CIO for toddlers

[Louisep]

I've gotten myself into a Facebook "discussion" about CIO. I posted links to the Harvard article and BBC news piece of the dangers of CIO and someone commented that while interesting, they refer to babies and CIO is fine for toddlers. Does anyone else know what the research says about CIO and toddlers?

To be clear, we don't practice CIO in any shape or form.

[LauraN]

Here's a link to the Natural Child project's article on why one should always respond to a child's cries.

My computer is acting up and I'm not able to keep searching. But I was going to try Kellymom next, and Jay Gordon may have something about toddlers...?

HTH, sorry I couldn't work on this more.

[ssh]

If you research chronic exposure to the stress hormone cortisol  you'll find it linked with insulin resistance and an impaired immune system, among other things, at any age. The reason it causes permanent damage in babies is because their brain is developing. Since toddlers are still undergoing vast amounts of neurological development I would think that CIO would still be damaging to them and probably preschoolers also.

[D_McG]

AFAIK there really is no evidence of harm. Kind of suggestions of harm... inferences of harm... the 'well of course it's harmful' conclusions... but no research. It's just too hard to study, maybe? IDK.