CIO and Attachment: Is This What We Should Be Looking At?
Most people worry about sleep training affecting their attachment, but we don't see the in the literature. Why is that? And is that even what we should be concerned with?
Most people worry about sleep training affecting their attachment, but we don't see the in the literature. Why is that? And is that even what we should be concerned with?
A new meta-analysis examines if sleep training methods to improve sleep actually work to, well, improve sleep. Guess what? They don't.
The question of whether and how nighttime parenting affects attachment is still unclear. I review a study that helps elucidate at least part of this issue.
Contrary to the idea of sleep being a skill, it's really the idea of independent sleep that is the skill to be taught because it counters human biology.
The premise behind extinction sleep training is that infants (and toddlers) are being taught to "self-soothe"; however, this ignores key points of what self-soothing abilities can be expected from children and how distressed they are at the time of separation. Instead of focusing on these extinction methods, gentler methods that respect where the child is developmentally should be considered.
Too often health professionals promote sleep training without it being based on their expertise, but rather their personal beliefs. This leaves parents struggling.
Most people believe that they have to "teach" their infant to sleep, but the entire idea of sleep as a skill to be taught counters the fact that sleep is actually a biological process.
Too often people think the key to learning self-soothing is to be left to experience distress, but science actually tells us it's the opposite: we need co-regulation.
To counter the growing acceptance that night wakings are normal, sleep trainers seem to be taking to the bizarre. Welcome to "behaviourally biologically normal".
With all the statements being made by so many about sleep training, most to get parents to get on board, parents should know that most of these statements are myths, not backed by science.