because I sat in front of the clock, I knew it lasted about six minutes before she fell asleep, and it only took two nights. I would have definitely used another strategy if she cried for any longer than what she did, or waited until she was a bit older to try it again.

I'll agree: If you want to sleep, get a kitten.

[PrincessFiona]

I'm not opposed to letting them cry...I have let Aidan cry for 6- even 10 minutes before to get him to sleep...but...I would draw the line at about 20...and I draw a line at 2-4 months.

What bothered me the most was the self-congratulatory responses...and the yes, it's hard to listen to your baby cry for hours on end..and my baby cried so hard she threw up on herself...blah, blah, blah...but when anyone suggested that it might not be ok (and yes, a couple of them *might* have been over the top) they were treated like first class attachment parenting nazi's or something.

Again...I have no problem letting them cry a little...but...hours on end for a 4 month old?

kris

[Rapunzel]

What she actually did wasn't ferberizing...it was just putting a baby into bed in a room by itself and leaving it until it was convenient to her needs no matter how long or awfully it cried. Ferber suggests staggering visits and eventually extending them, etc...he never suggested NOT comforting the child.

gag

Ummmm, sorry, but that's known as abuse.

A baby that young still may need to eat every three to four hours (more if going through a growth spurt). AND many babies that young have unpredictable bowels and can very well be screaming because they are, well, swimming in their own filth. A baby as young as 4 months is a 24 hour creature - needing to eat, poop, and pee round the clock.

Another reason a baby that young cries? They are lonely and NEED to be held. It's important for a baby to have that contact, to know that his/her needs WILL be met, to learn to trust Mommy. A baby that doesn't get that gets wonderful issues like "attachment disorder" (common in massive orphanages overseas).

I don't read this Dooce blog that you're all talking about - but, a 4 month old being left alone to scream long enough to throw up on him/herself?!? Ummmm... has that mom every heard of choking. Babies do it - and they CAN choke on their own vomit. A four month old is, generally, not rolling over and if left on the back (like so many pediatricians recommend nowdays) may very well choke on the vomit.

Sheesh. That is so disturbing. Seriously.

[PrincessFiona]

That's, I guess, what I mean.....like I said...I'm not opposed necessarily to the idea of 'ferberizing' and I don't find that method in itself to be abusive...It's just that allowing a baby to scream for hours on end is not ferber.

kris

A baby that young still may need to eat every three to four hours (more if going through a growth spurt).

Good point. I remember DD would wake up to eat during the night for a week or two after she had been sleeping through for a month or so because she was going through a growth spurt.

Ugh. I agree, letting a baby cry for hours on end is horrible and abusive. It makes me want to go in and give DD a big hug right now, but I won't because she's sleeping.

that sounds like the "baby wise" method to me (which is awful, IMO).

[PrincessFiona]

Well, it sounds to me like she was overwhelmed and in desperate need of some relief...and was able to find justification by reading some of these books. I still don't think it's ok to let a 4 month old scream for hours on end....My kids all needed to breastfeed about every 2-4 hours until they were at least 4 months old...Aidan was like a little bird and ate every 2 hours for what seemed like forever..and..he's still a grazer...He has to eat smaller meals more often...and he's 2. He also still gets up sometimes in the middle of the night and asks for juice of milk...and...I tend to give in unless I'm really tired because....sometimes I feel thirsty or hungry at night and run downstairs and grab myself something to eat or drink. :! He's such a peanut that I figure he really must be hungry/thirsty.

I think that my original visceral reaction was to the idea of hearing a baby screaming miserably for hours without being comforted because it "made her scream more"....I just can't imagine doing that to a baby...and honestly...if I was crying and needed comfort/attention or whatever I think it would be devastating if dh just ignored it. My initial response was emotional and maybe I need to reassess....All I can say is that it isn't a choice that I would make for my children....but I bet her little girl is a great sleeper now.

After all, who am I to think that my parenting is better than hers. People parent differently. I remember practically being attacked in germany for not having Andrew wear a head cap every minute of the day and for letting him 'sit' *gasp* on my lap before he could physically sit up by himself. I had friends who would put their infants/toddlers to bed and then go over to the neighbors house .... and a friend who would go on walks with me when her baby was in bed and would just carry the baby monitor with her (which I was convinced didn't work a mile from the house). I used to wonder what would happen if there was a fire in our building or something and we couldn't get back in time.

But...I make so many HUGE parenting mistakes myself every day (that I'm just not willing to be open about for fear of being told what a failure that I really am)...that I guess I'm in no position to judge.



kris

[Cumberland]

I am not a big fan of dooce. I think she often writes things just for shock value to garner more attention for her blog. Both she and her husband dont work, or rather, the blog and the attention it attracts is their source of income. It only takes about two minutes of searching about CIO to figure out that people have very extreme opinions about it. I am sure she knew that when she wrote what she did. I wonder if it is even true.

[Rapunzel]

You know, Kris, we all make ENORMOUS parenting mistakes - and often at that. We ALL do.

But, there IS a line. And, there is a difference between making a mistake - and abuse. Abuse entails a wonton disregard for the needs of a child. That is different from a mistake. That is intentional harm to a child.

I'd say this woman was wontonly ignoring her infant's basic needs (ie to EAT for one thing, possibly to LIVE and not choke to death on vomit is another, AND possibly not to be swimming in filth for hours on end). It's not a mistake if she was putting HER desires ahead of her child's basic survival. It wasn't a "need" to have the child sleep through the night. You and I both know that, while it's nice to have a baby sleep through the night - you are not, as a parent, going to die or something if you have to get up three times a night. So, she was putting her desires ahead of her child's SURVIVAL (and, eating and not choking to death ARE survival).

THAT is abuse. We've all made mistakes - sometimes whoppers. But, a mistake is unintentional. Abuse is intentional. This woman was intentionally compromising her child's safety and survival.

[Auspicious]

Jon? Is that you?

Just kidding, I like dooce, too. I think the problem with the piece being referred to here, though, is that dooce never actually says how long the baby cried for each time, only that she would have a crying jag every two hours.

So she would wake up after two hours of being down at night and we let her scream. And she screamed and screamed and screamed and we didn’t go back in. And then she would scream two hours after that and I wouldn’t go back in because it had only been a total of four hours since her bedtime. That happened probably five days in a row, and then she eventually started sleeping eight and nine hours without waking up,

We don't know how long she cried for, but it was evidently less than two hours, because she was asleep again in order to wake up two hours later. Maybe "screamed and screamed and screamed" means 15 minutes. Certainly a minute can feel like an hour with a really pissed-off baby and that seems to be particularly true for dooce herself. I don't know if she left that piece of info out on purpose, but it's a large omission on this controversial subject and I think really changed the way people read the piece.

[PrincessFiona]

I just went back and read that entry. It has been altered from it's original....
Think about it....she got hate mail (supposedly) and 475 comments...some outraged....I remember reading that entry (it was one of the first Dooce blogs that I had read) and being absolutely shocked by how crazy she sounded in that entry....

She changed it...that's cheating

kris

[PrincessFiona]

She toned it down.

That's why people were saying things like "You're a brave, brave woman for telling this" etc. One of her supportive posters even said "Holy Crap Heather, you just stuck the internet equivalent of a 'kick me' sign on your own back. You are a brave woman."

Dooce pretty much only opens up her blog to comments too when she has something controversial to say as far as I know.