Should You Let Your Child Cry It Out?

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Cry-it-out is not damaging, when done right. Babies can only communicate by crying when they are newborns and should be tended to quickly to develop trust in their primary caregivers. As they grow, they start to coo and smile and parents begin to get to know their baby’s personality and baby learns to communicate more things (such as displeasure when you take a toy away). Newborns have a limited ability to self-soothe themselves to sleep, but as they get older, a baby can learn to find a way to sleep without as much parent involvement. This age will vary from baby to baby and while some will be able to do it from very early on, others will take months.

At some point what a baby once needed from a parent to help him sleep will become what he wants or expects. This is not something a baby plans, but he begins to associate a certain environment with sleep such as a pacifier in his mouth or the movement from rocking in a parent’s arms. He learns to fall asleep this way and while other babies will proceed to sleep all night after that, other babies will need this environment recreated between every sleep cycle, every 1-2 hours. It is not the baby’s fault for expecting this and it’s not the loving parent’s fault for providing a very soothing environment in the baby’s early days. However, it would be unhealthy to continue recreating this environment all night long, numerous times per night, every single night.

Changing habits and routines is not always easy, especially for babies who are very routine-oriented. Children thrive on routines, but that’s not to say that routines can’t be changed. Of course, babies will not always be happy with these changes and may cry in protest, but it is a parent’s responsibility to sometimes make decisions that babies will not like, but are important for their well-being. If a baby is fed, dry, and healthy, but expects you to do whatever it is that you normally do for him to make him fall asleep and you decide to stop doing it, he will likely be upset. Similar to how a baby might cry being buckled in a car seat or when he is taken away from an outlet, it is a parent’s duty to provide a healthy environment for a child.

Cry-it-out is defined differently to everyone and depending on that definition, it can be damaging. If you let your 2 week newborn cry through the night, without so much as a check, I can see how some would say that would damage a baby (particularly since they need to eat at least every 2-3 hours). Take a 6, 8, or 10 month old who wakes every 2 hours for a pacifier is quite another matter and while she will initially be upset without a pacifier at night, she will gain confidence and the knowledge how she can fall asleep without it. It takes practice, but we can all learn to sleep in a new way, when given an opportunity. Our relationships with our babies are complex and it won’t be any one thing that changes that. Parents know their own situation best and know when other methods have failed. These are the situations that cry-it-out may be warranted and a viable solution.