Zoe Saldana is everywhere all of a sudden. More excerpts from her InStyle interview surfaced. She talks about her Nina Simone movie, which she filmed in 2012 and still hasn’t made it into theaters. I guess this is still happening. Zoe said, “I didn’t think I was right for the part, but I don’t think Elizabeth Taylor was right for Cleopatra either. An artist is colorless, genderless .. It’s more complex than just ‘Oh, you chose the Halle Berry look-alike to play a dark, strikingly beautiful, iconic black woman.’ The truth is, they chose an artist who was willing to sacrifice herself.” Zoe discussed the Liz Taylor casting before, but she sounds more negative now. Maybe she just wants this film to come out, so she can stop talking about it.
Zoe also visited Jimmy Kimmel last night to talk about her other new movie, Infinitely Polar Bear, which is about a father with bipolar disorder. The dad is played by Mark Ruffalo, so it should be a good performance. Saldana plays Ruffalo’s wife. The topic shifted to parenting, and Zoe admitted how hard is to put her own twin babies to sleep. She and Mr. Marco Saldana are both tearing their lovely manes from their heads:
“Sleep training twins is no joke because you put one to sleep and you lay him down, and the other one has been asleep, but then that one wakes up and the other one wakes up so then everybody’s crying, then my husband and I are crying…You’re like, ‘Oh, my God!'”
“It’s overwhelming because there are so many different methods. Just the other day, my sister, who has a 9-month-old, shared with us the method that she did. She brought the piece of paper and grabbed us both with a bottle of vodka. She goes, ‘What do you guys have?’ That’s how her and her husband did it. Because the moment you hear your child cry, it’s like it rips the guts out of you. And it’s like, we have two. It’s crazy. So there’s a bottle of Skinnygirl and we had the monitor with the volume all the way high. We have this little note thing, this log that you have to be logging in all the time. We put them down, say ‘mommy and daddy love you’ in Italian and Spanish — well get to that later — and then we walk out and they’re having a meltdown. So then you have to time it, then you go in. And my sister, I’m like, ‘Can we go in? Can we go in?’ ‘OK, go in now.’ And we go in and I’m like, ‘What do we do?’ No eye contact, just say ‘mommy and daddy love you’ — in Italian and Spanish—and she would come pull us out. So by the third time, it had been 45 minutes already. We were kind of buzzed. It’s heart wrenching. My husband doesn’t drink and he’s like, ‘Gimme that bottle!'”
“So then we go and we just finally abort. We abort mission. We take our kids. I take one, he takes the other, and we’re both crying. The boys’ bodies are, like, their bodies are weeping…and you go, ‘Oh, my God, he’s never going to forgive me for this.’ And then, Marco and I are talking in the room going, ‘It’s not for us. It’s too archaic. There has to be a more gentle method. They did it because they’re insensitive. They don’t care about their children.'”
[From E! Online]
Kimmel told Zoe she should have the twins sleep in separate bedrooms. Zoe replied, “They were born together. It’s unnatural to separate them. In my mind, it just makes sense.” Well in my mind, this sounds like a nightmare. Two screaming babies! One at a time was enough for me, and I admit to never being able to let my baby cry it out. Perhaps out of laziness, I gave in and picked her up (she’s fine now), but I don’t judge parents on for their baby-sleep preferences. Zoe also said her twins would be trilingual (English and Italian and Spanish).
Here’s a Kimmel clip where Zoe talks about Marco taking her name.
Here’s a clip where Zoe talks about how Infinitely Polar Bear came together.
Photos courtesy of WENN
Unpopular opinion but I do not believe in cry it out, ever.
It worked for us. It was horrible the first three nights, but by the fourth night, he fell asleep like a champ.
exactly our experience! Ive heard this from others too, For us, no question it was the best thing to do for our son. People LOVE to hate on it (ferociously) but the results speak. Babies need so much sleep. Showing my son he could soothe himself to sleep gave him a very important skill.
Me neither. I mean, for those that it worked for, more power to them! But it was not happening for us.
So what did you do? At some point children do need to learn to sleep on their own. Though Western societies force it in a quite unnatural way. I try to mix it up, let them sleep with us when they clearly have the need, but work with them on learning to self-soothe etc. It’s hard. and, for me at least, definitely a process. I hope she was joking with the comments about being insensitive and not caring about their children!
Like every other milestone, sleep is something which each kid does when ready. My sister’s boys both slept through at 6 weeks. My daughter is 2 and just now sleeping through.
It comes with time, unfortunately
If you really care, this worked for me (twice). When you are feeding your child their evening meal when they are really little (under 2-3 months) they will fall asleep while eating then you put them in their bed. when they wake up to eat in the night same thing. As they get older put them in their beds when they are almost asleep, within a week or two put them in their beds awake. They learn that their beds are a nice, safe place for sleeping and they will put themselves to sleep. My son was 3 months, my daughter had colic took until 6 months old. I think they may have a bit of a time trying now at 9 months but i’ve never found crying it out works (except way later, like 2-3 years, when they are crying for temper).
