7 Reasons to Avoid the Cry-It-Out Method

“You shouldn’t pick her up everytime she cries. Leave her alone. You’ll spoil her.”

That was the advice of my friends when I would race to my baby girl. Maybe they didn’t want their Scrabble game interrupted one more time. Or maybe they were repeating the same advice that we’ve all heard about a crying baby: picking up your baby too often will spoil her.

This theory was made popular by Dr. Luther Emmett Holt, a pediatrician and a professor from Columbia University. In 1895, he published The Care and Feeding of Children. In The Cry section, he advised parents how to handle their crying babies at night. If the baby was comfortable, not too hot or not too cold, and had a clean diaper, there was no further reason to interfere with the child. 

According to Holt, the baby should simply “cry it out.” Even if on that first night the crying lasted for hours, it would eventually stop. On the following night, the length of crying should decrease, lasting less than 15 minutes. On day three, sleep training should not be necessary.

The Cry-It-Out (CIO) method was developed because Holt believed that picking up a baby would condition her to expect attention on demand. CIO forces babies to fall asleep alone, becoming independent of caregivers at night.

Dr. Holt’s book became a bestseller. Despite the popularity of his theory, new research shows that not only is CIO ineffective, but it’s downright harmful. These are the 7 reasons why psychologists advise to forget this method as sleep training for your baby altogether.

­

1. CIO Distresses Your Baby

Parents who use the CIO method will believe that it is working when they hear that their has baby quieted down. However, parents are misinterpreting what is really happening. Silence doesn’t necessarily mean that the baby is sleeping. The fact is, some babies never give up.

Some babies can weep softly for hours. Some babies cry until they vomit. Some wail so long that they go into a shaking frenzy, or hiccup. Crying is a behavior that takes lots of physiological effort, so babies eventually wear themselves down. It’s called emotional defeat.

Imagine yourself crying for five minutes because you felt alone and scared. Afterwards, you may feel better because this release of feelings can be cathartic. It’s a coping mechanism that helps us to get through stress. It’s what they call a good cry.

Now imagine yourself crying for 15 minutes. Your nose would run. Your temple would throb, and you would feel hot and headachy. You would probably feel worse than when you started. After 30 minutes, it would be hard to stop or come out of these feelings of sadness. After an hour, you may not have any more tears to cry, but you would be inconsolable, shaking, and upset. In contrast, if someone gave you a hug, and reassured you within the first five minutes, you would have felt a lot better.

Every baby is unique, so no single style will work for everyone. Some parents realize too late that the CIO method is completely ineffective for their babies. As another deterrent, consider the emotional, neurological, and physical impact it can have on your baby’s life.

Extended crying increases your blood pressure, heightens stress and hormones, and reduces oxygen in your brain. It effects babies the same way. Their heart rate rises. After crying for an hour, they can be too hot and bothered to settle. They will eventually become quiet. This doesn’t mean that the baby has learned to fall asleep by herself. She is just shutting down because she is so distressed.

Crying endlessly is not soothing. Prolonged crying is a taxing expression that goes against well-being. The more your baby wails, the more agitated she will be. Letting your baby get to this point of distress is not care. It’s the complete opposite.