### Instruction: Why is sleep training your baby important?
### Response: Sleep training your baby is important because it teaches your child the fundamental skill of self-soothing themselves to sleep. If your baby is not sleep trained, it will likely result in them waking up more often at night and needing the parent's help to soothe or rock them back to sleep. There are several methods you can use to sleep train your baby including the "cry it out" method, which works by allowing your child to cry while checking in on them incrementally to make sure they know you're there. When using the cry it out method, you need to ensure that all of your baby's needs have been met. Make sure your child is fed, changed, burped, and is overall comfortable. You can use words like "it's sleepy time" to signal your baby to sleep. This method takes about 4-7 days to work and has been proven to be the most effective and completely safe to use on your child.