Having a bed time routine (baths, stories, i always tuck them in the same way and say basically the same things) helps reassure them.
Audrey, yes, I agree it comes with time. My older child slept well from 3 months and, with a little encouragement, was good at self-soothing. Completely different story with my younger one, really was a matter of time and taking it slow.
Angel, that’s great advice; I have a friend expecting now and will pass this along to her.
I find it really odd, it seems to be really popular in the States but where I’m from it’s seen as a really terrible thing to do, verging on neglect, and if anyone still does it they sure don’t admit to it. Also in the States it seems to be normal to put a baby in it’s own room shortly after it’s born, and here almost no one does that until the baby is at least 6 months old. I wonder if it’s related? When my babies cried in the night I didn’t stagger out of bed and down the hall, most of the time I could just reach an arm out into their cot by my bed, and that touch soothed them enough to go back to sleep.
I have to be honest. I wonder if stuff like this and lack of parental leave is partially responsible for the crime rate in the US being so high.
Babies are not able to properly bond, in my opinion. Some are in daycare at less than a month old since there is little parental/maternity leave and almost no paid leave
No, it is definitely not popular in the states. I don’t know a single parent that has gone full “Cry it out”. That said, there’s a wide range – some let their children cry for a little while to see if they’ll self soothe, but for the most part just leaving your baby in a room to cry for hours until it falls asleep is a debunked method.
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@Audrey
Are you really linking the cry it out method to thethe crime in the U.S? Wow want a huge assumption and I’ve read your comment below and there are studies to show just the opposite of what you posted.
Not only cry it out, but the lack of bonding time based on the non-existent maternity/parental leave system
I am only citing a study which sealed the deal on no cry it out for us. It was suggested to us by others and I didn’t feel comfortable with it. But did research to try to see if I was wrong. That study backed up my instinct
I don’t know if it’s that it’s more popular in the states as much as it is the atrocious parental leave the US has. They’re certainly under way more pressure to get a baby into a routine for childcare from very early on.
My friend in NYC is getting six weeks maternity leave when her baby is born. SIX WEEKS!??! What if she has to have an emergency section? (Touch wood) Or gets a third or fourth degree tear? (touch wood) Is she expected to have recovered from that in six weeks? Let alone how little time she has with her baby. They’ll all be fine, I’m sure, but that’s an awful lot of pressure to squeeze into six weeks.
Here in Ireland maternity leave is 6-12 months (6 minimum, up to 12 if you have lenient bosses/work system that will permit a year off).
I don’t either. If a baby’s crying, it’s for a reason. Sometimes it’s physical and sometimes it’s emotional. If you ignore their emotional cries, my feeling is that it takes away the baby’s sense of safety.
Totally agree. How else can they learn to trust and bond?
Same. I have twins. They never cried it out. We’re all alive. It’s hard but sleep deprivation is not the end of the world.
+1 no cry it out over here. And I don’t know how old her babies are, but that plays in as well. It breaks my heart when people proudly tell me that they have sleep-trained a newborn. I cannot. Here, if you take a community ed/ECFE class as a “mommy and me” or whatever something to do, it requires a parent education component, aka parenting class, where they describe phases, normal experiences vs concerning, ways to address issues, etc. I wish that were mandatory for all new parents.
I don’t believe in cry it out either. I can’t understand doing that to your baby. They sleep when they are ready. I say to my sons, “I will always always come for you,” so why wouldn’t I come for them when they were helpless babies?
I always nursed them to sleep and I always responded and picked them up when they cried at night and they sleep just fine, so all those “experts” who say your child will “never” sleep through the night if you do those things are wrong. Not picking them up felt unnatural to me. Babies are supposed to be cuddled by their mommies. You can always quit nursing them to sleep later if you want to, it’s not a now-or-never deal when they’re three months old.
The growing trend is attachment parenting. More people are breastfeeding, cosleeping, and not spanking.
I didnt do cry it out or any kind of sleep training with my kids because they have all been good sleepers. However I don’t function very well when I’m tortured with sleep deprivation. I think some kids are good sleepers, some kids need more time, and some kids have to be taught.
TOTALLY agree. Not to mention there are studies that straight up say CIO is harmful. (The Dangers of Cry it Out- published in Psychology Today is a great article)
Ditto.
I couldn’t do sleep training. It gutted me. I was shocked at how much it bothered me. She’s 8 now and doesn’t have sleep any sleep issues. I regret nothing.
There are very very gentle sleep training methods that are not cry it out. Examples would be pick up put down method or the sleep lady shuffle.
