AIBU to let my children cry at night?

[LivingOnTheDancefloor]

My 2yo DS sleeps through most nights, but on occasions he will wake up and cry during the night. If I don't go to settle him, he will usually fall back to sleep by himself but it can take anytime between 5 and 45min.
If I go, he calms down immediately.
However, from experience I learned that if I start going to his room to calm him down, he will wake more and more often the following nights.

My husband thinks this is not fair to the neighbors and we should try to calm him down as fast as possible. I am thinking it is best for everybody to keep training my son to sleep through. AIBU?
I live in a terraced house, on both sides the houses have been converted to flats, so lots of neighbors. We live on a very busy and noisy street.

No Dolly I agree - what I meant to say, clearly badly, was that the nighttime crying is what I remember but it was just a symptom, I don't know how to express it better. Like when you go on holiday as a kid and go to the beach one day but because the beach is what you remember you remember it as a seaside holiday. Factually I know the problem was a much wider one, but I do have terrible memories of being lonely at night.

Regardless of the effect (or non effect!) on development etc, I just don't want to risk my children ending up with those kind of distressing memories, not when I can easily stop crying with cuddles.

The other posters example of the 5 year old in mums bed crying every night seems a bit of a red herring given that OP said her child settles with a cuddle.

But dolly - you were angry. Batteries was scared. Different thing.

I think maybe Dolly was saying don't assume extreme distress? And what I'm saying is that there may not be distress, but I believe there is a risk of distress, and that risk is one I personally wouldn't take.

I still share a bed with my DD now. She's 9

Sorry, haven't RTFT but I think best response to that sort of crying is to go to the child straight away (as soon as it's clear he/she is definitely awake and crying and not just whimpering in their sleep). Speak briefly to the child, saying something like "mummy's trying to sleep. Time to go to sleep. Night night". Touch the child only briefly and don't engage in conversation if possible. What you're trying to do is reassure that you are not far away, but reinforce that this is not the time for songs or stories.
Just be really boring and uninteresting during the night.

Batterie, I think we are saying the same thing. Sorry you didn't have the love and support you needed.

I am saying don't assume distress but more I'm saying that a child that is well loved and supported will not be damaged by not being picked up for nighttime crying. Maybe even with distressed crying. My overwhelming memory of not being responded to was that once I realised nobody was coming I would stop and think for myself 'ok what will I do now? I think I'll lie down and think about it' and actually I learned not just to sleep but that I was fine on my own and could make that decision myself. I personally think that my parents giving me that boundary and not giving in was a life lesson (but I could just have had that type of personality).

A last note! I never felt they didn't love me. I felt that they were downstairs, loving me the same, but it wasn't the time for me to be the centre of their attention.

The bit I can't agree with Dolly is this: a child that is well loved and supported will not be damaged

You can't know that I'm afraid. May not be damaged, ok yeah I agree, but there is a risk I think. A risk that as I said, I'm not willing to take. Obviously as parents we take all kinds of risks but I think to frame it as a certainty that day time parenting can make up for night time absence is exaggerating just as much as the claims that crying leads to prolonged elevated cortisol and negative brain changes.

batteries- I agree. no evidence of damage is not the same as evidence of no damage.