Is CIO the first step we take towards passing on intergenerational trauma

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Something that really astounded me during pregnancy and early parenting were the conversations I encountered around sleep training. Although I saw this on all paltforms, what stunned me most were the interactions I saw in mental health spaces; specifically groups that existed to provide support for pregnant people and new parents who suffered with mental illnesses. I read so many posts speaking about cry-it-out (CIO) and so many comments in favour. After all, it is a saving grace, isn't it? More often than not, when somebody did provide evidence against the practice, they were met with an onslaught of angry responses. I think this is a pretty natural, though perhaps unhealed, response; nobody wants to think they could have hurt their child or wants to experience any more mum-guilt than they already do, and nobody likes to feel attacked and shamed. What struck me is that many of these parents either stated explicitly or (I think it fair to assume) wanted to raise children with better mental health than they themselves had. Sleep training though was put in a separate box and justified with the fact that an infant just won't remember it; so why would it matter? When we consider our own upbringing we can recall some of the ways in which our parents continued cycles and we can vow to never do the same however, when it comes to breaking the cycles of intergenerational trauma, we also need to take into account some things we may not recall. If we rely solely on explicit memory to guide us, we risk making decisions that set the foundations towards what we fear most- raising children who have to heal from their childhoods; just as we did. To avoid this we first have to acknowledge the two forms of memory: explicit and implicit.

Explicit memory, as mentioned above relates to memories that we can actually recall. The times you can remember feeling betrayed and abused or neglected, or loved and appreciated and held. These are important but not the only experiences that matter. Implicit memory describes what we cannot recall. The forms of abuse, neglect and hurt (or perhaps the unconditional love and connection) that we can't recollect the events of but also shape us nonetheless. Implicit memory in this case refers to those first months or years of life that you have no solid memory of but that your body remembers; the fabric of your brain remembers. In extreme cases of abuse this can be an infant being starved for days on end, or being left with an unchanged dirty nappy for extensive hours in a freezing corner of a room. It can also be being left with other unmet needs, like comfort when you're crying. As humans are carry mammals and closeness to a caregiver is a biological necessity, being left alone to cry amounts to an unmet need. A genuine, undebatable need being ignored.

As (thankfully) most parents do not starve their children for days on end or leave them dirty and freezing, they are not starting to continue cycles in this way. However it is unfortunately common, practiced and even advised to leave a baby to cry. A baby. To cry alone under the guise of 'sleep training'. I will definitely go into why this does not work at another time but for now let's acknowledge what that does to an infant and their devloping brain.

Crying infants experience an increase in heart rate, body temperature and blood pressure... There is compelling evidence that increased levels of stress hormones may cause permanent changes in the stress responses of the infant's developing brain. These changes then affect memory, attention, and emotion, and can trigger an elevated response to stress throughout life, including a predisposition to later anxiety and depressive disorders.¹

Researchers have shown that although leaving a baby to cry it out does often lead to the cries eventually stopping, the cries do not stop because the child is content or the problem has been alleviated. Rather, they stop because the baby has given up hope that a caregiver will respond and provide comfort. This results in a detached baby. Detached children are less responsive, appear to be depressed or "not there" and often lack empathy.² The right side of the brain is the first to develop in the womb. It's there to sustain the nonverbal communication between a birthing parent and their infant/s. The right side effects the brain is emotional and visual ²

To give some further explanation of brain development in infants, the right side of the brain is the first to develop in the womb as stated above. This stores memories of touch, sound, sights etc and the emotions they invoke. It sustains the nonverbal communication and bond between the birthing parent and infant/s. The left side is considered rational and analytical. It allows us to understand things better and make sense of our experiences. As the left side of an infants brain has yet to come online they are reliant on the right side. The practice of attachment parenting (which is really just biologically normal parenting) is so much more than just a hippy, crunchy technique; it's both parent and child centred and extremely important.

An argument I often hear in defence of CIO is that children are resilient and they're brains are constantly developing. Though this is technically true, there is context we ignore. Resilience is not nurtured by mistreatment and refusal to acknowledge or grow from inflicting that, it is nurtured by creating a safe space. It is also nurtured by change when we make mistakes. Children who are constantly mistreated and left with unmet needs do not grow to be truly resilient adults as I'm sure many of us are all too aware. However, with attentive and consistent parenting it has been shown that they can go through painful, even what should be highly traumatic experiences and not always suffer (or suffer to the same extent) into adulthood. What we can take from our understanding of infant brain development is that we can move forward when we acknowledge our mistakes. Of course it is better (and important) to honor the need for comfort in the first place but as many parents are pressured into the opposite, you can find peace in knowing that it is still possible to create a healthy attachment. The brain of an infant is malleable and under the age of 5 can be reshaped, which means that the more time you dedicate to attachment and responsive parenting, those neural pathways stregthen. It's also worthy of note that the negatives, when not experienced often, are more easily forgotten by an infant brain; although CIO may be the first step to continuing these cycles that doesn't mean it has to be. Connections in an infant brain create circuits and they are reinforced by repeated use. A baby's environment and their experiences determine which neural pathways get more use and the ones that are used more grow stronger and gain permanence, whereas those that are used less frequently fade away during a process called pruning ³. What this ultimately means is that mistakes made during the early stages of parenting do not have to set in stone the foundations of your child's mental health. You can shower your child in love and affection, practice responsive and attachment parenting and replace negative experiences with positive ones. We can all feel guilt, sometimes even debilitating guilt for some of the choices we have made during parenting (even if others think we're overreacting and believe they're minimal), what truly matters is how we move forward.