Cry it out lasted 3 nights for us (of 45-1 hr. solid crying, which was tough), then it was AMAZING. My son was 8 months old when we did it. He just learned (very quickly) that he can go to sleep on his own. Never cried when we put him down ever after that initial 3 nights.
I let my daughter cry it out, she’d be sound asleep in less than 5 minutes so it didn’t seem to be a big deal. She’s 18 now, and has been a terrible sleeper since around 14. She’s up all night and useless during the day. I wonder if there’s any correlation.
I was one of those “no way I’m trying that” moms too. But after 6 months of barely any sleep and my cousin’s advice I gave it a try. It was tough the first night, and maybe the second, but after that he slept through the night and has ever since. So it was totally worth it for both of us. We are both getting the sleep we need.
I don’t either. In Australia, there was a doctor using a controlled crying technique, which is just another form of conditioning. Everyone I knew who tried it, didn’t succeed. I tried to do it, didn’t succeed.
Whenever I read or hear someone say sleep training or anything similar, I just laugh, because it’s unrealistic and BS.
“Halle Berry look-alike”? She wishes.
I laughed at that. “OK girl”
actually, that’s what the nayers call her all the time.
Everytime a woman of color becomes A or even B list in hollywood, some black people will call them the new Halle Berry and they meant it as insult and NOT that they really look alike but that they are the token mixed woc of hollywood who should move away and make room for ‘real black people ™’ . Never mind the fact that afro latinos like Zoe Saldana are more direct descendants of native african people than the average african-american actor or actress (the caribbean was the place most of the slaves went to) but go tell these people that african-AMERICANS aren’t the only black people of the planet. To some, any successful black woman who is not dark skinned like Lupita Nyong’o is automatically mixed/half white like Halle Berry and should go away.
Why would she when she’s so much prettier than Halle?
+1. She is much better looking than Halle.
+1
She’s more natural too. Hadn’t succumbed to nose and boob job yet. She looks amazing without make up.
If you’re gonna Ferberize them (i.e., the sleep training method she’s describing), you really have to commit to it. They put themselves back by going in there and picking the kids up. It sucks to hear your kid cry. But it sucks more to get up two or three times a night when your kid(s) is seven or eight months old (or older).
That said, this method isn’t for everyone.
I hear you. After 11 straight months of sleeping one hour at a time, this Mom to twins who swore up and down to NEVER use sleep training — oh the horror! — read every sleep training version book there is. I wish I only woke up 3 to 4 times a night. I barely remember the first year I was so out of it. The no-cry version — we were too far gone into bad habits for that to even work. We went with a version of Ferber where you check in every few minutes and lengthen the time in between until they fall asleep. By day 3 — I had sleepers. I woke up constantly because I wasn’t used to actually sleeping. My boys are now 7 and I learned a valuable lesson that sleep is important and schedules do matter. My kids still go to bed by 7:30 every night (they get up at 6:15 for school) and now that they are getting a little older 8 on the weekends. My kids love us to pieces and are smart as a whip – too smart for their own good sometimes. People can crap on each other because it isn’t what THEY would do — but do what works for you. My kids did not benefit from having a zombie for a mother.
@CT, Thank you for sharing. With my first we didn’t need to sleep train at all, she is the best sleepers. With my second we did what you are describing, went in at intervals until he fell asleep. I have twins coming end of summer and I am so so scared for the whole sleeping ordeal. I remember being a zombie with my second until we did the sleep training because he was a premie, colicky, the whole nine yards and we didn’t sleep train until he was older. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like with twins. We will try the other methods we tried with my son first to see if they work but if they don’t then I have no problem going the same route.
I agree that this method might now work for every child since every child is so different but having parents that haven’t slept in months can take a toll on the entire family. I don’t think people understand what sleep deprivation can do to a person.
This is what we did. We would go in after a minute and then double it until we got to 15 min intervals. We would go in and tell our daughter that we loved her and everything was ok while rubbing her back. It took hours, but we only had to do it one night. She was about 10 months old and would only sleep on top of me, but she was getting to big for that and we had to do something. I don’t think I was cruel to my child and we’re bonded just fine (Not that you said anything negative, but other comments have).
We have twins too and I did do the sleep training via letting them cry it out. It worked for us. After three months of basically getting no sleep, except for some power naps, it was a necessary evil. I was sleep walking during that period; I would leave the house without my keys, leave the car running after I’d parked it etc. My twins always slept from 9pm to 12am, but after that is was whack-a-mole–one woke up, the other went to sleep and so on and so on. Upon my pediatrician’s recommendation, I let them cry it out. I put them into the crib in their room (the first 3.5 months they were in our bedroom in mini cribs) when they were drowsy and kissed them goodnight. They went right to sleep without much fuss. As expected, they woke up around 1am. They cried for 30-40 minutes and then stopped. I was so dead tired at that point in my life, that I felt bad about the crying, but not bad enough to get up. They did the same thing for three nights in a row–they would wake up around 1 or 2 am, cry for 30 minutes and then would go back to sleep. After that – no more. At 13 months, they sleep now 11 hours a night. Did I do irreparable harm to my kids? who knows! All I know is that I need my sleep in order to function, to crack a smile at my kids, to take them to playground etc.
