Serious answers only – what do you think the downside to letting them cry it out is?

That depends on what their reason is for crying.

listening to the crying

The downside is it drives you mad.
The good side is it lets your child know that it won’t get it’s own way all the time.

I let my kids cry it out and they soon learnt that they don’t get their own way all the time.

Children have to know their boundaries.

depends on why thre crying, but if my daughter who is 3 is just throwing a fit i let her the worsei get out of it is a headache, but usually she gives up and goes on bout her buisness as soon as she realizes im not giving in, or she goes to her room and pouts on her bed, eihter way as long as she’d not hurt or has a really good reason to be crying, let it go GL

The benefits are that the children will learn to be self soothers instead of looking to adults to cure all the ills in their little worlds. The downside is that it’s awfully hard for most parents to have to listen to little ones crying for extended periods of time without intervening. If it’s for nighttime sleeping I did this for my children and after the first few nights it worked like a charm.

I think it completely depends on why the child is crying. If there is nothing you can do to meet their needs, crying it out is the only way to go. The negatives would be if you are letting the child cry it out when they are hungry or thirsty or wet, and they need help. Then the kid will lose trust in your ability to meet his needs, and be insecure.

my husband seem to think it works. i just hate cleaning up the puke(she a puker ) although after she pukes she quits showing her butt.She is almost 2 and mentally is around 3 and a half.I would say try it ,each child handles things different and u don’t know if u don’t try.

A young child will lose trust in your meeting thier needs.
It is silly to think that an infant will learn to be independant if you ignore thier needs, independance comes when the child is ready.
A young child is also not capable of being manipulative, you dont need to teach them that you are in control, thats silly.
As far as crying it out to sleep through the night, I think that is just parents way of making thier child convenient, babies are designed to wake through the night to eat. Why force them to go without? it is a relatively short time in thier life.
You are not specific in your statement though.

According to Dr. sears:
In my opinion, “let the baby cry it out” is at the top of the list of bad baby advice. Why? For starters, any advice that goes against your instincts as a mother is probably advice you shouldn’t follow. You know your baby better than anyone else and, in general, a mom’s built-in intuition is fail-safe. It’s a biological fact that a child’s cries have an effect on his or her mother. When you hear your baby cry the blood flow to your breasts increases, accompanied by the urge to pick up and nurse your baby. (Nursing means comforting as well as breastfeeding.) As an added biological perk, the hormones released when you cuddle your baby or breastfeed her relax you, too, easing the tension you feel when you hear her cry. These physiological changes also make clear why the cry-it-out advice is easy for someone else to give, but difficult for you to follow.

For babies, crying is very valuable — in fact it’s their language, and parents should pay attention. Your daughter is saying to you, in effect, “I need something. Something is not quite right here. Please make it right.” Babies cry to communicate, not to manipulate. And, contrary to what you may have heard, crying is not “good for a baby’s lungs.” Nor is it good for your relationship with your child. If no one listens to an infant’s cries, she will become very discouraged. What parents and babies then lose with this outdated advice is trust — your child loses trust in the value of her cries to communicate and you lose trust in your ability to respond to your infant’s needs. By letting your baby cry it out, you desensitize yourself to her cries, going against your instinctive responses and possibly creating distance between you and your baby.

As your baby gets older, when and how quickly you respond to her cries will change. You can gradually lengthen your response time as your daughter learns how to soothe herself. As you and your baby get to know each other better in the early months, you’ll eventually work out ways of answering her needs, knowing when to say yes and when to say no. With this sensitive approach, you’re well on your way to developing a loving bond and mutual trust.

I would never do it to a young child, I think that is child abuse.

they may learn how to be independant in a “I dont need or trust anyone” kind of unhealthy way, but they dont learn how to be interdependant. Which is an important part of a relationship.

Georgie: Actually no, dogs are not manipulative that is what we call Anthropomorphizing (to attribute human characteristics to) Dogs live in the moment.
Manipulation is in the mind of the human.

I don’t believe in this at all at any age. I never did this with my son (he’s 12 now) and he is quite independent. He never went through a “seperation anxiety” stage. He’s never had temper tantrums. He’s never had sleep problems. He trusts me. Because of the positive experience I plan to raise my next child the same way.
On the contrary, several of my friends did the “cry it out” method and all I have seen with their children is the complete opposite.
Do some research. Baby boomers were raised with the idea that discipline was more important than affection and look what happened to them. They turned out to be known as one of the most selfish generations, especially when it came to parenting.

I’m an early childhood educator and I see that some children need help to settle down and some need to be left alone to cry it out. It depends on your children temperament. If they get more upset when you try to help them through it then just leave them.
Babies on the other hand start to feel neglect if their cries are not answered right away. Babies need to be acknowledged every 9 seconds to not feel neglected.

i see tons of positives when i just let my daughter cry it out
she doesnt throw temper tantrums as much as other kids her age who are given what they want or picked up when screaming

it also helps children that cry at night to be able to comfort themselves and get themselves to sleep rather than need someone else there

as per the negatives all i found was kid getting a slight sore throat and my ears hurting from the noise