Comments on: The CIO Can of Worms

By: Angelea

Angelea — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:38:03 +0000

I just had to comment on the CIO talk. I have twins, too, as well as another kiddo who is 18 months older. Fortunately they are now 3 1/2 and 5 years old, respectively, so I can look back on all of this with nostalgia. But I can so relate to the crying and the insane edge that sleep deprivation pushes one to. BUT, I have to say that I am a firm believer that a kid’s sleep habits are more ingrained in their personality and less a result of any parenting intervention. Just my personal experience, but each of my 3 kids had extremely different sleep patterns as infants (until at least 18 months old). I went to all of them when they woke, nursed them, rocked them, whatever it took to get them back to sleep. They all had pacifiers (a must, I felt, with the twins). Yes, I had to go through the pain of breaking that habit, but seemed worth a few days to a week of misery in the end. I could never embrace the CIO method, but I did make feeble attempts at it during various stages of desperation. Maybe it would have been effective had we stuck it out. But I can totally relate to the regression that occurs brought on by illness or other disruption following a period of apparent succes. I can also say from personal experience that there were a number of times I responded to their cries in the middle of the night only to find they had soaked their jammies, vomited, or had some other crisis that needed attending to. Those incidents alone would not allow me to ignore middle of the night cries. My problem, I know! lol. Anyway, my 5 year old still wakes once or twice in the middle of the night, never been a sound sleeper. I go in to pat his back, put his covers on and he’s back asleep. I would consider letting this go to the next stage of yelling or crying at this age, but he shares a room with his brother who is not nearly as easy to lull back to sleep if something (or someone) wakes him up. The twins wake only on rare occasions, not a problem for about 2 years now. The moral of the story for me is that that image from the Dr. Phil show with the girl who is like 15 years old and still sleeping with mom and dad has not repeated itself here despite my failing to “teach” my kids to sleep through the night in their own bed. I should mention the older one slept with us until he was 3 1/2 years old. Not because we were big on the family bed, but because it guaranteed a good night’s sleep. I just couldn’t take more than one night of being even futher exhausted by his sleep problems while I was just trying to survive the twins’ infancy. Maybe this will give someone hope who is going through this right now. I think it’s very rare a kid isn’t sleeping in his own bed by the time he is 16. Seems like a reasonable goal to me! I figured if they could accomplish that and be off the passie and diapers before kindergarten, all is good. I don’t judge anyone for their methods when it comes to sleep. I understand the no-win situation caused by the guilt of caving to their every whim in the middle of the night, just begging for one more hour of sleep, versus the guilt of CIO, no matter the lofty goal of everyone sleeping through the night. It does pass… eventually!!

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:46:36 +0000

Cyndi — you may be incorrectly judging Heather. Her writing style is very self-depreciating, and tends to express emotions (such as the ever-popular guilt) by describing scenarios to make you feel what she was feeling. This is normally considered an excellent writing skill, unless, of course, you happen to be blogging about your children.

At no point did either Heather or Angela/Twinmama imply that the methods that worked for them were suitable for everyone.

When John Sage was born, I worked the third shift, 10 p.m.-7 a.m., while The Husband had a nice, normal 8 a.m.-5 p.m. job.

We chose the Family Bed method, which lasted until John Sage was 3 and wanted his own room, which meant that we spent approximately $30 billion decorating his room to his specifications only to have him sleep in the curved corner section of the sectional couch until he was 4 1/2.

The Husband kept him up until midnight or so, which guaranteed I got to sleep at least until noon. Longer if I took him to the park in the afternoons and refused to allow him a nap. It was a horrible time – I was completely exhausted all the time, to the point of hallucination, highly reduced immune system efficiency and extreme mood swings.

I’ve been on the 6 a.m. – 3 p.m. shift for a year and I still have problems with insomnia which mirror the rhythm of my sleeping patterns when he was little, and he tells people he is nocturnal and should be able to attend school on the internet at night.

I would never criticize another mother for doing what she had to do to survive and get some sleep, and I have complete empathy for anyone who has those long, endless stretches of sleeplessness until the Barney song actually seems pretty catchy.

