Sleep Training IS A Feminist Issue (Just Not in the Way You Think)
A piece is making the rounds claiming that sleep training is a feminist issue. I think it is too, just not the way the original author believes.
“Shut the Door and Walk Away”
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.
How Effective is Controlled Crying? (Hint: Not Very)
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?
Stress and Synchrony: Implications for Sleep Training
New research suggests stress can be "caught"; that is, mothers can pass their stress onto infants by touch. Does this provide support for sleep training? I am going to show you here why I think it does not at all...
Are We Setting Up Parents to Sleep Train?
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…
Gentle Sleep Resources
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.
Proving the Risk of Harm in Early Sleep Training
You know how everyone keeps saying it's up to us to prove the risk of harm from sleep training? Well, we have the beginnings of this with a new review piece looking at outcomes for sleep training of infants under six months of age.
Slate Gets on the Cry-it-Out Bandwagon
The entire tagline reads “A journal jumps on the Dr. Sears bandwagon to say sleep training is dangerous. Science says otherwise.” Let’s first get something clear – journals publish special issues all the time and journals publish research and opinion pieces and reviews from researchers who work in the relevant fields.
The “Life Lessons” Fallacy
Why I go crazy when I hear people say they are engaging in specific parenting practices in order to teach their baby/toddler/child about the real world.
Sleep Research and Parenting: What’s Relevant?
New research suggests that poor sleep leads us to be selfish and less grateful to others. What does this mean for parents? Should it mean anything?