 Moms Are at War Over Sleep Training Some say letting your baby ‘cry it out’ is a form of ‘emotional neglect.’ Others say it’s a completely safe way of preserving parental sanity. What’s the truth?
“Cry it out” is a hardcore form of sleep training, the controversial practice where parents selectively ignore a baby’s cries at night. (Reg Lancaster/Staff/Express Newspapers/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
Tara was losing her mind. The 37-year-old, who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, had four sons under the age of 8. She was looking after them all single-handedly, while freelancing part-time as an artist. The youngest, Davey, was just 16 weeks old: He’d been born just after Tara’s husband, a Marine, had been deployed to the Western Pacific. He wouldn’t be back for five months; their baby was waking up every two hours in the night. The situation felt unsustainable. So Davey’s pediatrician—like so many pediatricians—recommended that this exhausted mother leave her baby to “cry it out.” Also known as the “extinction” method, cry it out is a hardcore form of sleep training, the controversial practice where parents selectively ignore a baby’s cries at night, to teach them to fall asleep independently. This article is featured in Parenting. Sign up here to get an update every time a new piece is published. Tara was nervous. Although she had sleep trained her older children, with them she’d taken a gentler approach, visiting their cribs every 20 minutes or so while they cried to offer verbal reassurance and a quick pat. She knew cry it out—where parents completely resist the urge to check in—would take a bigger emotional toll on her. Nevertheless, that night, at 8:30 p.m., Tara nursed Davey, kissed his fluffy brown hair, then gently laid him in his crib and slipped out of the room. He began crying immediately. And kept crying—off and on—for two hours...
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