By: Donna

Donna — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 14:19:37 +0000

Long ago I made a deal with myself: I won’t criticize other moms’ parenting methods… in return, I won’t listen when they criticize mine. I honestly don’t understand why so many of us equate what “worked for me” with “the only RIGHT way.” Sheesh.

By: Cyndi

Cyndi — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:14:15 +0000

Well…….every comment *I* read (and granted, I don’t have time to read them all!) was supportive of her.

I’m on the fence too, but, IMHO, how she described it, I feel she was borderline abusive to her kid. She put herself first in a really poopy way. Sometimes, I think CIO is warranted, and of course moms of multiples sometimes have no choice. But there is a difference between…well, having a choice and not having a choice. And, with the whole CIO thing…..there is such a fine line as to when it’s “ok” and when it’s not.

I will say, I am the queen of sleep deprivation, save maybe you. You are pretty much the only mom I’ve read or know in real life who has WORSE sleep than me. Top that off with raging PPD for almost a year and I’ll tell ya, I sympathize. I really do. It still doesn’t, for me at least, justify poor choices.

She’s probably an overall good mom, I don’t know. I’ve heard about her ’round the net and all. She seems alright. That doesn’t mean she didn’t make a poor parenting choice.

I think that over all, her tale of leaving her screaming child for hours on end disturbed me and angered me the most because she was not remorseful. We read that entry and think “Gosh…..she’d do it all again because of the outcome she got”. I dunno……maybe I’m reading it wrong. I got the impression that she is fully all about CIO and Ferber and that she’s recomending this to other moms. That’s not cool, IMHO.

But what do I know….I’m just some schmuck on the intarweb. :)

By: Mainland Mum

Mainland Mum — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:11:11 +0000

Hi Angela,
Great post–any longtime reader of your blog knows that you have truly earned your sleep-deprivation purple heart. Seriously. It took me a long time to make the connection that being sleep deprived negatively impacted my daytime mothering abilities on a deep level. That sounds dumb–but hey, I was sleep deprived, okay? I don’t have twins, but I do have kids close in age, and I can relate to not being able to respond to two little people at once at all times. It blows. I think so many moms carry such a burden of guilt around, it makes us easy targets for criticism–no matter what, we’re doing something wrong. For some, that’s being as tight-assed and sanctimonious, something that will no doubt bring their children to therapy in the future, anyway. Hah!

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:27:49 +0000

I also just read your politics page and Slolane, you are completely awesome. Thank you. If you were here I would buy you a shot.

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:25:27 +0000

I can not believe the way people are acting about this whole CIO issue. I think each parent should choose to do what works best for them and their family. Is that really so hard? From the looks of the comments over at Dooce aparently. I must say I am a bit nervous about the types of comments I am going to get when I have kids.

I admire you and your view point. Could you imagine trying AP with triplets or quads? Insane and also impossible. With twins I could see the vague possibility, but with anything more than that I wouldn’t believe it.

By: laurie

laurie — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:41:31 +0000

hey - thanks for the shoutout! back before it got nasty over at dooce, i was struck with how everyone’s stories sounded essentially similar, even if their methods differed.

also, i myself was just getting ready to blog about the CIO thing and how it is a totally different equation with twins. but since you’ve already done it, i think i’ll just point people to slolane…

here’s another similar rant on one vs. two: for the record, i totally believe in “baby wearing” as much as a mom/dad can manage it. i’m not psycho about it, i just believe babies benefit from being worn, using any of the available “wearing” devices. but one time i was at whole foods with my then 4-month-old twins. one baby was sleeping on me in the bjorn, the other was sleeping in her infant carrier on the back of the shopping cart (note: BOTH sleeping). i was in line paying (read: i was on the verge of declaring the shopping trip a success). out of nowhere, a woman behind me in line started to lecture me about slings and how i should use them instead of bjorns, ESPECIALLY because they would enable me to wear both babies at once, etc blah blah blah.

“do you have twins?” i asked?

“no, but i carried both my kids in slings til they were 15 years old,” she said. or something like that.

luckily for my karma, i was just well-rested enough to turn away.