ParentingDEC 16, 2020

Woman Shares A Letter She Got From Her Neighbors With A Baby And It Goes Viral

Austėja Akavickaitė and Liucija Adomaite

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Few things cause more stress for both parents and the neighbors (and the baby) than the baby who just won’t sleep. No wonder there are so many sleep training methods, like bedtime fading or graduated extinction that have been a subject of debate among scientists and parents.

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But one out of every five or six parents find themselves utterly drained after numerous sleepless nights where their baby wakes up every night multiple times. At this point, many look for any solutions that could put an end to the insomniac nightmare. This is what happened to the authors of a viral letter that has been circulating on social media.

It was first posted by Twitter user @KittyBeeJr: “neighbors left this on the door... I’m gonna bake them some cookies,” two days ago. The letter was written by the “tired and sorry” Wards family who warned everyone they would be trying out the somewhat controversial Cry-It-Out method to get their baby to sleep. The parents also said they will do what it takes to mend the neighbor-ship if the crying-out baby gets on everyone’s nerves too much.

Read the viral letter that amassed 1 million likes and 78.4K retweets down below, but beware that any sleep training methods should only be implemented on your kid after first consulting with specialists.

This Twitter user shared a letter she received from "tired and sorry" parents and it went viral, amassing 1 million likes

Image credits: KittyBeeJr

Bored Panda reached out to the Twitter user @KittyBeeJr who shared the viral letter from her neighbors on Twitter. “I thought it was the cutest, most considerate thing. You see stuff like this on the internet so I was surprised it actually happened to me,” she said. And added that “the tequila peace offering made my day.”

@KittyBeeJr also said that she never expected the letter to go viral. “I posted the tweet, went on about my business, and came back to 1 million likes. With so much going on in the world, people were expecting something negative,” the neighbor said and added that the letter was the complete opposite. “It was very heartwarming,” she commented.

This is the full text of the neighbors' now-famous letter

Turns out, the parents of the baby are doing great and @KittyBeeJr assured us that they “really enjoyed the cookies” she baked them.

And for those who’re wondering how the sleep training is going, from what @KittyBeeJr said, it seems like the neighbors are all doing fine so far. “I have my AirPods in and Kitchen Aid going most of the time so I never hear the baby crying,” she said.

The Twitter user even made some nice gifts to help the neighbors get through their dreadful baby sleep training

Image credits: KittyBeeJr

The term “sleep training” is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of approaches that are aimed at helping babies to learn to fall asleep on their own. But many of these methods, especially the cry-it-out one, which refers to leaving the baby on their own while they’re crying themselves to sleep for the intervals, have been looked at with great controversy.

Jodi Mindell, a psychologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the author of “Sleeping Through The Night,” believes that many sleep training methods carry a bad rap because they’re “equated with this moniker called 'cry it out.’"

"You put your baby into their crib or their room, you close the door, and you don't come back till the next day," Mindell says. "But that's not the reality of what we recommend or what parents typically do."

She also said she'd go for the tequila offer but turns out, she's a whiskey type of person

Image credits: KittyBeeJr

But according to Mindell, there’s no strict formula that works for all parents (or babies) when it comes to checking up on your child. Instead of looking for a strict formula—such as checking every five minutes—parents should focus on finding what Mindell calls "the magic moment"—that is, the moment when the child can fall asleep independently without the parent in the room.

For some babies and their parents, it may include frequent checks, but for others, less soothing may be much more efficient. Finding out what works for your baby’s temperament, for yourself, and then sticking to the balanced and adequate way of putting your baby to sleep is key for a family to finally feel well-rested.