Baby Crying It Out To Sleep? No Worries!

A new study suggests that letting babies cry themselves to sleep may improve sleep patterns of infants and parents.

AsianScientist (Jun. 1, 2016) – Dear parents, it’s fine to let babies cry themselves to sleep.

A new study published in the journal American Pediatrics suggests that letting babies “cry it out” may not cause the emotional, behavioral or parent-child attachment issues many parents fret about.

Flinders University sleep expert, psychologist Associate Professor Michael Gradisar, said the study shows that controlled crying, or “graduated extinction,” and another sleep education method called “bedtime fading” can actually improve babies’ and parents’ sleeping patterns.

The two infant sleep training interventions were conducted during a randomized, controlled trial involving 43 infants who had night-time sleep troubles past about six months of age.

Compared to a control group, researchers reported that infants whose parents used the controlled crying method fell asleep an average of 13 minutes sooner and woke up significantly less often during the night.

At the same time, the research team found no significant differences in stress levels based on salivary cortisol readings of the infants, parental stress or mood, or measurements of parent-child attachment.

For parents who remain anxious about letting babies cry, Gradisar and colleagues said the bedtime fading group showed nearly as large a decrease at ten minutes in the amount of time it took for babies to fall asleep. However, the researchers saw no change in the number of night-time awakenings for the bedtime fading group compared to the control group.

“[Bedtime fading] may not resolve awakenings during the night so if a child is waking up several times a night, then there is now some more evidence that [controlled crying] is a technique that may not be harmful to their child,” said Gradisar.

And while the two sleep education methods appear to improve sleep without detrimental effects on the child or family, Gradisar said more independent trials are required to validate their findings.


The article can be found at: Gradisar et al. (2016) Behavioral Interventions for Infant Sleep Problems: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

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Source: Flinders University; Photo: Pexels.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

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