Commentary: Response to commentary by Bilgin and Wolke (2021)

Abstract

Recently in this journal, Bilgin and Wolke (2020) published a paper which showed no association between leaving infants to ‘cry it out’ and infant-mother attachment. In our commentary (Davis & Kramer, 2021), we argued that the study was underpowered and, as such, could not be considered a conclusive demonstration that ‘cry it out’ had no adverse effects on attachment. The authors (Bilgin & Wolke, 2021) responded by claiming that, in combination with previous research, there was now ‘overwhelming evidence that letting a baby to cry it out a few times or even often has no adverse effects for infant-mother attachment formation during infancy’ (p. 2). Here, we show that their study was indeed underpowered and argue that there is, as yet, no compelling evidence that ‘cry it out’ is not harmful for attachment. Therefore, this technique should not be utilised by parents until more conclusive evidence has been provided.