Developed by Dr Richard Ferber of the Paediatric Sleep Disorder clinic in Boston after 30 years of research, this strategy was made public during the released of his book 'Solve your child's sleep problems" in 1985. This strategy suggested that you place a baby into their cot and say goodnight then leave them alone to self settle for increasingly longer periods of time. 5, 10, 15, 20 etc. This crying managment informations was originally a part of a much bigger picture outlined by Ferber in his writings yet over the years it has become polluted and oversimplified.

According to The Boston Pediatric sleep disorders clinic in Boston Dr Ferber’s strategy was proven to be mostly successful however as ‘control crying’ has become polluted, I often hear of sleep experts saying ‘put them to bed and do not return’ or ‘don’t go in for 20 minutes then stay in there until they settle with your assistance etc etc…..so we now have many hybrids of the original strategy.

My greatest concern is that despite all the controversy around this hotly debated topic I still have parents telling me on an almost daily basis that  ‘we did controlled crying because we felt we had no choice’ and when I ask what exactly does that mean and where did you get it from, they often say ‘oh, we just did our own version … aka whatever we could stand’.

So controlled Crying can be many thing nowadays but it’s essentially the practice of leaving your baby to self settle without intervention which often results in crying!

DOES IT WORK?
My inbox on my e-mail account suggest that it does not, and after 20 years in this industry I have to say I have heard mixed results.

In my personal opinion I believe that success using this strategy, all other concerns aside, depends on what the original cause of the sleep time disruption was in the first place.

*With Association based sleep issues only, where there are no other daytime complications such as communication, separation, environmental or sleep requirement miscalculations, you will often see improvement, and within a short period of time, baby is not sleeping much better, so is mum and dad and the entire family settles and becomes happier.

*With more complicated sleep disruption triggers, a strategy such as control crying will prove to be very stressful, and in many cases, not yield a fast, long term successful or positive outcome.

In fact, where there are  complications I feel that a parent and child are set up to fail with the traditional version of control crying.

CAN IT HARM MY BABY?
That again depends on the original cause of your babies sleep time issue, and the length of time you pursue crying for.

If your cause of sleep issues is ‘association based only’, then a brief attempt with strategies like this ‘should’ get immediate results and have a lasting positive effect for the whole family overall………… I often find that the crying they do in 3 days of learning is the same as any normal three days of unsettled sleep settling and re settling with a  parent, however, they then have no need to cry as they learn new independent associations.

BUT

If your cause of sleep issues is more complicated, then long term crying with little or few results could  (more than three days)

1) impact their trust in carers

2) impact their understanding of your communication

3) create bad associations with sleep and their cot room and sleep environment

4) Impact a parents confidence impacting the entire family negatively

In addition, we need to look at the bigger picture.

Obviously the concern with a  cry it out strategy suggests a child will learn helplessness because their calls for assistance are not met, however, if you contradict this during the day by always responding to their needs, then the impact I see this strategy having on a baby is three fold…

1) they always cry because ‘sometimes’ you do as they ask’….so excessive crying tends to become a learnt pattern.

2) You confuse them by being unpredictable making your baby clingy and uncertain.

3) You make them feel angry and frustrated.