I haven’t talked a lot about sleep training, so decided to put down my thoughts on this topic. Sleep training can mean different things to different people. Is it getting your baby to sleep the whole night without waking and needing you? Or is it simply working towards good sleep habits and sleep hygiene to help your baby sleep as best they can?
We know that many studies have shown that secure attachment is critical for a child’s emotional and psychological development, which is probably not a surprise. The ongoing debate is whether leaving a baby or child to cry themselves to sleep negatively affects attachment. For this reason, there have been many studies trying demonstrate proof of harm or no harm. To cut many long stories short (this would be another blog of analysing papers!), there isn’t really any credible research to suggest that leaving children along to cry to address a sleep problem is a good idea. The fact is there is little evidence that suggests that controlled crying has lasting positive benefits. What we don’t often hear about is how a child may regress at a later date, after an illness, or disruption or change.
There is also no evidence to show that controlled crying does not damage attachment, and if anything, there is one study done by Gradisar (2016) which suggests the opposite.
When I had my first daughter, I was passionate from the start about sleep and I also was of the view, if you teach them to feed, and pretty much everything else in life, then obviously you would help teach them to sleep? I adopted a routine and tried to stick to this early on, and read around the subject of sleep. My first daughter, was pretty uneventful in terms of sleep. When the rest of my NCT group started to seek sleep consultants at 6 months, I wondered what was the difference here. It most likely was that my first, was a baby who responded well to routine, was perhaps a baby who felt calm enough to sleep. This has translated into later life, she is quite emotionally mature for her age, has a pretty chilled out personality in general terms, and she is able to get herself to sleep quite easily. Some babies are born of a certain temperament, where they don’t require much help to become calm to sleep. These babies could be the ones that respond well and more easily to routine.
What if I had had a baby who needed help more to get sleep? A baby who would cry and need a lot more reassurance? (My second daughter is like this). This is actually the baby that falls into the category of over 80% of babies where they don’t fall easily into a set routine. Sleep training is a term used alongside terms like ‘cry it out’ ‘controlled crying’ ‘controlled comforting’ ‘rapid return’ and ‘spaced soothing’. Each would involve leaving a distressed child without parental comfort for a period of time.
What happens in this scenario and why does it appear to work? According to Helen Ball (2003, 2020), the infant realises he or she cannot depend on the mother’s care and for survival will start to conserve energy. A food source has become unpredictable and the baby ceases to cry because crying fails to produce a response. So, the result is a ‘sleep trained baby’.
Let’s think about this even more, a baby wouldn’t have the intelligence to lie there and think ‘Mummy/Daddy isn’t coming, so I better just self soothe/calm myself now, no problem I can start do that, why on earth didn’t I just do that before?’. (Spolier- they didn’t do it before, because they couldn’t!!!)
The baby is not going through any higher order thinking! The baby is acting in a primitive way as outlined above. Crying stops because they have to, it is no longer a method of communication that achieves the support, possibly feed, and reassurance they need as a human who is not capable of calming themselves. A sleep trained baby has not learned to self soothe. They have learned you are not coming and responded appropriately.
So, let’s go back to the key question- can you teach sleep? In my opinion you cannot, it is a biological function. However, I am strong believer that you can do many, many things to help a little one sleep well. You may not be able to ‘teach’ them, but you can help them develop the skills needed to become calm enough to fall asleep alone. This is the area I am here to support with. This is why I am passionate about supporting to sleep as opposed to training to sleep.
The main thing I find interesting, is practically thinking about what do you think is happening when you leave a baby to cry for a prolonged period? Some cries of course are different, and ten minutes of this is sometimes evident when a baby is getting themselves off to sleep. So, I am not talking about all crying. I am thinking about leaving a baby for over 30 minutes crying. It could be useful to think– ‘Would I leave them to cry in the day for that long?’ Interesting question, isn’t it?…. If the answer is no, doesn’t it seem strange that we would at night?
Perhaps society is a bit broken, as I touched on in my self-soothing blog. Let’s face it, in this world, we are tired, overworked, unsupported, lacking community and hence desperate for sleep. This is why ‘sleep training’ is prevalent. Everyone is entitled to follow the path they choose for their family and as I have explained here, there is not a lot of evidence either way.
Parental mental health is on the list of things that should be taken seriously when sleep is involved.
I am proud to offer that alternative, my focus is on the parent, on the support, teaching about normal infant sleep, and how to manage that as best you can. I also look at reasons why a baby may cry for long periods, and rule out any underlying causes. I focus on responsive parenting and attachment. There are other ways to improve sleep and those ways can reach your goal, and will possibly be longer lasting, whilst maintaining a strong attachment with your baby or child.