The ‘Skill’ of Independent Sleep
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.
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.
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.
Most people think toddlers should be sleeping through the night and that any wakings reflect some fault of the parents. New research on toddler sleep suggests otherwise.
I get a lot of people angry that I speak out against extinction sleep training because it "worked" for them. I thought I'd start a post that allows me to respond publicly to these criticisms so I don't have to repeat myself over and over.
I feel like sleep trainers are like a mythical monster where every time you cut off one head with science and reason, two more take their place that are even more dangerous than before. In the last few months alone, the media has highlighted this method of locking your child in a room for 12 hours a day under the guise of “helping” your child and a method of sleep training newborns by not feeding them at night.
Doctors, family, and baby "experts" like to promote cry-it-out and controlled crying as forms of sleep interventions for infants despite protests that it ignores infant communication and stresses parents out. What if, contrary to what parents are told, it also doesn't really work too well?
In pondering the use of CIO and CC further, I start to wonder if those of us who speak out against sleep training may be inadvertently setting families up to fail. Hear me out…
Often when I write about crying-it-out or controlled crying, I get comments from people who have done it asking what else they should have done in their sleep deprived state. The question concerns me because it highlights not only how mainstream the idea of leaving a child to cry has become, but also about how ignorant society is as a whole about the alternatives to sleep training.