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The above assumes that baby isn’t sleeping in the same bed as its parents, which is true of the majority of Western homes. I have never practised or encouraged baby sleeping in the same bed. It can be a difficult habit to break, and parents need some privacy, given that the rest of their lives have been taken over by the new arrival. It is also unnecessary to have baby in the same bed if baby is resettled and reassured by using the 3Rs.

I have never, and would never, leave a baby to cry itself to sleep, and this is something I feel most strongly about. Not only is it distressing for the baby not to have its needs met by being reassured and resettled, but it is also very distressing for parents to listen to their baby crying. No caring parent could happily turn over and go back to sleep with a baby shrieking in the room next door. Not having its needs met can engender insecurity in a baby, and guilt in the parents for not meeting its needs. Some mothers report feeling physically sick if they hear their baby cry and don’t answer its call. After all, Mother Nature has designed the cry to be responded to and it’s far easier (and loving) to get up and Reassure baby than lie there trying to blot out the shrieks.

Some of the saddest cases I have seen as a foster carer have been when babies were left to cry themselves to sleep, before they came into care, often as a result of the parents being too drunk or drugged to hear or answer their baby’s call. After a while the baby stops crying, completely, having learned there is no point: its needs are not going to be met, there’s no one coming, so it may as well shut up. These babies lie almost lifeless in their cots, in absolute silence, staring at the ceiling with blank expressionless eyes. Even when you go into their rooms they don’t look at you or smile.

Extreme cases, yes, but if you ignore baby’s cries for long enough, baby will stop crying – you wouldn’t keep asking for something that never ever came. I’m not suggesting you rush in at the slightest murmur – baby may turn over and go back to sleep. But if baby is crying for no obvious reason, then resettle using the 3Rs.