Should You Let Your Child Cry It Out?

The majority of parents who resort to letting their babies and young children cry-it-out do so because they believe that it is the only way they will get their babies to sleep through the night. 

It’s a disturbing myth that you have two choices when it com es to changing your child’s sleep problems: the slow, gentle method, or the quick-fix solution of putting a child to bed and letting him cry to sleep. The truth is that in some cases, either method can bring quick results. However, in most cases, both approaches – cry or no-cry – take weeks or even months of time before a child is going to sleep easily and sleeping all night. This is because sleep maturity happens slowly and is on a unique schedule for every child. Children do not sleep like adults sleep. It takes growth and time for children to fall asleep easily and stay asleep all night long.

There are no good reasons for parents to live as sleep-deprived martyrs or to let a child suffer the consequences of poor sleep. However, there are many ways to get your child to sleep without resorting to all-night cry-a-thons.

No one knows for certain how crying to sleep affects a child’s life, as we cannot raise a child twice. But since there are many other methods to help a child sleep better why should we risk using crying as the solution?

In summary, I don't believe children should be left alone to cry themselves to sleep. Or even left to cry as someone pops in every ten minutes to murmur com forting words, without reaching out to touch him. But I also know that you can — gently and lovingly — help your child to sleep peacefully all night long. There are a wide variety of effective approaches to helping a child sleep better. And if you can avoid making your child cry endlessly to achieve better sleep, then why wouldn’t you?