Sleep training - the evidence

[MrsMuffins]

I’ve seen lots of sleep training threads recently, and I’m finding it pretty upsetting TBH. The evidence strongly suggests that sleep training causes your baby to remain in a high stress state - they haven’t ‘self settled’, they have just learned not to cry as no one will come. Salivary cortisol (stress hormone) samples showed that cortisol levels were as elevated when baby was crying and when they had ‘settled’/gone quiet.

Studies also suggest that sleep training has no long-term effects - toddlers and older children that were sleep trained have no better sleep patterns than those who weren’t.

And most of all - night waking is NORMAL for babies! They are not designed to sleep for long periods without parental input, and frequent waking is in fact a safety mechanism that helps to prevent SIDS.

So, before you consider sleep training, please read the evidence, and consider other ways of managing your baby’s sleep. Would co-sleeping work better for you? Do you have a partner who could tag team with you for wake-ups? Can you sleep in the evening to allow you to wake in the night without being too knackered?

A good read for evidence summary - sarahockwell-smith.com/2015/05/14/ten-reasons-to-not-sleep-train-your-baby/

[Anna783426]

I do co-sleep with my little girl who is only 20 weeks as it's the only way she and I have been able to sleep. It's fine during the night, I'm not on a great drive to get her to sleep through and I'm happy breastfeeding when she wants but really struggling with bedtimes. She understandably is ready for bed by 7.30ish and I'm loosing my evenings being in bed with her. We've tried putting her in the cot even for the first chunk of sleep and she just won't have it at all, wailing and getting very upset which is horrible for her and for us. I can totally see why sleep training seems to be so popular but not so keen to try it myself as it's so obvious she's crying because she wants comfort and I've no desire to deprive her of that. I'm equally not keen to keep her downstairs with us because she gets overtired and agitated - again, no fun for anyone! Any suggestions gratefully received!

[poozel]

It's all personal and child dependent though isn't it.

Dd did not sleep for the first fourteen months of her life. When I say she did not sleep, I mean it. I did not want to sleep train based on what you have posted.

Dh works long hard hours and I was a mess. The first two months I sat in the kitchen with her. I was hallucinating with tiredness. I tried everything, and I mean everything. From a chiropractor to a sleep consultant.

For the next ten months I slept for three hours when dh came in, we were both exhausted. We never saw each other. She woke on average every ten minutes, including when cosleeping, which then became dangerous as she was trying to escape from the bed. My back is gone from sleeping on the floor. I was crying all the time, absolutely broken.

I read what you refer to again, and then a cross section of sleep training methods.

I began on first January with a sort of mix plan. Complete change to routine. So I spent hours in her room showing her the big girl cot and reading to her. Huge fanfare at bedtime of night nights. Into cot then left her two minutes, then three, then four. I got to five and she was asleep. The child who would not sleep. Within three nights she was sleeping all night and napping in her cot. Previously that was only on me.


What sold it for me was the state of her, she cried all day, bags under her eyes, exhausted and fighting it. She is a different child. Happy, loves her cot, loves the routine.

So yes it might not be for every child and it might not be for a very young baby but for Dd it was the best thing I did.

Incidentally she had a sick bug in February and as very unwell. Slept with me of course. Night three she would not settle. Back to old tricks. I popped her into her cot and off she went. Her telling me she had had enough of mummy thanks.

[normalpeeps]

@MrsMuffins ugh not one of these threads again. Your link is to a Sarah Ockwell-Smith website - SHE IS NOT A SLEEP EXPERT. She's a mum of 4 with a psychology degree, that writes parenting books.

You will find just as much evidence on the other side of the debate - that sleep trained children are better behaved, happier etc. because they are getting a good night's sleep. Also sleep training doesn't last weeks, if it is going well it generally takes no more than 3 days. And it's not that they 'learn that no one will come to them' it's that they are given the opportunity when they are tired (and crying because they are tired) to nod off.

What an ill thought out narrow minded post, with literally no 'evidence'.

[poozel]

Thanks @normalpeeps you put that much better than me in terms of the evidence, I just wittered on about my experience and then felt guilt again.

It did work though and I have to hang onto that.

[BullshitVivienne]

@normalpeeps I love you.

[MrsMuffins]

@normalpeeps there is literally no such thing as ‘sleep expert’. I’m quite happy to take advice on brain development from someone who has a psychology degree!

[MayFayner]

This person has things to sell, so I won’t be blindly swallowing whatever she says.

I clicked on one link on her page and it’s to a study that found no detrimental effects from sleep training so I’m not sure what her point is there.

I never had to sleep train but I don’t disagree with it. Parents have to do what they feel is best. I can’t stand this whole judgemental thing around sleep training.

