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Even without reading the articles my hubby and I didn't want to let our lo cio. We just feel like we don't want her to learn that if she cries for us we won't be there for her.

But things are always changing and they keep deciding different things. Next year cio will probably be good again and we'll have to put our babies on their tummy to sleep.

I'm not a CIO fan. DH can't stand hearing her cry either. It works for us. My dad (doctor) says that babies develop trust and etc up until they're 18 months old and that I need to be with her 24/7. He's a little out of control with the 24/7, but I never liked the idea of leaving her alone crying in her room so I stay with her until she falls asleep, or I'll leave her and she falls asleep quietly on her own.
On the rare occasion when I'm tired and she's being fussy I'll leave her alone to cry. She's only CIO'd a handful of times and cried no more than 10 mins. Longest 10 mins of my life!

I think a lot of times science articles on baby are just wrong and exaggerated one way or another.

That being said, we switched LO bed and she hated it so after awhile of her not getting used to it we decided to do CIO. I hated it and after days it didn't work and I felt like it was really making a things difficult between my daughter and me instead of our easy relationship. So I'm not a fan of CIO for us, it made things worse and uncomfortable, if it had worked within a couple days I probably would have been a fan of it.

We do not agree with CIO methods which is easy for us to say now since our baby rarely cries. I know that some research can be a little extreme, but what if there is a little bit of truth in what they say? I feel like if we let our baby CIO, she is only going to cry until she gives up faith in us coming to help her and I can't handle that thought. And neither can my husband. But I don't judge families who do. Every baby and every situation is different.

I used the CIO method with DS when he didn't need a middle of the night feeding anymore and it worked great! DS is 7 and we've never had any security, separation, or fear issues with him at all.

I read the yahoo article but not the others and think that yahoo article was written REALLY REALLY well and thought it was pretty spot on. It didn't totally discredit CIO but did make clear that knowing the difference of normal wakings and something is wrong wakings are different and should be addressed differently.

"What he does encourage is teaching children to soothe themselves during normal nighttime wakings. But many parents extend his advice to include all bedtime-related crying. That's the type of crying it out sets kids up for stress-related problems, trust issues, anxiety disorders, reduced brain function, and a lack of independence, Narvaez writes."

I made sure that DS was not hungry, not wet, and took note of his cry and attended to them if I thought that maybe he got scared, hurt himself, or it was an odd time for him to wake up. If he sounded like he usually did and it was the time he always got restless then I'd wait it out and usually within just a few minutes (5-10) he was back asleep.

I'll probably use the same method with all of our kiddos =)

@banana: I've heard about the crawling to walking thing too and how it has to do with certain brain circuits that we develop and use with other things late in life. So crazy how that works =)

CIO was the best thing we ever did for Charlie. He cried for 19 minutes the first time. He slept waaaay better after that, and I'm convinced it added several inches to his height as a result.

Those 19 minutes were brutal, and so were the 17 minutes he cried softly later that night. But he slept 10 1/2 hours that night. I think you have to weigh the good against the bad. You also have to do your research. A lot of people just stick the kid in a crib and hope for the best. I wouldn't recommend that.

That said, some babies don't need to CIO if you help them learn to self soothe and reinforce healthy sleeping habits. That's ideal, if you can achieve it. I think there's a healthy middle ground, where you start off with healthy sleep habits and try to avoid CIO if at all possible. I've seen a lot of reports of babies doing just that, either because they're great sleepers or because the parents emphasized great sleep habits right from the start.

@chopsuey119: Skynet-style?

not getting enough sleep causes sooooo many problems in children. i think charlie would have been way worse off being exhausted every day from not getting enough sleep than from crying for a couple of nights.

charlie's sleep was soooooooo bad. waking up 10+ times a night, sometimes up for hours at a time in the middle of the night. short naps that weren't restorative. cio was our last solution after we tried everything else. we have no regrets and he is one of the happiest boys i know.

i sometimes find that the people who are the most against cio have babies that aren't such problem sleepers. if their child was sleeping like charlie was, i wonder if they'd feel differently. i know that i almost died from exhaustion!

i know different things work for different families, but cio really worked for ours.

@mrbee: Lucky you got 19 minutes! I'd be all for CIO if that's what it took for our LO.

I don't plan to try this, since Baby Bear sleeps so well anyway. Maybe if she were over 9months old and wanted to get up to play, not eat, I'd see it differently.