Sleep consulting should be regulated

[Goscat]

Is anyone else horrified by the number of "sleep consultants" and "behaviour experts" offering their services? The Instagram algorithm targets their videos and pages at vulnerable, sleep deprived parents. Quite literally anybody can can themselves one and provide any advice they like whether it follows safe guidelines or not.

It's predatory and dangerous

agree

Agree. It preys on tired exhausted parents who are desperate. It's damaging for them and their kids.

How would you regulate it? None of it is based on any evidence. You can't regulate something if there isn't a legitimate version of it, and you can't stop people from paying for advice even if the advice is either very simple stuff you could think of yourself if you weren't massively sleep deprived, or if the advice is not very good.

Yesterday I saw videos from a "sleep consultant and behaviour specialist" putting a young baby to sleep in a completely unsafe sleep space (blanket, stuffed toys etc). Like if that's what you want to do fine, but it's unbelievable that that can pass this of as professional advice to others. Makes me so angry!

How could it regulated though? It's not a protected title. There are no approved qualifications in sleep. There are no agreed methods of enabling sleep. Sleep consultants have at best a qualification in something else vaguely useful like nursing. Or at worst are completely dangerous chancers.

See also ‘nutritionist’

Agree. I think if this process was started though it would very quickly descend into an understanding that there is little to no evidence about any of this, except the psychology of developing brains needing secure unconditional love and responsive parenting which is fairly obviously at odds with most sleep training.
I suppose at the minimum there could be a requirement to follow Lullaby Trust safe sleep guidelines if calling one self a sleep expert of any kind. But who would enforce that or take action if not being followed?

I don’t think it’s causing enough trouble to be regulated as a whole.

sleep consultants typically teach sleep training babies in their own cots. i think the opposite of the sleep training culture is typically the cosleep culture. While I’m not advocating or knocking either approach, the cosleep culture /methods are proven to cause more injuries/ deaths.

my point is, is the sleep consultants methodologies (Ferber, cio) more aligned with nhs advice for safe sleep and therefore no cause to regulate.

if say babies were being injured by sleep consultant practices, the govt would get pressure to create policy.

True, it's incredibly difficult. But I've seen some really dangerous stuff (see my previous comment). They're MUST be a way to ensure they at least have to have taken a Regulated course and are not giving it dangerous advice.

Pointless advice is one thing, dangerous is another

What, like a government body? I’m sympathetic to anyone who despairs over their kids sleep (mine were both terrible) but regulation of this industry is not practical. People need to use their common sense I’m afraid.

While I’m not advocating or knocking either approach, the cosleep culture /methods are proven to cause more injuries/ deaths.

Here we go again 🙄

Co-sleeping done safely is protective against SIDS and is statistically safer than having baby in a separate sleep space. Do better.

I think that's my main concern with it is them not following safe sleep guidelines (whether promoting sleep training or co-sleeping). Just yesterday I saw a post from a sleep consultant putting her 5mo to sleep with a blanket to suck on and stuffed toys in the crib in a video she's using to promote her services (and she even admitted she doesn't take them away once baby is asleep!)

And to be fair I'm refering to any "consultant" who promoted either method. I actually have zero issues with any individuals approach to sleep, but promoting those same ideologies to others under the pretext of being a professional is dangerous I fear.

Lots of professions are regulated without a government body. Accounting, surveying, procurement, etc etc. It's a requirement at minimum to hold specific qualifications for example.

Yes that is very unsafe and she should be ashamed of showing herself doing it so brazenly, and encouraging others likewise.
It does seem mad that we have this great resource of the Lullaby Trust doing what they can to keep babies safe from evidence-based research and there are people out there wilfully recommending otherwise.

Are they charging for their services?! If not, they are no better or worse than, say, grandparents or parents, advocating for different methods of child rearing, including sleep training, feeding, etc

You can't regulate advice.

Yes they are

There are accreditations you can get as a sleep consultant e.g. Lyndsey Hookway's Holistic Sleep Coaching or there are probably certifications associated with more pro sleep training types, but none of that is regulation. You can't realistically regulate people's opinions - you wouldn't expect to see regulation for fashion consultants for example although you might prefer to hire someone trained in a particular method.

I don't think it's unreasonable to warn new parents that it's a totally unregulated industry based on opinion rather than science, though, and that they should follow Lullaby Trust/NHS/Unicef guidelines and avoid "experts" claiming that they know better. I know that Lullaby Trust have done some campaigns against specific sleep consultants before - IIRC Tizzie Hall in particular - but the internet was much smaller then - it's difficult for campaigning bodies in one country (e.g. UK) to speak out against advice coming from other countries which people are accessing online.

You literally can regulate advice. Financial and investment advice is heavily regulated for a start.

I’m not sure. I think we live in a world where we expect someone else to take responsibility for our choices. And I’ll explain that in a second.

I do agree that when you’re sleep deprived you’re more vulnerable to these random SM accounts that, let’s face it, anyone can make and be whoever they want to be online.

However, when you employ someone like a sleep consultant, or whatever title they want to give themselves, there will be a whole catalogue of doulas, midwives, behavioural specialists and people with vast experience of studying and accreditations. Just because there might not a a profession or a degree in baby sleep training, there will be other routes people can take to be specialists in that field.

Back to my original point, it is up to the individual to vet that and do their research. In the same way that you can go to Britney round the corner for your Botox, or Dr Britney on Harley St, the public need to take responsibility for the choices they make. We live in a culture where nobody wants to read the fine print, take the time to explore, then call the ombudsman to shift the blame on to somebody when things go wrong.

I think this is very wise and true.

The problem with regulation in non- professional industries (ie not medicine, law, accountancy etc) is that there is no one standardised qualification. So you end up with bodies calling themselves the professional association but the requirements to join are not always logical. This is a thing in counselling I think. Also if it's a self-identified professional body with either poor entry requirements or lax on checking people's conduct/qualifications, you might end up with the opposite of what you want, which is people deriving false reassurance of safety because someone is a member of X body.

Proper regulatory bodies need to have very strict entry requirements, annual (usually) checks on competence, and a power to deregister people after a fair process. This is extremely bureaucratic and expensive (I pay a few thousand a year to be regulated for example!)

I realise that. I work in finance, it’s heavily regulated. However, we also have a clear idea of what is good advice and what is bad advice (advising people to invest in very risky investments when they have a low risk appetite, for example). The first issue you would have in this case, is what is good sleep training advice? It seems there is a lot of disagreement on that. Also who pays for this new government body?

Totally agree, it's ultimately the parents who are responsible for safe sleeping.