Shocked! How could any parent let alone mother do this?

I can't believe she'd admit to that, let alone actually do it. That's just stupid! Shortly after my twins were born, one of hubby's coworkers and I were having a discussion about smoking while pregnant. I am a smoker, but had quit for my pregnancy. She said she smoked during her pregnancy. She actually said "All it does is cause low birth weight babies, and who wouldn't want that?" Um.... Me!! I wouldn't want that. How stupid can some people be?

someone told me to do that to get my daughter to start sleeping in her bed on her own. I don't think that is right. We didn't shut the door but we put her in her crib and she cried so much she made herself throw up and that was the end of that. We never tried it again and I won't. Now she is 3 and she still sleeps with us at times. She has gotten a tv for Christmas and we can put dvds on for her and she now falls asleep in her bed with no problem. What the co worker is talking about is abuse. Thats horrible

Actually this is true. Sometimes parents do too much in the way of their young children when they cry. You can ask your pediatrician next time you see him/her. If you know your baby isn't hungry, isn't wet or messy, and there is nothing else wrong with them, it is okay to let them cry. It teaches them to soothe themselves, instead of expecting you to pick them up every time they cry. They eventually cry less, usually only when there is something amiss.

i agree with you that the dr wouldn't have told her that. that's stupid. some people are just ignorant when it comest to caring for kids.

I have seen several shows of trying to get your child to sleep in there own crib, but never just so that you can get more sleep. I think that most moms will agree with me when I say. You as a mother give up the right to ever get enough sleep again the day you have that baby. I know I have not had a good nights sleep in 15 years, lol I worry about my kids even when they are asleep and I should be too. I have heard of putting a crying baby in a safe place if it ever becomes to much but thats just to get a quick break and get your wits about you never through the night. What if the baby is hungry. They don't understand mom is tired they only know there belly is hungry and needs feed. Some people should not be parents.

Just so I'm understanding. You're supposed to shut the door and let the baby cry it out? If that's the case, I don't agree with that at all. Even a baby can get scaried or hungry in the middle of the night. I wouldn't just shut the door on them. There is a theory that children need to look to self sooth themselves, but a baby is helpless. Even a child up to the age of 1 can still wake up in the middle of the night. Shut the door? I don't think so.

I was given that advice when my children where babies and I even tried it, for about 10 minutes, I couldn't do it and I was shamed for going in an comforting my own scared baby. I ignored them what do they know it's my kid and I will do what I think is right. babies are in the womb for 9 months then when they are born your just going to leave them in a huge room by themselves? Come on it's not fair they need the contact of the mommy they are used to that you have to go to the child and comfort them sooner or later they will sleep all through the night. I am against leaving your child to "cry it out" I don't agree with your husbands co-worker.

Ive never been told to do this by a doctor but by a health visitor certainly. In fact when I had my second child she actually made me do just this but let me explain. My second son would not sleep at all whatsoever, I remember in a week counting my hours of sleep I had in total 9 hours sleep in a week. I was a mess, my marriage was in trouble, I was a complete wreck and ended up on anti depressants it was awful and I did not want to be a mum anymore. This carried on for months and months until in the end my health visitor came out and told me that when I put him down to sleep I was to leave him no matter how much he cried. As long as he was changed and fed before being put down, read a story too and tucked in for the night then he would be fine and should be left. I had a monitor and so that was plenty, if I was really concerned about him then I should just check on him every 20 minutes or so but I was not to pick him up or nothing because it was bed time and he needed to know that at bedtime he has to go to sleep. Tell you what best bit of advice she gave me, it saved my sanity and my marriage!!

My doctor told me to do this. But he also said that after 15 minutes to go get them if they had not stopped. He said my children were spoilt rotten was all that was wrong. Put them down they would cry. Pick them up they would stop. I never could do it though. It is easier just to console them. Doctor's do tell you to let them cry it out.

sounds like she cares more about herself than her child. i stayed in the room with my son for the first two years of his life so that if he woke in the night and needed me or was scared or sick i was right there. i never let him scream himself to sleep and he was so well adjusted and slept so well as a result. to this day, and he is 8 now he sleeps like a log and gives me no bedtime troubles with going to sleep. what if her child was calling her in the middle of the night and because she had the door closed she could not hear him and he really needed her? i guess she did not care, bottom line.

i know some one who did this from when she went back to work when her child was 4 weeks old. it blew my mind when i hear it. feeding alone goes on threw the night not to mention comfort and choking at this age and indeed any. i couldn't do it. my kids are six and seven and i still get up to them during the night if they need me. sleep is not as important as the well being of my kids. i cant imagine a doctor telling her this either - i would think it was more like - 'if your going to loose your temper or just need a break to get your brain together for a minute its ok to put the child down safe in the cot and close the door for a minute to calm down.' this is something that the mid wife who did my classes when i was pregnant with my first child said to the group. but people are very capable of hearing what they want to some times i guess!!! sorry this is a bit of a touchy issue for me!!!! :P

What if the kid needs something or is sick? It's not very good parenting to ignore the baby.

