When you talk about stress and sleep training, you often get two polarized views: Either the stress is so great it has to cause irreparable harm or it's fine or even beneficial. Yet neither really captures the whole story.
For the majority of human history, we have shared sleep with our infants which has led some researchers to speculate that this is related to the development of secure attachment, but this has yet to be studied... until now. The results may surprise some people.
It seems that messages on bedsharing differ depending on where you are. If everyone is looking at the same evidence, why are they coming to different conclusions? A look at the research suggests not everyone is looking at it the same way...
Does bedsharing with a 10-year-old of the opposite sex constitute abuse? Should it be the thought that we first have when we hear of such a situation?
With yet another "safe sleep" campaign that focuses on fear-mongering over education and real statistics, it's time we looked at what is going on and why these campaigns continue to not work.
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.
Parents often worry that their child isn't getting the magical number of hours of sleep. New research suggests we can ditch the idea that there is a magical number for it doesn't seem to influence outcomes at all.
Two new pieces of research highlight the intricate relationship between feeding method and sleep in infants, notably how parents perceive their child's sleep. Importantly, there are implications for the idea of building "bad habits" and sleep training.
"Gentle" parenting or sleep training is making the rounds as an "it" thing, but is all of it actually gentle? Sadly there are too many wolves out there dressed up as sheep and it's up to us to identify the real gentle help from the pretend stuff.
Recent research suggests that "sleep problems" at 18 months carry a higher risk for later emotional and behavioural problems. What can we take from this research? Is it valid? Does it support things like extinction sleep training?
