Commentary: Response to commentary by Davis and Kramer (2021)

Abstract

Davis and Kramer (2021) in their commentary on our study (Bilgin & Wolke, 2020) state that we ‘argue that leaving an infant to “cry it out”, rather than responding to the child’s cries, had no adverse effects on mother-infant attachment at 18 months’ (Davis & Kramer, 2021, p. 1). Instead, we wrote that ‘contemporary practice by some parents to occasionally or often “leaving infant to cry it out” during the first 6 months was not associated with adverse behavioural development and attachment at 18 months’ (p. 8). Based on the empirical findings of our observation study, we suggested that ‘increased use of “leaving to cry it out” with age may indicate differential responding by mothers to aid the development of infant self-regulation’ (p. 8). Indeed, in an editorial of our study, the joint editor of this journal concluded that ‘Bilgin and Wolke responsibly conclude that there is little reason to make definitive pronouncements to parents of young infants about how much to let them cry it out, given that both the attachment theory (responding promptly early promotes security) and learning theory (ignoring crying prevents dependency) formulations were unsupported by their findings’ (Zeanah, 2020, p. 1172).