Leaving babies to cry could have its benefits – study

Friday 14th September 2012

A recent study that was published in the journal Paediatrics has found that letting babies cry for a short period of time instead of tending to them immediately could be the secret to more sleep for both infant and parents. This would mean that parents would be less stressed and would reduce the mother's chance of suffering from post-natal depression.

The study that was conducted at the University Of Melbourne, Australia followed 326 Australian children from the ages of 7 months to 6 years. Over half of the parents of these children were taught different methods to try and teach their children to settle themselves.

One method included ‘controlled crying’ which involved the parent waiting a set amount of time each night until they went to comfort their child. It was 2 minutes on the first night, 5 minutes on the second, 10 minutes on the third and so on until they learnt to settle themselves. The second method was called ‘camping out’ where the parent sits in the child's room while they teach themselves to fall back to sleep.

The results of the study found that both parent and child ended up sleeping for longer. The researchers carried multiple tests to look at their behaviour, sleeping patterns and relationship with their parents. It was found that the children left to cry were less likely to have behavioural issues, with 12% having behavioural problems compared to 16% of those who had been comforted.

Tags: babies study research

Category: Sleep Research

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