Most Common Myths for Sleep Training

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Most Common Myths for Sleep Training

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Sleep training is a very controversial topic among moms with a clear divide between supporters of “cry it out” and non-supporters of “cry it out”. Many psychologists warn against “cry it out”, making a case for the dangers of this method of sleep training on a baby.

I want to hash this argument out and share with you my take on this dispute along with the most common myths of sleep training.

Oh, and I’m not going to just give you my opinions on the subject, the information I am sharing will be from doctors and professors. I’ll even link the articles so you can read it for yourself!

First off, let me say that I do not agree with the cry it out method of sleep training. There are several ways to sleep train and teach your baby or child to sleep independently through the night. Cry it out means something different to everyone so let me be clear. To me “cry it out” means that you are leaving your child to cry alone in their room and not checking on them until morning. I’m not sure how anyone could do this and know that their child is safe, doesn’t have a soiled diaper or isn’t in any type of pain.

With any type of sleep training you are making a change to a child’s sleep routine and how they fall asleep at night. Your baby or child is not going to prefer falling asleep without your assistance (rocking, nursing, patting, singing, shushing etc. to sleep). So how does your baby communicate with you? Of course, by crying! Your child is crying to let you know she doesn’t like this, she’s tired and wants to go to sleep and she doesn’t know how to do this on her own yet.

The truth is, you can nurse your baby to sleep, rock them to sleep or keep replacing the pacifier at night, but most babies will struggle getting back to sleep during night waking’s without these same methods. What does this mean for you? You will be rocking or nursing your child back to sleep at every wake up or running in to replace or find the pacifier.

This is why most parents turn to co-sleeping to try and get more sleep. This doesn’t really fix the problem; it usually creates a new one! If co-sleeping works for you and your family, then keep doing what works for you. However, a lot of people want sleep independent of having their children in bed with them. This was me a little over a year ago, so no judgement here!

If co-sleeping is not for you, then usually the next alternative (if you enjoy uninterrupted sleep) is to sleep train your child. Again, I’m not talking cry it out, but a gentler method (parent preference of course).

What really gets me fired up is when I hear or see comments online from mom’s saying, “it’s hard right now, but they’ll grow out of it” or “your baby stops crying because they feel abandoned when you don’t come back”. So I’m going to fire back with my top sleep training myths.

First of all, most babies don’t just magically “grow out of it” and just start sleeping through the night without you having to get them to sleep first. If your baby sleeps all night, then you are one of the lucky ones!

Myth 1: Your baby will feel abandoned and not love you in the morning.

This refers to what many experts say about how your baby stops crying because they learn that you are not coming back. Does this argument really make sense? You are teaching your baby to self-soothe and fall asleep independently. After all the nourishment and love you provide your baby, do you really think 1 night of sleep training would take all of that away?

The bond between a mother and her baby is unbreakable. Baby’s attach to your through all their senses! Touch, Smell (scent of milk & parent), Sight, Sound and Taste!

Making any type of changes to your baby’s sleep routines and habits are going to be met with protest (crying) on their part. The good news is, babies learn fast and usually only the first few nights are met with protest, decreasing each night.

Sleep training has actually been found to have significant positive outcomes, quickly, within 1-2 weeks:

• Reduced bedtime struggles, fewer night wakings, longer stretches of uninterrupted sleep for baby (and the parents!)
• Improved maternal health (less stress and greater confidence)
• Improved temperament and mood of baby (less irritable and more secure)

These sleep training studies as summarized by Alice Callahan, PhD conclude that there are no proven negative effects on babies’ behavior or their relationship with their caregivers. What I’m getting at here, is not only will your baby still love you in the morning, but she’ll also be happier once she is sleeping all night.

Myth 2: Sleep training is dangerously stressful for babies.

Many psychologists warn against letting babies cry because it is damaging to their brains. What they are referring to is the response to an extremely toxic or harmful event such as child abuse, NOT sleep training.

Children have 3 different types of responses to stress, which is important to understand when we’re talking about crying.

