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Getting your baby’s sleep schedule to run like a well-oiled machine definitely isn’t easy. (If it were, there wouldn’t be a million memes floating around the Internet about how new parents get zero shut-eye.) But for many parents, sleep-training methods like the cry-it-out (CIO) method can make things a whole lot easier, as they can help ease your baby into sleeping on their own and learning how to self-soothe if they wake in the night. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, when practiced correctly, sleep-training techniques like CIO aren’t just safe, they’re effective too.
“If you let your baby CIO, you are in the first stages of coaching your baby to sleep independently,” explains Dr. Natasha Burgert of KC Kids Doc in Kansas City, Missouri. For parents seeking more consistent sleep at night — for both themselves and their baby — finding success with sleep-training can be a saving grace. (Especially if you or your partner are heading back to work and have to be up at an early hour to start your shift.) But it’s important to know the basics before you jump in.
Is your baby ready?
First things first, you’ll need to consider your baby’s age and development. The truth is, those first four months of life tend to be sleepless for a reason: Your baby is growing at a rapid rate, and they’re still figuring out their sleep patterns, which means sometimes mixing up their days and nights. (But after spending nine long months immersed in complete darkness, can you really blame them?)
“Neurologically, babies can’t self-soothe until they're 4 months along,” says sleep expert and licensed therapist Tammy Gold — and sometimes even longer. “Their GI system is not intact … so if they’re having a crying jag, they can't stop it.”
Since CIO involves letting your baby cry for small spurts of time, you want to make sure they’re absolutely ready to start self-soothing before you begin. That may not happen until they reach 6 months, or even closer to a year. Either way, before you even get started, consult your pediatrician to get some clarity and reassurance.
Things to know first
If the thought of CIO triggers visions of your baby crying for hours on end before you rush in to check on them, allow me to squash that one for you right now. First and foremost, your baby’s safety is always key. You should be close by at all times when sleep training, whether that’s in the same room if you room-share — which the AAP does recommend for the first 6 months to a year — or in the next room (in which case, have a baby monitor nearby to keep watch).
It’s also important to note that CIO is not about letting your baby have prolonged crying jags while refusing to intervene. It’s about allowing your baby to cry or fuss for a short, specified length of time before coming over to offer comfort. This allows them time to comfort and soothe themselves, and teaches them that getting cradled in Mom or Dad’s arms isn’t the only way they can fall back to sleep.
That said, if there’s an issue with their safety or some other cause for concern, then by all means throw the CIO “rules” out the window and comfort them.
How it works
CIO is basically an umbrella method, under which there are many varied sleep techniques. But when it comes to the most popular one, the Ferber method is generally considered to be the go-to.
It’s often called the “check and console” method because it encourages parents to check on their babies in intervals (beginning every 3 minutes, and then increasingly longer) when they cry. When you check in, you can rub your baby’s back or soothe them with a gentle shh sound, but ultimately the goal is to lull them back to sleep mostly on their own. This way, they won’t come to expect that you’ll always rush to their side the second they wake, and they will learn to fall back asleep in places other than Mom or Dad’s arms.
And if you’re worried as to whether or not CIO will cause any long-term, negative effects, Dr. Burgert hopes to put your mind at ease:
“Cry-it-out (or ‘graduated extinction’) has been extensively researched in both short- and long-term studies,” she tells CafeMom. “This method of sleep training is safe, effective, and not shown to cause any long-term behavioral or psychological effects in children.”
What to expect
According to experts, sleep training can take weeks or even months to implement fully. So if it’s taking a while for your kiddo to get the hang of things, don’t stress! Talk to your doc about any concerns, have patience (as much as you can muster), and commit to the method if you’re determined to see it through.
Dr. Craig Canapari, who directs the Yale Pediatric Sleep Center, says one of the biggest mistakes parents make when sleep training is throwing in the towel too soon.
“This always makes me feel terrible,” Dr. Canapari wrote in a blog for his website. “Both the parent and the child have suffered without even fixing the problem. Often, if they had persisted, their child would have started falling asleep more easily with just a day or two more of effort.”
That said, every baby and parenting style is different. So if your gut is telling you this may not be for you or your child, then consult with your pediatrician about possibly taking a different route. Getting sleep is important, but so is the overall mental health and well-being of everyone in your household. Don’t feel defeated if this ultimately isn’t the course for you.
“For some families, this method of sleep training ‘feels right,’ and for others, it doesn't,” says Burgert. “The great news is that if CIO is a method that does not align with your family, there are other options for sleep training. But those who choose to let their baby CIO should do so without guilt or worry. The baby will be fine!”