And as an FYI – I live in NYC, was raised in Germany and my pediatrician who strongly encouraged the cry it out method is French. I guess it’s universal. 🙂
Most young German mothers strongly oppose that method. There has been a huge backlash against it’s most prominent advocate for years.
I could not do cry it out. I don’t think it’s natural or healthy. I don’t care what anyone says.
Babies don’t understand saying I love you, they understand your actions. Like refusing to pick them up and comfort them. Being loved, cuddled and soothed is a NEED for a baby and we should meet our baby’s needs
My daughter is 2 and just now sleeping through the night(well she was before she started getting 8 new teeth at once). It was worth all of the tough nights to never let her cry alone in bed.
My sister in law’s boyfriend said they let his son(with another woman) cry for 5 hours before he went to sleep. Absolutely breaks my heart.
A study measured the level of stress hormone in a baby’s saliva and even after being sleep trained, the baby has just as much. They have not learned not to self soothe, they learned not to express themselves
Exactly. They’re born only knowing one method of comfort, so refusing to help them is absolutely horrendous to me.
Agree. I don’t have kids but I read this book (“Raising Resilient Children” maybe?) when my brother had his son. Prior to that book, I sometimes let my nephew be scared. One instance stands out in my mind: there was a lawn mower and he wanted a cuddle; he was maybe 1 or 2yo. I would just look down at him, no hugs, saying “It’s just a lawn mower” thinking it would toughen him up. However, that book explained children that are hugged and comforted and feel very “safe” go forward to be self-assured adults.
Basically that book suggested it is good to be affectionate with your children.
Another way of looking at this is exactly as you say. Kids can only communicate by crying. They need you for some reason, a hug, so you should maybe do it? It’s interesting to see that for some people the Cry-It-Out-Method works.
There is growing research to support what you are saying. How you react affects the brain development. If you don’t reassure the child, it sets brain development in ways you don’t want. If you do reassure, it gives children confidence. That being said, children are resilient only in the sense that you can undo less supportive choices you may have made with your kids when they were young. It is never too late to start giving them more support and hugs to make up for what they may have missed.
I couldn’t do cry it out. I hugged my kids every time they cried and was a complete softy in that sense. I encouraged self-reliance of course, but never shied away from compassion when they were hurting and they are very confident children now. Not saying I’m a stellar parent but my own experiences confirmed for me that erring on the side of kindness was always a good choice.
If his son was crying for FIVE hours, there must have been something wrong with the kid. Either that, or it was an older kid for whom sleep training would not work anyway. Seriously, who would let a kid cry for five hours??
I took a lot of criticism for refusing to CIO. I co-slept and breastfed, and I got great sleep. I slept when she slept. The biggest obstacle: having to go back to work. I was lucky to be able to take a year off my teaching job with each baby, so I could sleep at any time of the day or night, whether it was for 2 hours or 40 minutes or 8 hours. I still sleep like that, even though my kids are 4 and 6. Naps are the bomb. Kids don’t learn to “self soothe.” They give up the idea that their caretakers will take care of them and they shut down. That’s based on studies I read. Also, there’s some important scientific evidence about cortisol and CIO.
If our government/society prioritized mother and fatherhood and let go of this idea that we “coddle” children or make them “sissies,” and gave parents time off from work to bond with, breastfeed, and nurture babies, our society would be happier.
In my country, we can stay at home for 2-4 years (parents can choose). I remember when I was younger and learned, that in other countries, this period shrunk to couple weeks. I am now a mother of 1 year old and cannot imagine leaving her to nannies/daycare earlier.
For CIO, we tried once and it was horrible. I could not even get through the first night (we did the method when you extend the minutes and then come back to the room). And now, if my daughter wakes at night she blabbers something and then goes to sleep on her own.
However, my sister-in-law tried it with her son when he was 1,5 years after almost no sleep (he went to bed at 12 and woke up at 5 and then was very irritable during the day). She told me she cried with him the first night, but then it got better. After three nights, he started to be able to fall asleep on his own at 9pm and wakes up at 7/8am.
So I guess it depends on the kid, but it definitely might work.
“I admit to never being able to let my baby cry it out. Perhaps out of laziness, I gave in and picked her up.”
Did you really just say that attending to your distressed child was something you did out of (perhaps) laziness?!
You don’t ever need to feel bad or wrong – and most certainly YOU ARE NOT LAZY- for responding with love to your crying child.