A positive stress response is a mild and brief event, such as getting a shot at the doctor, in which the parent is present and can comfort and soothe the child. A tolerable stress response is something less common like a death in the family or a natural disaster. Again, the parent is there to comfort and console the child. A toxic stress response is caused by a much stronger and frequent harmful event in which the parent is not supporting the child. Child abuse or neglect and even maternal depression would fall into this category.

So where does sleep training fall? It’s certainly not a toxic stress event comparable to child abuse or neglect.

Would you deprive your child of the immunizations they need to fight off contagious diseases just to shelter them from a minute or less of crying? Or not put them in their car seat because they cry the entire car ride? No, right? There are things we do to keep our children safe that they simply don’t like or enjoy.

When we talk about baby’s stress response, we should also discuss cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone known for the body’s “fight or flight” instinct. Cortisol is also a coping mechanism for stress. Many experts, when they argue that sleep training is dangerous, talk about high levels of cortisol in babies.

A rise in the level of cortisol is not always dangerous unless it’s for extended periods of time, as in during a toxic stress response. Studies have shown that newborns have a cortisol response when getting a heal prick or even during a bath. During the next occurrence, although the babies cried, there was no increase in cortisol. They recognized this experience and thus had a positive stress response.

This is a perfect example of what happens during sleep training. After the first night there is not a rise in baby’s cortisol levels. Then after the 3^rd or 4^th night there’s very little crying before sleep.

We can’t learn to crawl or walk for our baby, just like we can’t learn to sleep for them either. But we can support them in the process, so they learn to fall asleep independently. The benefits far outweigh the temporary crying.

Myth 3: When parents ignore baby’s cries they learn to not respond to their baby’s other needs.

I have to laugh a little at this one. I read an article that talked about how when caregivers respond to the baby to prevent crying the baby actually becomes more independent. The author then went on to compare babies to rats and how low nurturing rat mothers can cause a rat to be anxious for the rest of its life. Really? We’re comparing a baby to a rat?

Furthermore, this author goes on to say that when babies are forced to self soothe alone, they learn to shut down, stop growing and stop feeling. Mind you this was from an article written in 1998, over 20 years ago. I’m not sure how sleep training could cause a baby to stop growing or feeling.

Do you remember things from when you were a baby? I certainly can’t recall if I was sleep trained, rocked to sleep or even when I started walking. Sleep training is not something that we are going to remember when we get older. Learning to sleep well independently, however, is something that will help our children be better sleepers as they grow.

From the moment a baby is born we are conditioned to respond to their every cry and need. We feed them, we cuddle them and we comfort them. We worry if they are hungry or wet or tired. Teaching our babies to self soothe so that they can sleep independently all night (I’m not talking about babies less than 6 months) is in fact filling a very important need. SLEEP! Our babies need sleep in order to grow and develop just as much as they do food. In fact, newborns spend as much as 14-20 hours a day sleeping. They spend more time sleeping than anything else.

Myth 4: Sleep training automatically means leaving your baby to “cry it out”.

There are so many different methods of sleep training, many of which don’t follow the “cry it out” methodology. When my youngest was 9 months I was searching for a solution that was anything but “cry it out”. That’s when I found the Sleep Sense program and it changed our lives.

I became a Certified Sleep Sense Consultant because I truly believe this method is gentle and personalized for each family. The Sleep Sense method actually allows you to stay in your child’s room with them, if that makes you more comfortable. Most importantly, it works!

As I mentioned before, your baby is crying because they don’t like this new change. The crying is temporary because she’s confused; it’s just her reaction to the change. She doesn’t yet know how to fall asleep on her own without your help. The good news is that after a few days she will figure it out and then everyone will be sleeping well!

Overall, sleep training isn’t harmful, but actually beneficial. Studies have shown that shorter sleep durations (interrupted sleep) can actually increase the risk of a child developing depression, anxiety and poor cognitive performance. Unfortunately, this only gets worse as children get older due to the amount of time dedicated to school work and extracurricular activities.

As children, their bodies are designed to have the perfect sleep. This perfect state just deteriorates as we get older. Give your baby the gift of sleep now so they can sleep independently all night.

If you’re not sure where to start or want to learn more about a gentler more customized method of sleep training, schedule a free 15 minute evaluation call with me today.