Training babies to sleep through the night using the popular “controlled crying” technique can be damaging to their development, according to a leading youth mental health group, directly contradicting information provided by the federal government-funded Raising Children Network website.

Described as “the complete Australian resource for parenting newborns to teens”, the website states babies older than six months could be trained to sleep through the night with no proven adverse effect on their well-being.

But the Australian Association of Infant Mental Health has a position paper dating back to 2004 recommending controlled crying only be used under exceptional circumstances, and after consultation with a medical professional. The controlled crying technique — or controlled comforting, as some call it — involves leaving a baby to cry for short but increasing periods before returning to comfort them, with the aim of teaching them to settle themselves.

AAIMHI National President and Curtin University Senior Psychology Lecturer Dr Lynn Priddis says while she doesn’t seek to criticise other organisation’s approaches, parents should focus on building  reassuring relationships with their infants for optimal mental health.

“Self soothing doesn’t happen at all,” she told Crikey. “When children are quiet after being left for a long time, it’s because they’re in despair.”

Dr Priddis say it’s important that children’s needs be met time and again for them to develop a sense of security and self esteem, but she admits no clinical research had been done to support this.

Researcher and paediatrician Dr Harriet Hiscock, from Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital Centre for Community Child Health, says the AAIMHI’s claims are not supported by science.

“If parents are loving and responsive in the day there is no evidence at all that [sleep training] is harmful,” she said.

Dr Hiscock says that by six months a baby has developed object permanence — the ability to understand that when a person moves out of their range of sight they do not cease to exist and are therefore able to understand their caregiver would come back.

She also points to studies that show the use of sleep training techniques had been successful in reducing depressive symptoms in sleep deprived mothers, better enabling them to care for their children.

“[Controlled crying] is only for three to five nights, it’s a very short time in a baby’s life. If parents are warm and appropriate during the day, then it’s fine,” she said.

A spokesperson for Families Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said that the Raising Children Network website was a trusted source of information for Australian families: “All content on the site is quality assured using a strict expert review process and approved by the Raising Children Scientific Advisory Board, which is made up of some of Australia’s pre-eminent experts in child health and development.”