by Kim Sharpe

Created on: January 19, 2008

I know that a LOT of people advocate letting their baby cry itself to sleep. They feel this makes the baby self sooth or some such nonsense. I think its horrible. I did not let my nineteen month old daughter EVER cry herself to sleep and I don't intend to let my upcoming newborn cry himself to sleep either. Think about it, here is this innocent little life that depends solely upon you to take care of its every need but it cries and NO ONE answers. How terrifying that must be. You cry and you cry until finally you are exhausted but the one person in the world that you have spent the last forty weeks inside of is gone. No one is there for you. You are out there in this cold dark world crying and pleading but no one answers. Pretty soon the poor child does stop crying itself to sleep every night because what is the use of crying when no one answers, no one cares. I think that is the first step towards our children losing trust in us. How can they trust us if we are untrustworthy and we cannot even answer their cries? It just seems so cruel and insensitive.

Nowadays more and more child experts are telling us to not do this to our babies. When our babies cry pick them up. You can never hold a baby too much or love a baby too much. Go to Dr Sears website and read some of the wonderful information that he offers on this subject and a wide range of other topics. Its a great website that contains a wealth of information provided by various experts.

Anyway, I just cannot do that to any baby. They depend on us for everything and I could never let them down by not answering every cry they utter. We need to be there for our babies and help them when they need us. The only form of communication that they have is to cry for us. So when that first cry springs forth we need to be there. We need to give them the love and care that they need to grow into confident trusting people.

Learn more about this author, Kim Sharpe.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.