Responding to Common Anti-Sleep Training Criticisms

The online world of information (or opinion) on infant sleep is overwhelming, conflicting and guilt inducing. Here are my responses to some common criticisms of gentle sleep training. 

1. ‘Sleep is a biological function’, not something that can be ‘taught or learned’. 

This is an over-simplistic and presumptuous argument. Of course sleep is a biological function but that does not mean sleep behaviour isn’t learnt and new habits cannot be taught. There is the physical act of sleeping (a biological function controlled by our circadian rhythm and hormones) and there is the way in which we learn to fall asleep and back to sleep - our expectations around sleep norms are learnt from our environment/culture and family. 

With no sleep training, a baby will ultimately grow into someone who ‘sleeps through the night’. That child or adult still has sleep cycles and wakes briefly between them but, usually, easily goes back to sleep between cycles. 

So no, ‘they can’t be taught how to sleep’, but a baby or child can be taught a new way of falling to sleep and back to sleep. My use of the word ‘can’ here is very intentional, it is not a must or a should, but a ‘can’. A baby/toddler/child learns how to fall asleep from what we do to assist them and how we respond to them. 

2. ‘The gift of sleep’ and ‘the biggest gift you can give your child is your time, love and connection’. 

This is a VERY provocative and guilt triggering thing to be saying to tired, overwhelmed parents who are desperately needing more sleep. Leaving your baby to cry it out is not the best approach to focus on connection and love and not all sleep training hinders the time, love and connection you have with your little one. You can encourage more independent sleep and increase self-settling skills whilst always remaining loving and responsive. 

The real ‘gift’ is in reducing parent’s anxiety and guilt as they struggle between a rock and a hard place of not feeling like they are parenting well because they’re so exhausted but not wanting to harm their child and ‘be selfish’ by sleep training. If you can support parents to either cope with their current situation better by understanding infant sleep and shifting perspectives so that it no longer feels so awful or overwhelming or offer a route whereby they can optimise sleep without harming their child, then these are the real gifts. 

3. ‘Gentle sleep training… there is nothing gentle about ignoring a baby’s cries. There is nothing gentle about withholding comfort/responsiveness for the sake of ‘teaching’ something it already knows how to do’

Touching on the first point again, infant’s know how to sleep but the teaching is in regard to how they fall asleep and back to sleep -  two separate things. 

Parents have reached out to me in the past because they’ve tried other sleep consultants who claimed to be gentle but then essentially told them to do cry-it-out or controlled crying. It is really sad that some families have this experience but this is not what all gentle sleep coaches and consultants do. Unfortunately the baby sleep industry is unregulated so many sleep consultants are not well trained or may be exploiting the gentle sleep movement. There are many sleep consultants, myself included, who are firmly against cry-it-out and controlled crying. I recommend looking at where a sleep consultant trained and their background beforehand so you can be sure this won’t be your experience before working with someone. If you’re interested in an example, here is a link to my own qualification in gentle sleep training.

Whatever you decide to do, be in a gentle approach to sleep training, continuing as you are, co-sleeping, making it up as you go along, know that as long as you are responsive and make your decision out of love not fear, guilt or ‘shoulds’ then this too shall pass. There’s no shame in asking for help and there’s no failure in surrender. It can help to take some time off of social media, search engines and books, to just tune in to your instincts on the topic and clear some of the noise.