[AdelaideK]

I have a psychology degree. I know fuck all about sleep habits

[MrsMuffins]

@MayFayner something to sell - unlike every other ‘sleep expert’ hawking their books!

[CherryPavlova]

Twaddle. The evidence is that there is no long term harm.
There is plenty of evidence for the detrimental effects of sleep deprivation though.
Start with this..
pediatrics.duke.edu/news/sleep-training-your-child-myths-and-facts-every-parent-should-know

[MrsMuffins]

I really struggle with the idea that it’s ok to leave babies to cry at night - you wouldn’t do it in the day, so why is it ok at night?! And the evidence for sleep training benefits has been pretty widely debunked - reliant on parental reporting, and very dodgy methods.

[CherryPavlova]

Or this
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5962992/

[Reallybadidea]

Sarah Ockwell-Smith is also homeopath, which makes the idea of listening to her idea of scientific 'evidence' utterly laughable.

[MrsMuffins]

@CherryPavlova the problem with articles like that is it lumps all methods into one ‘sleep training’ umbrella. So cry it out methods are compared alongside more gentle methods, and so the evidence of harm from stricter measures - and there is clear evidence - end up getting watered down.

[BullshitVivienne]

What's your agenda @MrsMuffins?

[BullshitVivienne]

expectingscience.com/2016/04/12/critics-of-cry-it-out-fundamentally-misunderstand-how-stress-affects-the-brain/

[Cantbutwill]

Not all sleep training requires leaving baby to cry. There are many techniques to try that involves either no crying or no more than if they are over tired.

[MrsMuffins]

@Cantbutwill absolutely get that, and that’s part of the problem with lumping all of the evidence around ‘sleep training’ together- it suggests that methods that encourage leaving your baby to cry don’t cause harm. And @BullshitVivienne no agenda - there was just another thread where parents described how long they were leaving their babies to cry, and I found it really upsetting.

[normalpeeps]

@MrsMuffins there are people who study sleep, sleep disorders and possible treatments as a professional career, I would class these as sleep experts. And people who study the brain as experts who will know a thing or two about brain development.

I don't class someone with an undergraduate degree in psychology as someone who is fit to give out sleep advice as though it were fact. She is a proponent of attachment parenting so will have cherry picked research that supports her world view.

Even at the 'hardest' end of sleep training i.e. the weissbluth method (where you put your baby down for bed and leave them to it) there is no evidence of negative impact.

Children cry for all sorts of reasons, often during sleep training one of the reasons they are crying is because they are tired, and you are teaching them they can fall asleep (with out rocking, feeding to sleep or whatever the existing method is), and perhaps more importantly that when you wake again (because no one sleeps without the odd wake up at night) that you don't need these actions to nod off again, you can just fall asleep.

Sleep training threads tend to end up (or indeed start off) judgey and try to split people into two camps when really everyone's child is different, as is their personal situation, how they will approach parenting, their experience of baby sleep etc. There is no one size fits all but if someone wants to sleep train they don't need someone else telling them it's cruel, when that is simply not the case.

[Abouttimemum]

It’s the whole ‘leaving the baby to cry at night’ thing that irks me.

I never left my DS to cry at night, ever, but I worked really hard to help him be able to get to sleep on his own. He never cried without me being there to soothe him. He knew I was there, always.

I’m not going to apologise for the fact I helped my baby sleep for 11/12 hours at night.

Why on earth you’d choose to have a sleep deprived baby or one that kicks your partner out of your bed just because you don’t want to help them sleep on their own is beyond me.

But here’s the thing, everyone is different, every baby is different, some sleep, some don’t sleep, some respond to sleep training, some don’t, some people like to co-sleep, some don’t, things work for some people and babies and other things don’t. And that’s ok. So my opinion is matterless.

[CherryPavlova]

No there isn’t Mrs Muffin. Unless you’ve a citation or two?
Every bit of research shows there is more harm from sleep deprivation than sleep training - including leaving them to cry.
Research also shows it works. Some parents don’t like it and some can’t manage it but don’t spread nonsense about harm to the many parents who survive because they’ve started getting some sleep.

[georgialondon]

Sleep training is just cruel.

[normalpeeps]

@georgialondon great contribution 🙄

[Sharpandshineyteeth]

When my babies were tired they would cry and cry, no matter how much I held them and without sleep training they would wake several times in the night and get into a right state. Some nights were better than others but some nights they could cry up to 3 to 4 hours.

After sleep training they had learnt to settle themselves and they had no hours or crying. Sleep training took 5 days.

So they were exposed to far less cortisol after sleep training and were generally a lot more happy.

[georgialondon]

Hard to hear the truth isn't it.

I