Should I do what the doctor recommended?

Question

I’ve had two doctors now tell me to just have my 14 week old cry themselves to sleep. Like not to even check up on them, to just put him in his bed and let him cry until he falls asleep. Should I do that? I don’t quite know how I feel about it. He currently sleeps with me but I really want to get him to sleep on his own. Have there been any methods that worked better for you (and had less crying)?

Answer

Get a new doctor.
Babies this young cannot be "spoiled." They need the reassurance that if they cry you'll be there for them. It builds their trust for you.

Answer

Definitely not. Babies shouldn’t cry it out until 6 mo, and even then its controversial. Babies need to feel secure and leaving them to cry isn’t doing that. There are no cry sleep training methods that are just as effective.

Answer

Absolutely not. A baby that young is incapable of self soothing and for a doctor to suggest you to let them cry themselves to sleep is very disturbing. Little babies wake constantly because they need to. They will sleep longer stretches when they are developmentally ready to do so and not before.

Answer

I've tried. when my son was that old he simply cried. for 2 hours, till I could no longer leave him! only at 6 months was he able to cry himself to sleep. if you are not comfortable don't do it.

Answer

I wouldnt let him cry it out. And I’d find a new ped as well.
Our ped told us to start working on self soothing around 10 weeks, but to never let baby cry for longer that 1-2 minutes. At this point our little guy was already sleeping through the night, but we were having a hard time with the initial put down. She told us to put him down drowsy, and whenever he would start crying or fidgeting to just give him a minute. After 3-4 days of this he started putting himself to sleep within 2 minutes of being put down “drowsy”. If/when he’d get a little upset, we’d put our hand on his tummy to calm him down and it would work!

Answer

In what context did the doctors recommend this? I doubt they were saying that you should go full Ferber method at 3 months old. Maybe they were saying that if you’ve fed, burped, bounced, rocked, and tried everything under the sun and they can reassure you that there is nothing medically wrong with your baby - that there is nothing wrong with leaving the baby to sleep in their own room and allow for a few minutes of crying. That’s not to say you should try a full CIO solution yet, but maybe they were just saying your baby has hit a healthy weight and may not need to wake overnight as often anymore (in the 80s they used to tell parents once a baby hit 12 pounds, they didn’t need to feed overnight and it would be ok to transition them). I don’t know what the two doctors were saying, I wasn’t there, but I just doubt they meant “leave them to cry all night long”. Context is everything.

Answer

Imo that's to young to try. And some babies just cant/won't cry it out. My girl is almost a year and still won't, she's cried for a hour no matter how we tried it and got so worked up she was almost hyperventilating and she started sitting up at 4.5 months and standing at 5.5 so it's impossible to just leave her alone awake cuz she tries to escape and could hurt herself. We still have to hold or cuddle til she gets to sleep and then we put her in her bed. it's gotten better as she gets older but it's definitely tiring some days 🙂

Answer

that's just wrong..

Answer

Find a new doctor. I’d never let a child of any age cry themselves to sleep and 14 weeks is still far too young to even think about trying that method anyways. 
If you want him to sleep on his own then you need a lot of consistency. Put him in his own bed 100% of the time and stuck with it. Set a good bedtime routine too if you don’t already have one. Our daughter has slept in her own bed every night since birth and has been sleeping through the night since she was 5 weeks old. There were zero tears in the process.

Answer

I read that babies under 2 months aren’t usually psychologically mature enough to grasp the concept of self-soothing yet. Around 4 months is when you could safely try “cry it out.”

Should I do what the doctor recommended?

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