So... late as usual, I'm going to use my own space to comment on Dooce's comments section, which is now closed.
Referring to this entry, and the comments thereafter, here's my .02 cents:
Appalled says: (way down near the bottom, where people got nuts and freaked the fuck out)
If you were upset and could not speak to communicate your needs, and you were crying in the middle of the night, how would you feel if your spouse walked by your room and ignored your cries? You would continue to cry until you came to the realization that the person who means more to you than anyone else in the world was not going to help you. Then you would stop crying. You would stop crying not because your needs have changed or gone away; no, you stop crying because you feel defeated. It is no different for your child.
Deb says:
What the fuck kind of nonsense are you spewing? First off, infants lack the congitive reasoning skills to be offended and despair over such an incident. It's that simple. Second, to read your comments is to believe that Heather and Jon left Leta alone in the house crying while they went to dinner and a movie, or that they just ignored her and put earplugs in so they could sleep. Anyone fool enough to beleive either of those things shouldn't be allowed to be a parent themselves. Third, to think that teaching your child to sleep through the night is in any way detrimental to their long-term mental health is to be the kind of crazy that nets you a child who grows up to stab you to death during your sleep. Not because you left them crying in their crib when they were an infant, which I'm sure you'd argue a futile case for, but really because you're the kind of parent who indulges every whim of your child, thinking that you'll be endeared to them for eternity because of your loving ways.
Here's the deal: Children of all ages need routine and structure. Parents who grasp that concept and begin applying it early are more successful in the long run.
Heather and Jon never left the house, never stopped being upset by the hard reality of their choice, and I applaud them while standing up. The first time I tried this technique with my oldest daugher, I lasted exactly 15 minutes. I couldn't handle it. Fortunately, we tried again, and were successful. I now have a nearly 10 year old daughter who sleeps over 9 hours each night, and sometimes more, as well as a 7 year old who does the same.
Parenting is a hard job, one that I don't do very well sometimes. Fortunately, I am fully capable of learning from my mistakes, and rarely make the same ones twice. It is my strong belief that letting my children cry it out when they were infants was not, in fact, a mistake of any kind. They are both well-adjusted and happy, and neither one of them has ever asked me why I abandoned them in their 6-month-old hour of need. I've also never caught either of them drooling at my bedside with a cleaver, contemplating just how many whacks to the head it would take to remove me, the infant neglecting abuser, from their miserable lives.
