Somebody needs to take the internet away from these Dr. Sears people. They’re a scourge. If I read one more person tell me that I’m doing serious damage to my son unless I go comfort him each of 4-5 times he wakes up during the night, I might start tracking these people down. One of these self-righteous assholes actually wrote “it may seem hard now, but all the parents I know who let they’re kid cry it out regretted it later. In the grand scheme of things, this phase will pass and the bond between you and your child will be stronger than ever.” Right. And in the grand scheme of things he’ll hate me because I’ll resent him during all of the daylight hours for making me too weary to do anything else that I actually like to do let alone the stuff at work that has to get done. You know what else I’ll regret? If I suck so much at my job because I’m exhausted that I lose it and we can’t sell the house in a recession or afford to pay the mortgage with no income. I’ll regret that, too.
At the very least, there should be some sort of test you have to pass before you’re allowed to write stuff about parenting on a discussion board. Like this, a simple, one question screen: Do you have a job that your family relies upon for income? If you answer “yes” to this question, then feel free to give me all the advice that you want. If you answer “no” to this question, then SHUT UP. You live in a fantasy land where it rains gumdrops. Of COURSE you think it’s perfectly reasonable to never sleep for more than 3 hours at a time. The rest of the world is just trying to figure out how to problem-solve this issue and come up with a workable solution. We’re not interested in having a moral debate about these things. We’re perfectly capable of deciding those things for ourselves.