Good lord, if cry it out (which i would never do but to each their own) is not for you YOU DO NOT HAVE TO JUSTIFY a gentler approach. Have we really gotten so far off track that Sleep “training” and cry it out are perceived as signs of strength and good parenting while gentler no cry methods are weak and lazy?! WHAT?!
It was a self-deprecating joke. Not a judgment call on any mothers who chose to pick up (or not pick up) their child.
LMAO, right?? I knew at some point, someone would make a STFU parent type post in here and I was not disappointed.
Can you imagine if other mammals subscribed to this practice? None of their young would survive. The crying would attract predators who would eat the young and probably the parents too. The reason it feels unnatural to ignore a crying child is because it IS unnatural to ignore a crying child.
What works depends on the personality of the parents as well as the kids. Those parents who need more structure will find that their successful methods vary from those who prefer a looser approach. Parents need to do what works for them and gives them enough sanity to get through the tough months of sleep training. As long as the kids are being loved and cared for, there’s numerous ways to help kids sleep through the night. No one method works for all families. The good thing is that their bodies do get on a regular schedule of eating and sleeping over time. Some just take longer than others. My mantra with both of my infants was “This too shall pass”. Now, it’s a distant memory. I only remember the good stuff.
+1
+2
+100.. Had three in diapers had one that needed to be left alone to cry a bit. He is secure and awesome. Had one that needed to be held every damn hour. The third I just moved into her room until 6 months………
I didn’t do a lot of CIO but I would sometimes let them fuss a bit as they got older. Never in the newborn stage. Then I would go in and soothe by patting and singing. Ours were in the same crib, swaddled, in our room until 4 months, then as they began breaking free from the swaddle and bothering one another we moved them to their nursery in separate cribs. Champ sleepers, my two, but I know so much of that is sheer luck and not b/c I had anything to do w/ it! I will say I protected their naps and prevented over tiredness as much as I could and that seemed to help.
Some of that good sleeping really is just luck, isn’t it? My children were both terrible sleepers but I had a friend whose had baby would go to sleep at 6 or 7 and sleep 12 hours. They would laugh about it because they knew it had absolutely nothing to do with what they were doing. I’ve known other people who had babies that wouldn’t sleep no matter what they did, schedule or no schedule. So much of it really is personality of the baby, how much they are growing, how experienced and calm the parents are, etc. It’s quite a complex mix of variables I think.
Jennifer Garner had on that same shirt. .It looks more styled on Zoe.
she is so pretty and her hair is gorgeous.
I have boy/girl twins. They are seven years old now. Sleep training in not mean. Sleep is one of the most important things for the children and the parents. Sleep helps cognitive ability. It took one or two nights. How old are her twins? I didn’t sleep train until they were old enough to sleep on there own. It is more about putting them on a schedule. Naps is much harder training….. Surprise parenting is hard! Being a mom is also in my opinion the most important thing I have ever done. My children are still 11-12 hour a night sleepers. Drinking while putting your babies to sleep…..wtf is she talking about? Lady just get a nanny to raise your boys. Denying your children proper sleep to suit your needs and emotions is mean….maybe join a twins club and get advice from mothers who have twins. It’s not the same as having one child and every child is different.
“Lady just get a nanny to raise your boys.”
I’m sorry, but this just irritates me to no end when people equate having help = not raising your own children. Many people, no matter what their socio-economic status, have some sort of help with their children, especially if they have twins. My daughter appreciates having the time to run errands, take a shower, or even just relax a bit when I’m around to help take care of my grandson and can change him, feed him, play with him, read to him or put him to bed. She’s certainly raising him and I’m just helping her out when I can, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. The difference between me and a nanny is, I don’t get paid. 🙂
I can’t do the cry it out either. My daughter is 16 months and is still waking up several times a night but I can’t stand to hear her cry out for me. I believe she’ll so it when she’s ready. She was a late crawler and walker so being late sleeping through the night isn’t surprising to me. I wish she would start doing it but I am not going to traumatise her so I can get more sleep. I just get on with the lack of sleep, knowing that one day she won’t need me during the night so I’m going to soak up all the babyness I can now.
+1 our ped said staying/falling asleep is a milestone like walking or crawling, It can’t be rushed (or I suppose it can, if people do it). My first woke up at least once a night until about 2.5. Now she still occasionally wakes up at 5, but it’s rare and fast, like needing the bathroom. My 2 year old slept easily and doesn’t wake up unless she’s sick. Each child is different. But I never let them cry. My heart couldn’t take it. I quit my job to raise them, so I thought well, for me, this *is* my job, so why would I make them cry without soothing when I have nowhere to rush off to, etc. I know everyone makes the best choice for them- my sister had hers cry it out-, but that was just my choice.
Sleeping training is one of those “to each his own” type of situations. There’s no one magic formula that works for every family. Parents should do whatever works for them or is in their comfort zone.
