Babies left to cry ‘feel stressed’, research finds

2, June, Daily Telegraph

Babies who are left to cry by themselves could feel ‘stressed’ even after they appear to settle, new research has suggested.A study has found youngsters who are deliberately left to cry themselves to sleep eventually appeared to settle themselves without being comforted..

But, it found, their hormone levels showed they could remain just as ‘stressed’ by the experience as if they had remained crying. The method, sometimes called ‘controlled crying’, has been a popular parenting choice, with some believing it trains babies to settle into a routine.

A study by Wendy Middlemiss, researched at the University of North Texas, has now examined the effect of the experience on children and their mothers.Using babies aged four to ten months, her team monitored the levels of hormone cortisol as they were left to fall asleep without comfort from a carer.

Researchers measured the length of time they cried over successive nights, as their mothers waited in a nearby room. By the third night of the study, infants were found to have cried for a shorter period of time before falling asleep.But the study, published in the journal Early Human Development, found the levels of cortisol in their saliva remained high.