A common suggestion when babies are sleepless is to let them cry it out, also known as CIO.  I cringe when I see those words.  I believe that babies are meant to be with their mamas for the first nine months of their lives – you can read more about why I believe that

• They have new sight...your child has never seen before without the filter from skin, muscle, fat and amniotic fluid.  They are truly experiencing the bright, white light for the first time.  All the sights they see are accosting their newborn, blurry vision.
• They are hearing for the first time without the muting from skin, muscle, fat and amniotic fluid.  All the sounds they are hearing are bombarding their sensitive ears.
• They smell and taste everything for the first time.  Literally, everything, for they have never smelled nor tasted anything except the amniotic solution they were floating in for their gestational period.
• They are feeling everything for the first time.  They were protected from direct impact by mama’s wonderful protective design of skin, muscle, fat, uterine walls and amniotic fluid.  Their skin, covered with sensory receptors is electrified every time they are touched.
  

1. Being a parent is not about you.  It is about the child.  Whether the child was planned or not, you brought the child into the world.  They are here now and plainly crying for your attention. I look at the current culture of parenting and wondering if the selfishness some people see and complain about in today’s youth might start in the early years when we expect them to fend for themselves instead of giving them the very best of us as parents, no matter what time of day or night they cry for help.

2. In addition, (again, assuming that a couple is raising the family), nighttime waking is not the exclusive territory of one parent over the other.  It is okay to wake your partner up so you can sleep.  Because our family's choice is to hold and interact with our children, even when they wake in the middle of the night, at one point, we had to figure out how to sleep in shifts.  This, too, passed, and for the most part, we all have the same bedtime *for now*! (Thanks to L.B. for that great phrase)