Cry it out
Also called CIO, crying it out, cried it out, the cry it out method, extinction
Cry it out is a way of sleep training where a baby is left to cry at bedtime or in the night until they fall asleep, without a parent going in to comfort them. Parents shorten it to CIO and often use it loosely for any sleep training that involves crying.
How it's said
Cry it out literally means closing the door and letting the baby cry until they're asleep.
I'm one of those evil parents that did CIO, and it worked really well for the first and not as well for the second.
Yes, sorry, controlled crying is the method she meant, but she used the term "cry it out", so a bit confused there.
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- Controlled crying delays the response to crying but has a parent go back in at set, growing intervals to reassure the baby. Cry it out in the strict sense means no going back in until the baby is asleep, though many people use the two words for the same thing.
Where it came from
The phrase goes back at least to 1894, when New York pediatrician L. Emmett Holt published The Care and Feeding of Children. His book says a baby who cries from temper or habit should simply be allowed to "cry it out."
In 1985 pediatrician Richard Ferber published Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, and his method became linked with crying it out, though he checks on the baby at set, growing intervals. Marc Weissbluth's extinction method, with no check-ins, is closer to the strict sense. Today CIO is used for any sleep training that lets a baby cry for a set time before comfort.