iv been  told a few times now to just let my 6mth old cry her self to sleep. Is this crule? what do other mothers do? i cant stand to hear her cry.

Hi Abbey, I am dad to a beautiful 3yo boy.  We tried controlled crying for a brief period and gave it the flick. Duncan could scream the house down for hours and after a week we couldn't stand to see him so upset any more. We had no trouble getting him to sleep early in the night, the secret was wearing him out during the day and no sleep late in the afternoon.  Our problem was when he woke in the middle of the night.  We quickly worked it out that if we took him straight to bed with us we gained an extra 2-3 hours sleep a night.  Now I can hear all those out there saying oh no!!! but it is the most beautiful thing in the world. I love it when he rolls over and slips his little arm around my neck and snuggles into me. I will really miss it when he decides that he is grown up and wants to stay in his BIG BED.

Anyway, I really think that it depends on your little one, they are all so different. You will soon no if controlled crying is for you. Perhaps you could try wearing her out a little more in the afternoon and set a calming routine before bed. Good luck on whatever you decide

Personally, I do think its wrong for a lot of reasons. Physicologically, cortisol (a stress hormone) is released when babies are stressed/crying and research is showing that hight levels of cortisol have a detrimental affect on the developing brain. Emotionally, crying is the only way a baby can comunicate so, to me, by ignoring your baby's cry, you are teaching them that you will not respond to their needs, so to speak. Each to their own but I would never do it. FWIW I have had two atrotious sleepers ( waking every 1 hour at night and taking 2 hrs to get back to sleep) so can fully appreciate waht sleep deprivation does to you, but they need you for such a short time. I figue a couple of years out of my adult life is nothing compared giving my babies a safe and healthy start to life.