cry it out

When we last left Penelope Pittstop she was tied to the train tracks while Snidely Whiplash was…wait, wrong damsel in distress. We were talking about a smart, thoughtful, AP Mom who had reached the end of her tether and turned to sleep training to help get the whole family back on track. Only things went […]

[box type=”blank” align=”center” class=”border-dashed2″] This could have been you. Or me. I got this email a few days ago. This isn’t a success story (yet) but it really spoke to me. It so beautifully captures the highs (I AM EARTH MOTHER, HEAR ME ROAR!) and lows (I snapped and it all went horribly wrong and […]

In an ideal world babies would never cry. We would all have tons of pre- and post-natal support and education. Nursing would be easy to figure out and nursing Moms would get free muffins at Starbucks. Our fabulous in-laws/parents would live next door and would be helping us with our children and making fresh apple […]

For most babies cry it out, if you take my sage advice, should last only a few days. After the first 2-3 days, some babies may complain 5-10 minutes at bedtime but that is not CIO. That is the baby expressing her disagreement with your decision that she needs to sleep. However other babies will […]

Update: It’s been ~5 years since I wrote this. It’s mostly still accurate. However during this time I’ve vastly expanded my knowledge about kids, sleep, schedules, and sleep training. The sum total of that knowledge can be found in my book, which is a comprehensive resource on sleep training. If you’re serious about successfully fostering […]

Cry it out is a touchy subject and it seems I’m the only person on the Internet willing to openly discuss it as a valid sleep strategy. Or at least that is my working assumption based on the volume of emails I get about it. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that people often have the […]

You’ve gotten your head around what sleep training means and then possibly came to the conclusion that CIO is the answer to your particular sleep issues. The next big hurdle is figuring out which method of CIO is right for you? And by “right for you” I mean that it: A) Solves the problem of […]

So you’re thinking about cry it out? Maybe you’ve spent the past 2 weeks furiously Googling sleep training (which is probably how you landed here). You’re exhausted and miserable. Your baby is exhausted and miserable. And you’re wondering if cry it out is the answer for you. Well I don’t know if it is or […]