Sleep Training Will Not Damage Your Baby

Different strokes are for different folks. And that's okay! 👌But don't put down families who choose sleep training and don't believe these unsubstantiated claims. Let's go through them one by one, shall we?

Sleep training will damage your baby. Take Hiscock's study (2012) as exhibit A. They conducted a 5 year follow up with children who were sleep trained and with child who weren't sleep trained and found no significant difference. Like at all. 🤷‍♀️ There's also this study that had similar findings.

You will lose your baby's trust. Your baby knows you and has hundreds of experiences with you to draw on. Responding differently to them at night does not negate all of that! 💕 Again, see studies linked above that show no difference in parental-child attachment.

You will teach your child not to cry when they need you. Umm really? My kids still cry for me when they need me! And I would say that families I work with report they are BETTER able to respond at night when their child needs them after sleep training. Parents know something is up and their child isn't just crying because they woke up. 😢

Sleep training=neglect. Nope, just nope. Unfortunately, naysayers compare sleep training to babies who grew up in Romanian orphanages and pretty much spent their entire day and night alone and in a crib. 🙄 Not comparable.

You're being selfish. Wrong! You have to take care of yourself too. That's not selfish. It's called filling your cup so you can pour into your child's life. 🥛

Your sleep expectations are unrealistic. Ok, I suppose this one could be true depending on how old your child is and what your expectations are... But it is not unreasonable to expect our children to learn to fall asleep on their own and eventually learn to connect sleep cycles. 💤

You can't be a responsive parent and sleep train. So, I guess I'm confused with this one. Does being a responsive parent mean meeting your child's wants OR your child's needs? Also, what's wrong with responding to your child DIFFERENTLY than usual? Is that not considered responsive? 🤔 We know that secure attachment has everything to do with being a warm, loving, and emotionally available parent and nothing to do with cosleeping, breastfeeding, and anti-sleep training ideologies.

✨✨Let's encourage each other in our own unique decisions instead of criticizing. ✨✨

Check out my video on Instagram that pokes fun of these ridiculous claims.