by Ben Hughes

Created on: March 29, 2008

Before being a parent I would've answered "yes" to this question, but I'm now on the opposite side of the fence, if in practice rather than principle. Ideally I think it would be good and a lot easier to let babies cry themselves to sleep, but my son just wouldn't do it no matter how long we left him.

Leaving a baby to cry themselves to sleep is supposed to promote independence and let your child get themselves back to sleep naturally rather than become dependent on someone or something else. And undoubtedly it can be less stressful for parents if it works: no more getting up half a dozen times a night and trying to calm a restless baby for a start.

When Sam was young he had colic; not, the health visitor said, what parents usually class as colic which is just being unsettled and crying a lot, but real screaming where he wouldn't come anywhere near calming down and stopping crying unless he was being held and rocked constantly.

And he wasn't the sort of baby who could cope with crying easily. He always got himself really worked up, so once he'd started screaming he couldn't stop, no matter how long we left him.

At the risk of sounding like a bad parent, my wife and I would try to leave him to cry himself to sleep, but it didn't work. We even left him for the best part of an hour one time and he screamed the whole time. I don't know who ended up with more tears: him or me.

Even now he's a bit older he still doesn't sleep well. And having never slept well my whole life, I can sympathise with him. He's also at that age when nightmares start and he sometimes wakes in the night and been really upset.

Is this the way I want to see my son grow up? No. While I don't want to make either my life more difficult or him more dependent on others, I refuse to leave him to cry when he obviously needs comforting. I don't go to him straight away, but if it's clear he needs a hug and help settling then I'll go. I know that babies will always cry and many can settle themselves to sleep afterwards, but crying is also a sign of calling for help. It can mean there's something wrong, whether it's bad dreams, feeling scared, alone or ill. Crying is how babies communicate.

So while for some parents and babies it works well, as I know it does for many of my friends, I also know it didn't work for me or my son. It's not a matter of being overprotective but in some cases of simply being protective.

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