Well, I've actually done this when I was a nanny myself, it was the best method, after I would my little cousin, do the burping, change the diaper if needed, move her legs up and down while she was laying down (VERY good for gassy babies ha ha) and then I would lay her down in her crib, close the door, and just go back to the living room. I would of course turn the baby monitor on, maybe the coworker just forgot to mention that part. My one rule with whomever I am babysitting though? NOT to lie down with them until they fall asleep, you know unless they woke from a bad dream and is just too scared. But I found that they are more prone to wake up in the middle of the night because of being COLD, because their body temperature got used to the extra body heat that the person laying down with them provided. A few hours pass, they get a little more cold, enough to wake up from their deep sleep and then boom! Wakes up the parents/babysitter, confused why they're awake, and then you have to do it all over again...My cousin, the mother, was always so confused (and frustrated) why she always slept the whole night when I was watching her, and then I noticed that the little one would always be overly sooky until one of her parents would go lay down with her. I put a stop to that, I even demonstrated during nap time. The little one was about 1-2 about this time, and she knew her mother was home, just in the living room, listening to what I was doing, so since the mom was there, little one was starting to get sooky with me, "Candy, come lay down with me pwease...." my response? "Now Little Miss, you know that won't work with me, never did that before, won't start now right?" Little Miss would just heave a big sigh, realizing that the jig was up, rolled over and closed her eyes and took a nap. I would walk back out to the living room, and the mother would just stare at me shocked and would kind of stutter at me lol. I said, "She understands what I'm saying and she knows how it is, she knows she doesn't need someone to lay down with her, and it's actually easier for everyone, herself as well, which she very well knows. I know it's a tough habit to break, but see it this way : EVERYONE gets to get more sleep this way." Last I heard, they never could get her out of the habit, but by that time I was across the country ha ha.

That is crazy no doctor in their right mind would tell them to do that and what would the reason be for. That is crazy. I don't have kids, but if I had any I would not have been able to do that no matter what the situation was that is definitely crazy.

I've heard of this being done so that the child sleeps in their own crib - you put the baby to bed with their routine, close the door, and let them cry it out. I've had relatives do this with their children, and they say it was the worst night of their lives. Apparently, they and their pets just sat on the other side of the door practically crying too, until the baby fell asleep. And yes, this is what their doctor recommended. Anyway, their son is now almost 3, and he sleeps mostly in his own bed. If he gets scared, he will climb out of his bed and climb into theirs, but he doesn't have abandonment issues or anything.

No doctor told me to do that. In fact, I never asked the doctor what to do to get some sleep. I assumed when you became a mother, you naturally got woken up around 2 am to feed the baby, or the baby would wake up and scream in the middle of the night for some reason or other. But then I have a husband and we would take turns getting up and holding the babies. I gather this woman had no one to help her, but maybe the doctor should have told her to nap when she got home so she would be able to rock the baby at night. Wrong advice.

When my son was a newborn he was diagnosed with Colic.. I think that means they can't find out why you child is crying all the time so they gave it a name.. I don't know.. anyway, the doctor told me to put him in his crib and shut the door and walk away... I tried it.. it lasted for all of one minute! I couldn't do it! We made it through the Colic and lost a lot of sleep.. together!

I think that might be a bit harsh. Doctors do tell you to let the kids cry it out. They probably do so for a good reason. I have other reasons why this might be an acceptable idea, too. Avoiding shaken baby syndrome. It might be very helpful for a mother or father who is stressed to believe it is acceptable to put the baby in a room and let them cry with the door closed for a time. Certainly, we wouldn't recommend neglecting your child at night if they are poopy or need feeding. I would say, if you are sleep deprived and really, really, at your wits end, put the baby in the room, closed the door, and get an hour or so of sleep. This gives you space in which to cool down and recover slightly from your fatigue so as to better handle the child's needs. Unfortunately, I can see single mothers suffering greatly to calm their child while knowing full well they must still get up and go to work. I cannot imagine how hard that must be.

I don't necessarily think that shutting the door on a baby and letting him cry himself to sleep for the duration of the night is appropriate, especially since most babies need to get up and eat every couple of hours when they are that small. However, once they ARE more or less sleeping through the night without needing nourishment, I have no problem with a mother who chooses to use the "cry it out" method...unless the child is screaming non-stop for more than five minutes or so. At that point the mother SHOULD go in to make sure the child is not hurt, dirty, hungry, etc, comfort them for a moment or two, and then leave the room again, repeating the process for as long as it takes for the child to understand that although it's bedtime and they need to sleep in their own bed, mommy (or daddy) hasn't abandoned them and will be there if something is truly wrong. It DOES sound cruel, but most children I know who have gone through this are better off in the long run, because they are a bit more independent and don't need mommy and daddy for every single little thing, which is a blessing for all. That said, I definitely don't approve of letting a child scream and cry all night long - that's just inhumane.

Actually, it is encouraged here to do that. I have two very good friends that did that. They actually had noise machines to absorb the noise also. I personally had both of my daughters in my room, one till she was 4 the other till almost 2. I was so paranoid that they would stop breathing that I just couldn't sleep unless I could see them at any given time. I understand your apall. It is true though that alot of pediatricians encourage it. They also say not to go immediately to them so they have a chance to practice self soothing. Again, I never ever could do that. The friends that did all of this stuff though had kids that would sleep through the night, go to bed without the slightest of hesitation, etc. So while it soulds barbaric to some of us, it is a highly recommended way of life.