Apr. 23rd, 2008 10:24 pm
Ferberization Grade: F
According to Ferber, the trouble with letting a child who fears sleeping alone into your bed is that "you are not really solving the problem. There must be a reason why he is so fearful." Yes, there must. Here's one candidate. Maybe your child's brain was designed by natural selection over millions of years during which mothers slept with their babies. Maybe back then if babies found themselves completely alone at night it often meant something horrific had happened--the mother had been eaten by a beast, say. Maybe the young brain is designed to respond to this situation by screaming frantically so that any relatives within earshot will discover the child. Maybe, in short, the reason that kids left alone sound terrified is that kids left alone naturally get terrified. Just a theory.
We tried. We decided the hell with it.
See, Tegan cried tonight (not our first night) for over an hour. When we went in for the last time, we (I say "we," but it was Elli's turn) discovered that our poor daughter had cried so hard she threw up. She was also terrified so badly that when Elli put her down to change her pajamas, Tegan wailed in fright.
No, Ferberites.* We give up. It is NOT ok for my daughter to cry that much, that hard. No. Torturing her into sleeping in her own crib is not my idea of a Good Thing. Disagree all you want, but kindly keep it to yourselves. Our daughter will be fine, and so will we.
*(Not sure there ARE any Ferberites on my F-list, but just in case..)