"Cry it out" is actually not a sleep training method. However, sleep training has a bad reputation as leaving your child alone in a room to cry until morning, while never intervening. This is the extinction method and is not a method we teach here at Big Little Sleeper Co.

Sleep training is simply teaching your child how to fall asleep and back to sleep on their own. Imagine needing someone to come into your room and give you a back rub, a bottle, or soothe you back to sleep every single time you woke up overnight. When sleep training we empower your child to sleep independently by giving them the tools and confidence to do so and the reassurance that they are safe. The methods we use teach your child to sleep independently while allowing you to respond to them and support them in an age appropriate manner.

If anyone guarantees no crying, run. Truly. Crying is how our babies and toddlers communicate, process their environment, and adapt. They cry when they're hungry, tired, wet, bored, annoyed, overstimulated...crying is a very natural response to change, and you're introducing a big change in their routine, likely a new sleep environment, they're exhausted, and they're learning a new skill. Crying is a very natural and healthy response to this change. Once they get used to being in their crib or bed and are well rested again, the crying will quickly cease.

Our playbook offers supportive and responsive approaches to help minimize crying as much as possible, and provide you with the tools to implement those method with success.

Absolutely! Sleep training is simply teaching your child to fall asleep and back to sleep without relying on you to help them. We teach you to remove the feed to sleep association, whether breast or bottle-fed, and to wean overnight feeds when ready. We encourage you to breast or bottle feed following a set feeding schedule during the day to ensure your little one is taking full feeds throughout the day, which will enable them to get longer stretches of sleep overnight without having to make up calories.

According to Riley Children's Health at Indiana University Health, "mounting research suggests that the practice of letting a baby cry for short intervals while learning to put herself to sleep is not inherently harmful —and does not seem to cause long term emotional problems for the baby or disrupt the parent-child bond."

Additionally, a recent study published in the journal of Pediatrics evaluated 43 sets of parents and babies placed into three different groups, one group didn't follow a sleep training method, the second group used a delayed bedtime approach to find the right bedtime for their child, and the third group followed a graduated extinction sleep training method that allowed letting the baby cry for short intervals between checking on baby, then increasing those intervals between checks.
 

Researchers measured stress levels of these babies by analyzing their saliva for the stress hormone, cortisol. "The babies in the sleep training groups showed slightly lower cortisol levels than the babies who had no sleep training. This suggests that in the bedtime fading group and the graduated extinction group, the babies had less stress and anxiety. What’s more, the babies that did follow a sleep training method feel asleep more quickly and woke up less frequently in the middle of the night."

But what about later in life? Have I damaged their emotional health by letting them cry? What about creating a secure attachment with my child? 
"The study authors found that after a year, there was no difference among the groups in the children’s emotional and behavioral health or in the parent-child attachment."

There are many misconceptions in how to sleep train, and one method does not work for all children, which is why it's so important to work with a certified pediatric sleep consultant, like ourselves. Leaving your child alone in their room to cry for hours is never recommended, is not safe and could cause severe stress for your baby and you. We work closely with each family to determine the method most appropriate for their child's temperament and coach them through how to safely implement the method with as little crying as possible.

Source: https://www.rileychildrens.org/connections/does-sleep-training-your-baby-cause-long-term-harm