I was prepared to do cry-it-out because as a single mother I just couldn’t cope with the nightly wake-ups that were still happening at six months. Fortunately, daycare had already prepped my kid for it during nap time so I didn’t have one of those awful week-long CIO sessions.
I hope her kids start sleeping soon. I simply can’t imagine how hard it is to raise twins.
Supposedly according to science (don’t ask me for any statistics) it’s quite damaging mentally for a baby to cry without comfort.
It had something to do with back in the caveman days a baby couldn’t be left to cry because of all the threats it posed so ‘crying it out’ goes against our own wiring. It sounds vague because I can’t remember the details but they really explored this with facts to back it up.
The truth is as long as it’s not an adult movie or plane every parent can make any decision that works for them, I don’t care. If it’s not disturbing others then try your method and hope for the best.
Her twins are only what, 6 months old? That’s kind of on the young side for sleep training.
People assume that after a couple of months your kid is supposed to just magically sleep through the night, but the reality is that on average it takes about a year until they do.
You can sleep train starting at 4 months. Just want to share the other side of the coin. I sleep trained both my children and am so happy with my decision. I feel like I gave them a gift…a gift of being able to fall asleep and sleep soundly through the night. Yes, the two or three days while they are forming the habit is terrible, but you get through it and reap the benefits. My children are happy, securely attached little sweethearts who sleep 11 hours every night plus naps.
That’s great for you and awesome for your family, but that’s definitely a lot younger than the recommended ages for full sleep training. Because again, babies still need to wake up to eat during the night. Now, it’s certainly a great age to do things like start establishing a consistent bedtime and bedtime routine – which is the cornerstone for the popular ‘sleep’ books out there.
+1 and it sounds like she’s BEEN doing it, this is ongoing,
I tried it and my son at less than 7 months old threw himself from his crib in desperation. At that moment I realized how much he needed my comforting and love. Never again did I subject my son to such method, I don’t care what anyone says.
Under a year old I never let mine cry it out. After a year I would wait about 5 minutes, depending on what kind of cry it was and them go and soothe them. I didn’t have twins but my daughter did. They slept in the same room until they were 8. At 11 they still sleep in the same room some nights. They are boy/girl twins. My grandson got mad when they were put in different classrooms.
I don’t understand what Zoe does( my English is not enough good)
After almost 2 months without sleep more than 2 hours ,my husband and me have used the rules of 2 min before to see why she cried ( advice of the doctor) .Miracle ! Our kid started to sleep 5/6 hours by night and she had her owner bedroom.After when she’s ill or did her theeth,it is different .
I don’t judge because you do what you can with your kids
A wise person once told me that if you let your children cry when they’re young, they will make YOU cry when they grow up. I loved that notion b/c I couldn’t for the life of me consider the Cry it Out method. I just couldn’t do it. I ended up doing the Family Bed and I let them self-wean b/c that’s what worked for us. Currently my kids are 13 and 11. Both are sleeping just fine on their own in their own rooms 😉 Also, they’re really great kids.
Zoe Saldana was completely wrong for the role (Nina), but lets not pretend she wasn’t hated by some people in the black community way before that and they blew it out of proportion for a movie they don’t even care about. No one is complaining about David Oyelowo accepting to play (same movie) a homophobic role (fyi he plays a real life gay man who is straight in the movie because of reasons). Zoe’s make up for Nina is blackface, but the same thing done by other black actors is not (e.g., Kerry Washington, Forest Whitaker)
I can’t stand ad hominem arguments.
About her Nina Simone role, I think highly of actors who refuse roles not because they couldn’t play them but because no matter what the casting directors think, they know they can’t do the role justice and that is extended to looks if it’s a biopic. Otherwise, like in her case it just feels self serving, a vanity project. She knew she wasn’t right for it and did it anyway and considering Nina’s personal story and life it feels really offensive imo.
I never sleep trained my twins. It seemed like way more of a hassle than just letting them sleep with us, which is what they naturally wanted when they were babies. They’re now 3.5 and sleep beautifully in their own room (we moved them at age 2). I think it’s just a natural milestone to meet that many parents don’t have the patience to wait for, which is understandable.
I believe it’s a generational thing. I was born in the early 50s and practically everybody let their babies cry it out. Everyone used baby bottles. Practically nobody breastfed. I was one of the babies who cried it out, and although my parents seriously loved me, their generation, in this country at any rate, believed it was the only way. I’m glad times have changed, because I do wonder if it’s unhealthy mentally for the babies down the road, but I don’t know. I never had children, but if I had, I would never have let them cry it out. For one thing, it would break my heart! I agree with another person who commented that the baby should be in your room, within arms length, so you can reach out and touch them when they’re crying. Or yeah, let them sleep in your bed. Baby animals sleep with their moms. That may sound like a silly comment, and I don’t mean we should compare babies to animals, but think about it.