Parents with poor mental health, especially single parents and those from working class backgrounds, are particularly susceptible to pressures from 'the sleep industry'. It's why it's so easy for Ferberizing or controlled crying to be that first step in continuing these cycles. Much of the other stuff you may be working through- controlling a sharp tone of voice when exasperated, lack of energy to play or even what you might consider complete 'laziness'- doesn't really mean too much to a younger baby. You can work towards being calmer and they don't need nearly as much as western culture tries to make you believe they do. Colourful toys and a giddy parent is far lower on their list of priorities compared to comfort and attachment. Babies need closeness. And when that is withheld it causes a great amount of distress to an infants developing brain. Although many will continue to argue that a few nights crying themselves to sleep won't do a baby any damage, CIO isn't a quick fix and often has to be repeated further down the line anyway. However even if a baby does only go through it once, a few nights may seem minimal to us but for a baby, who's solely reliant and trusting of you, it is a lot deeper.

The whole point of this post is to talk about how CIO passes on intergenerational trauma but I will take this opportunity to make my stance clearer. Even if CIO had no long term affects I would still stand against its practice. Morality is not measured by whether or not a person will recall their abuse and/or neglect in 10, 20 years time or even whether or not they'll be affected by it at all. A baby (or I suppose any person for that matter) should not be left alone to cry whilst their caregiver intentionally denies them affection. The terms themselves make my stomach churn. 'Controlled crying' or, arguably far more disconcerting 'controlled comfort' are not terms I'd ever want to hear especially not within parenting- as if connection with our children is something to be rationed.

I believe one of the first and most important steps towards breaking these cycles is to empathise. If something would hurt you, if something would upset you deeply, make you feel lonely and isolated then it's probably something you shouldn't inflict onto another innocent person; let alone a baby who doesn't have the life experience to just say 'it is what it is'. They don't understand why they're being left and they won't figure it out even if you sit there and explain your reasoning. Your baby deserves your presence and support.

Let's move away from the idea that we have to choose between comforting our children and salvaging our own mental health. Your child's wellbeing should not have to suffer so that you can keep your head above water and our society needs to stop presenting that as the only option to desperate parents who feel like they're at the very edge. This isn't meant as an attack on parents who have 'sleep trained'. Although I stand firmly against the practice itself, parenting under the pressures and expectations of a culture focussed solely on the reproduction element of parenting rather than the raising of actual human beings, is difficult; beyond difficult. It is therefore very easy to fall into routines that claim to cause ease when really, the only reason they do so is because we suffer the consequences of problems they created in the first place. The sleep industry creates the problem and then offers us a solution. There is nothing wrong with your crying baby. Crying is a normal and healthy form of communication for them and wanting attachment is an instinct not a burden or a habit they need to unlearn.

Our culture is reliant on forced detachment because western individualism has constructed a lifestyle that cannot accomodate healthy connection. We have jobs to work and an endless amount of hours just to keep ourselves afloat. We dont have the village it takes to raise a child because nobody has time to offer us the help we need to meet all the expectations on our shoulders. Nobody has the time to come and help us with housework, to comfort baby as we sleep, to cook us meals and let us have some space. We become desperate for alone time, a full night of rest and so begins another generation ready to go through the exact same process that helped fail our generation and the one before us. CIO is the surface of a far-too-well established societal failure. The fact that we believe it is appropriate, normal and even necessary to leave our babies to cry themselves to sleep proves how disconnected our society really is. It is that mindset, and the belief that our connection with our infants must suffer in order for us to maintain our own wellbeing, that really guides intergenerational trauma through to our children.

Go to your baby when they cry. Allow yourself to build the rod for your own back and know that you are entitled to that bond with your baby, they are entitled to that bond with you and you are still entitled to complain that you're tired, ask for help and have a break when you need it. Your parenting journey isn't supposed to be endless days spent waiting and wishing for bedtime just so you can feel like yourself for one minute, and infancy isn't supposed to be traumatic and distressing just because real support and information isn't accessible to parents.

I will be resourcing alternative, gentle methods to help parent and baby get more rest. This post will be coming soon for those who are interested. Please click the link below to subscribe to keep updated 😊

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¹ The Con Of Controlled Crying, Pinky McKay

² Cry It Out (CIO): 10 Reasons Why It Is Not For Us, PHD in Parenting

³ Experiences build brain architecture: Centre on the Developing child, Harvard University