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Sleep training your kids in Brooklyn

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Double Down, Oct 7, 2016.

  1. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    This essay is insane.

    Look, I know parenting is a difficult series of choices. I know how to sleep train your kids is awful and painful. I know there are parents of kids with autism who would give anything for a full night's sleep and can't get one because no method of any kind will work, and they deserve all the sympathy.

    This mom's choice strikes me as everything wrong with modern parenting. Your kids have to learn to self cope. You cannot rescue them from every misery. Sometimes you have to say "Deal with this on your own." Teach them they can always always always get some version of their way and they will suffer for it well into adulthood. Ugh.

    The location, Brooklyn, has almost nothing to do with anything other than the author mentions it as part of the problem, which of course is exactly why the Times culture desk ate it up.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/w...id=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone
     
  2. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    Yet you vote Democrat. :)
     
    Double Down likes this.
  3. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    This chilled me more and more the more I read it, as I remember that our 4-year-old crawls into bed with us most nights. I'm focusing on the fact that he GOES to sleep in his bed.
     
  4. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    I both want to hug that woman and tell her to shut the fuck up and stop whining. I can sympathize. I've been there. I'm still there. But, alluding to the original post, giving in is a solution that may ultimately be worse than the problem.
     
  5. swingline

    swingline Well-Known Member

    Good lord. This woman's failure to set sharp boundaries is unfathomable.

    We had the crib in our room for about six months with each of our newborn girls, but after that they were in their own room all night, no exceptions, and that goes for our youngest, who is on the autism spectrum. No sleeping in our bed, no sleeping on the floor in our bedroom -- nothing. I'm very thankful that my wife and I are of similar minds about child rearing, and I can't come close to understanding the woman in the story.

    This helicopter coddling really seems like a fairly recent -- say, the last 15 years or so -- devolution in parenting. I'm sure there has been some version of it in past generations, but this and many other forms seem much more pervasive today.

    Or maybe it's just The New York Times.
     
  6. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    From scientific study repeated four times, I can tell you that if you just ignore the problem, they eventually get to be 6 or 7 and don't even want to sleep in your bed anymore. :)
     
  7. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    My take is that it has little to do with the parents' concern for the children and everything to do with the parents' desire to signal to the world their concern for the children.
     
    Alma, Riptide, Buck and 2 others like this.
  8. swingline

    swingline Well-Known Member

    DQ, of course. It's parenting to make themselves feel better because it sure as shit doesn't benefit the child.
     
  9. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

  10. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    I say this with tongue firmly in cheek, but I couldn't stand this person after reading that column
     
  11. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    I sort of wonder if The Times printed this because they thought it would evoke sympathy for the writer, or as sort of a self-trolling
     
  12. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    I was struck by her mention of Ambien. If you're taking sleeping pills, you're not THAT worried. I've spent literally every night on the couch in our house since we moved in last March because you can't hear the kids from the upstairs bedroom. I never even thought to take sleeping pills.

    Related, we've been to plenty of doctors and they ALL recommended some type of sleeping aid for our son's sleep problems. At first, we were hesitant because, well, the thought of giving daily/nightly pills to a 4-year-old seemed insane (kinda like locking the door), but he was more of a mess at school than I was at work from lack of sleep. I still haven't gone more than a handful of nights since last spring without my son getting up at night -- anywhere from 10:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. with him being awake anywhere from an hour to all night once he does get up -- but it seems like we've struck on the right mix/dosage of meds lately and his sleep patterns have become more consistent. The all-nighters are becoming rare, and his initial sleep time tends to last longer.

    I find it odd that there was no mention in the article of sleeping aids.

    Last night was fairly typical (as of late anyway). He fell asleep around 7:30. He woke up about 2. He asked for -- and received -- a juice box and some milk. I closed the door to his room, LOCKED the door* and didn't hear from him until he woke up for good at 6:20.

    *If the door wasn't locked, he would have the run of the house and wake EVERYONE UP. But the bigger issue is that he would at some point walk out of the house. Can't take my Ambien and allow him to roam the neighborhood.
     
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