Just my humble opinion, but since I’m without children, what do I know.
Bed sharing is just as controversial as sleep training.
I know, but why? I don’t understand why parents would object to it.
Oh yeah, but I don’t care about controversy or other people’s opinions, just as if I had decided to CIO. I’m a mother of 4, and I am super confident in my choices. We have a huge King sized bed and none of the risk factors (we’re not overweight, we don’t smoke, drink, or do drugs). I do what feels instinctual to me as a mother, which is keeping baby close when he or she needs it. Infancy is such a short time in a child’s life, I enjoy the baby snuggles while I can!
As a new parent, hearing this makes me feel better. We cosleep with our almost-eight-month-old. She was so, so much happier sleeping with us, it just worked better for everyone to do it that way. My mom coslept with me and all three of my siblings (not at once… usually) and as she put it “All of my babies slept in our bed when they were small, and none of them do now.”
The doula we worked with said something really insightful about sleep and sleep solutions, but of course it was at the postpartum visit with her so I can only paraphrase. The gist was that every family finds their own way, and there’s no wrong way as long as everyone is safe and getting enough sleep.
I completely agree with you.
You know, whenever I watch a movie, and there’s a baby in a crib, in a separate bedroom, with the door closed, it totally freaks me out!!! Like I said, I don’t have children, but there is no way on God’s green earth my baby would sleep in a separate bedroom with the door closed, no matter how many baby monitors are in the room.
My twin was unexpected (I was born first and the nurse and doctor argued about whether there was another baby in there!).
When we were brought home, we had only 1 crib because my parents had only prepared for 1 baby. We used to cry and wiggle…but then our arms and hands would touch and we would fall asleep.
Being a twin is a lovely thing. I want all of the mothers of twins on this thread to know that.
Aww…My twins still sleep in the same bed! I figure they’ll grow out of that eventually, too. Perhaps when they’re old enough for a bunk bed.
We had bunk beds at one point! We had tons of fun with that, too!
But truly, the best thing you could ever give them, you already have: their twin. 🙂
Complete believer in sleep-training. I was a nanny and I sleep trained babies all the time. The fact of the matter is, the cruel ‘crying it out’ thing only comes when you’ve been letting it go too long. If you start early, they don’t cry for so long. And you can just go in and let them know you’re there. But if they’re like several months old, like nearly a year, and they’re doing the hard cry immediately and for an hour, it’s just too late. You have a very small window when you can do proper sleep training without being cruel. Crying it out doesn’t equal sleep training, crying it out means you haven’t set up a proper bed time routine. I know parents who didn’t sleep train one iota, and their toddlers developed the immediate ‘hard cry’, as in ‘crying so hard you have to stop it or else they’ll get sick.’ And it seeped from bed time to every single behavior, including bad behavior or being denied something they wanted. Obviously every child is different and there are exceptions, but generally I have found that sleep training is a good foundation that helps other things, like getting up for day care and preschools (some Montessori will take your young toddler) and potty training.
Babies are intelligent and they learn quickly that if they cry hard enough and long enough, you’ll get them. You shouldn’t neglect babies and obviously there are always exceptions, nightmares, sickness, etc., but you shouldn’t have to have your kid in your bed every night or your kid up watching television at 3 am until they go back to sleep. And the sleep training begins with a bed time routine. So many people wait until their baby is rubbing their eyes or seems tired, but that means they should have been in bed like a half hour earlier. It’s generally known that an earlier bedtime with a routine is essential for kids sleeping through the night. If you put them to bed when they’re overtired or too late, they sleep very little and wake up too early.
I did sleep training with second my daughter and it was the best decision for both of us. My first slept through the night or woke up once for a bottle by 6 weeks with no help from me but my second was up 3,4,5,6 times a night until she was 8 1/2 months. So I did “cry it out” because I was on the brink of insanity from nearly 9 months without sleep. I did both nights and naps at the same time, it was hard but now I just put her down and she sleeps on her own with just one wake or none at all. The result is a better rested and less stressed out mom and a way less fussy baby. I don’t regret it at all. I think it depends on your situation, my family needed this.
seems like the babies were not informed they were supposed to be “trained”….
joking aside my little girl screamed for 6 months (she had colic) and i held her every time she cried. she was in pain. now at 7 she’s a well adjusted normal kid. she started sleeping through the night after 1.
Let’s stop with the judgments and words like “horrendous” to describe sleep-training. We did it with our daughter at five months. It took three nights (during which we went in at the intervals and soothed, following the Sleep Easy Solution method) and now she sleeps 11 hours at night with two long naps per day. She’s rested and happy and certainly still very connected to us. This is what worked for us with this particular child at this particular time. Don’t feel shamed if you decide to do the same thing!
