The Great Cry-It-Out Debate
Posted by Nicole on January 9th, 2009This past week a new online debate went live on the Opposing Views website titled Should You Let Your Child Cry It Out? and I had the honor of being chosen as one of the experts! Little did I know that I would be going up against the Elizabeth Pantley, who is the author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution! I respect her a lot and she has a lot of knowledge and experience in this matter. I just happen to disagree with her extreme stance on the matter.
I’ve said many times on this site that I’m not a cry-it-out pusher and all of us need to find our own way to parent our children. The main thing that just really boils my blood is the extreme thinking on both sides of the debate. Not one thing is going to work for everyone (add to the fact that “cry it out” means something different to everyone) and I don’t like the feeling that some parents will go away feeling like failures or that they are not good parents because they did resort to cry-it-out. Or, worse, there will be some parents who don’t resort to it but are extremely sleep-deprived to the state of depression (or to the point they can’t drive straight) and still feel like a failure because they can’t get anything else to work, either. It makes me sad. Every situation is different and I wholeheartedly believe that when done in a certain way, cry-it-out will not damage your child and will not change his personality. There is such a wide range of things to try between no-cry to full-blown cry-it-out and it really boils down to figuring out what works for you and your family.
Please stop by the debate and if you agree with my arguments, please give me a thumbs up! 
Tags: cry-it-out, opposing views
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January 9th, 2009
Finally resorted to cry-it-out with my 2nd and it worked for her!
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January 9th, 2009
That’s awesome! I agree that it all depends on the family…no one set solution for everyone…
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October 8th, 2009
I totally agree with this post. I tried absolutely everything I could to avoid cry-it-out because of the extreme negativity towards this currently. I had a cranky tired baby who wasn’t getting enough sleep and I was a Mother who was already struggling with post partum depression, trying to keep it together for my baby and snapping at my husband constantly. In a moment of desperation I tried a cry it out method. Only needed to do it the once and we are all so much happier, she still smiles at me in the morning. I hate the extreme views on both sides, babies are all different and sometimes no-cry sleeping solutions will just not work just as sometimes cry-it-out methods may just not work. Be passionate about your preferred sleep solution and make others aware that it’s an alternative but respect your choice isn’t necessarily the best choice for others.
October 15th, 2009
@Skye Thank you for sharing your story!
October 22nd, 2009
I have heard both sides of this view. One saying that leaving a baby to cry causes the baby to finally give up on Mom or Dad, that they are not coming to me, they don’t love me. That stuck in my head every time I thought about letting my twins cry it out. All of that being said, after months of getting up anywhere between 6 and 12 times a night and laying very sleepy babies in bed to turn around and hear them imediately start crying, I had had enough. One night I laid my angles down, walked out of the room and they both imediatly started crying. That was my breaking point. I was exhausted! They were tired, so I knew they need to go to sleep and they needed to learn to do it on their own. That was when I started cry it out. The first 2 nights were the hardest, but after that, within a little over a week, I had two babies that went to sleep on their own and stayed asleep all night. Because of that, I believe that what worked with my oldest, didn’t mean it would work for my younger twins. And cry it out, is what worked.
November 6th, 2009
@Dale Thank you for commenting and sharing your story with others. I am enjoying working with you in the Sleep Helpdesk on fine-tuning their schedules and helping smooth out the remaining sleep issues. I look forward to your updates and am very happy you are seeing such great progress.