I have a 5 month old who has been sleeping through the night since he was about 8 weeks old. I think a lot of it is pure luck, but I also highly recommend the book Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman. I read it while I was pregnant and really loved it. She discusses a milder version of sleep training, where you let the baby cry for a few minutes to see if he self-soothes, and if he doesn’t, then you can go in and feed/change diaper/rock/whatever until he falls asleep. To me, it was common sense. Just give the baby some time, and eventually he will figure out that he is ok and will learn to self-soothe.
Apparently the book was controversial, but I loved it and have already found that her chapters on sleep training worked for me, so I plan on letting it shape how I raise my son.
Isn’t the general consensus from professionals that crying it out is bad for a child? Especially ones that age? A child needs to feel secure and know that their caregiver will be there for them. It creates a calming sense of attachment. These poor young BABIES. Babies cry for a reason, not because they are needy. Creating a secure sense of attachment and trust with your child is far more important than the parents sleep or lack thereof. Let’s be real. That is the main concern of a parent that let’s their baby cry it out. They are concerned with their own sleep and not necessarily their child. If a baby is tired, it will sleep. Don’t even try to say you are concerned that your baby isn’t getting enough sleep. That is a ridiculous concept. I am a parent and do not agree with this sleep training at all.
Babies cry for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they are over-stimulated and, yes, tired and still won’t fall asleep. This is your opinion and you’re entitled to it; but you are not entitled to judge other parents for choosing something different.
Yeah, the first half was fine, but took a sharp turn into judgement town.
I would say, no, it is not the general consensus of “professionals” that CIO is bad for a child. It also depends on what “professionals” you are talking about.
Babies do not just fall asleep when they are tired. In fact, as someone mentioned earlier, the more overtired a baby is, the less likely they are to fall asleep, sleep well, and sleep for a sufficient amount of time.
People have to do what makes sense for their family. Sleep- deprived parents in a society favoring nuclear rather than extended families in a house is also a problem, although these folks can afford household help. However, we need to remember that humans, like other mammals, traditionally have always kept babies close to the parent and other siblings rather than expecting a baby to sleep isolated in a separate room. So it’s very artificial to do that separation and especially to train babies to not expect someone to come when they cry (there’s a reason for that piercing cry, Mother Nature ain’t stupid) . Many kids may still do fine, but some kids are less resilient and may indeed have long-term problems which you may not even know about. My mother followed some really stupid advice with me when I was older and just caused a long-term sleep disorder (she never realized it, I figured it out as an adult).
You have to be very in tune with your kid. Not crying doesn’t necessarily mean they’re okay. Abused and neglected babies often don’t cry because it’s pointless (or dangerous). So your kid might have just given up and lost some trust in you along the way. Just pay attention.
My daughter is 4 months old and I’ve never left her to “cry it out”. I’ve read about the levels of cortisol a baby’s body generates when stressed, and how it can impact brain development and the issues it can create later in life. Currently I’m working on teaching her to go to sleep in her bed (a bassinette next to our bed) rather than to fall asleep on me, but that’s about as much training as I think a tiny wee baby can learn at this age.
If she’s crying in her bed, there must be a reason: hunger, pain, fear or something else, and it’s my job as her mum to address those needs. Sometimes all she needs is one more cuddle, and I’m fine with that.
She’s been sleeping 7-9 hours a night since she was 8 weeks old, so I know we’ve been lucky with that.
Babies. ..whatevs. I’m laughing that she called herself a “Halle Berry lookalike.” Umm…NO.
As someone who’s never had any desire to be a parent, these kind of conversations just reinforce it. If you’re not beating your kid, you provide love and the obvious necessities like food and shelter, the you’re doing it right. It seems like parenting has now become a competitive sport with every parent assuming what’s right for them and their families is the right way and everyone else is a terrible parent. Doesn’t the job come with enough guilt as it is without all this crap? Some say a kid left to cry will end up neurotic because of a lack of comfort others say a kid will end up neurotic because they never learned to self sooth. Life is far more complex than what you experience in the years you will never remember experiencing. Why do so many parents insist on analysing things they will never have a definitive answer to anyway?
The first year of a baby’s life is about bonding and nurturing, not about ‘training’ and traumatising the baby so you can get a few hours sleep. When they’re older [over one year old] and understand/perceive a routine, then yes. But not from newborn until age one.
If parents stick to a routine, babies do end up following the routine. there is no need to rush, but it seems that it’s all about rushing these days, like those toilet training zealots who need to say ‘I trained my child before he/she was two’ or whatever else.
At the end of it all you have to ask yourself what you’re setting out to achieve [trauma for your child/your own benefit] and whether forcing your baby to sleep, through immense crying bouts, is worth it when they would have settled to a routine within a year without ‘training’ or controlled crying techniques.
Ugh the sanctimommies always come out to play on these sorts of threads. Live and let live, what works for your family might not work for another and that’s ok.