Sleep Training: What You Need to Know

“Sleep training” is a term used with the end goal of increasing night sleep in infants and young children, addressing “sleep concerns”, and decreasing nighttime wakings.

There are SO many different sleep training methods out there – it can feel confusing and overwhelming to know what’s right for YOU and YOUR BABY. When it comes to sleep training, consistency is important to see results. To stay consistent, you will need to feel comfortable and confident with your sleep training method. 

You want to wait until your baby is between 4-6 months and developmentally ready for any sleep training. This is always something you want to discuss with your pediatrician and get the “okay” for your baby.

There are three main categories that any sleep training method will fall under: NO involvement, MODERATE involvement, and HIGH involvement. 

No Involvement Sleep Training

Also known as extinction or “cry it out”. With this approach, parents take their baby through their bedtime routine, cuddle with them, give them a kiss goodnight, and then leave the room. If the baby cries, the parent does not respond. Eventually, the baby tires themselves out from crying or self-soothes back to sleep.

This method is well-known and what most parents think of when they hear the term “sleep training”. Some families opt for this method if their baby becomes too overstimulated or frustrated with their soothing attempts, making it harder for them to settle. In my experience, I have found that this method can be difficult to stay consistent with due to the absence of parental involvement.

Moderate Involvement Sleep Training

Also known as the “Ferber method”, “gradual extinction”, or “timed checks”. With this approach, parents follow the same routine of taking their baby through their bedtime ritual, cuddling them and kissing them goodnight, and then leaving the room and shutting the door.

For the first few nights, the parents immediately return whenever the baby cries, soothing them and ensuring they’re calm before leaving the room again. After the first few nights, parents gradually increase the amount of time they let the baby cry before reentering the room, eventually reaching a point where the baby self-soothes.

High Involvement Sleep Training

Some common high-involvement methods include “pick up put down” or the “chair method”. With this approach, parents are fully involved and present to help their child work towards independent sleeping skills. High-involvement methods can be less emotionally stressful since parents can respond and be present with their child, but it’s important to understand that it may take longer to see results.

Note: The “pick up put down” method is an appropriate strategy for babies between 3-8 months of age. Once your baby reaches 8 months, the chair method may be more suitable for this age to avoid over-stimulation. 

“Is there a no-cry sleep training method?”

If you’re implementing a sleep strategy to help your baby find more restful nights, chances are you’re going to be changing how your baby’s night wakings are typically handled. Maybe you’re replacing or removing a sleep association, such as feeding to sleep. Maybe you’re currently co-sleeping and transitioning your baby to their own sleeping space. Whatever the reason you’re deciding to sleep train – it’s going to be a change for your baby. Change is HARD! It’s hard for us as adults, and it’s hard for babies and children as well. At first, your little one may resist this change, leading to tears — which we can still be present and responsively support them through this change. The first night of sleep training is always the most difficult and parents need to understand this so they can be mentally prepared and able to stay consistent with their sleep strategy. 

“Can I breastfeed and sleep train?”

Yes! You absolutely can. When you choose to sleep train, that doesn’t mean you have to completely STOP night feedings. Whether you are breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, formula feeding, or combo feeding – you can still sleep train! As a result, your night feeds will become more organized and predictable. 

“Is sleep training safe?”

This is a question I’m extremely passionate about answering due to the increase of sleep shaming in the parenting world. If you were to do a quick Google search of this question right now, you will get a variety of articles supporting sleep-training and its effectiveness, as well as articles detailing the extensive long-term damage sleep training will do to your child. At the end of the day, there is not enough research for us to be told that sleep training harms our children. The variety of studies that have been conducted have studied infants in sleep labs, outside of their home, where their cortisol (stress hormone) is already high being in an unfamiliar environment. Many articles by opponents of “cry it out” are based on the study done on children from Romanian orphanages who had almost no adult contact as infants and children. They were left in their cribs for years with virtually no human contact, resulting in very late physical development, in addition to mental and psychological costs. Researchers who visited these children found the children could not form bonds with others, and many of them have struggled their whole lives.

This influenced the attachment-parenting philosophy, including views on the use of “cry it out.” Infants and babies didn’t cry, because they knew no one would come. The argument is that “cry it out” is the same thing: your baby will stop crying because they know you will not come, just as the children in these orphanages did — and just as in those settings, their ability to attach to you and others will be forever changed.

This is simply not comparable to the experience of most infants whose parents use “cry it out” methods. None of these suggest leaving the infant for months without any human contact or subjecting children to the other types of physical and emotional abuse common in the Romanian orphanage experience.

While much of the popular discussion of sleep training focuses on its possible harms, most of the academic literature focuses on its possible benefits, including not only improvements in infant sleep, but also benefits to the parents! Sleep-training methods consistently improve parental mental health; this includes less depression and lower parenting stress.

I understand that there is a concern about the long-term effects sleep training can have on your child. This study was run in Australia, with 328 families recruited when their babies were eight months old. The authors first showed that the intervention improved sleep and lowered parental depression. They returned to evaluate the children a year later and, most notably, five years later, when the children were almost six. In this later follow-up, the researchers found no difference in any outcomes, including emotional stability and behavior, stress, parent-child closeness, conflict, parent-child attachment, or attachment in general. The children who were sleep-trained were exactly like those who were not.

I think it is fair to say that it would be good to have more data on the topic—it’s always good to have more data! However, the idea that this uncertainty should lead us to avoid sleep training is flawed. Among other things, you could easily argue the opposite: maybe sleep training is very good for some babies and children — especially if they need uninterrupted, restorative sleep.

You could also argue that the effects of maternal depression on children are long-lasting, and therefore this intervention may have beneficial long-term effects. 

At the end of the day, you don't HAVE to do anything with your baby that makes you uncomfortable or goes against your family values. These are all OPTIONS for you to sleep train your baby and be aware of the different types of sleep training strategies.

Parenting choices should be made free from judgment or societal ostracization. You deserve to exercise your parental rights without fear of criticism. 

I’m here to support you on your journey – whatever that may look like for you. I’m here to educate you on setting healthy sleep habits early on for your baby in a loving, responsive way. I support you and how to choose to maximize the sleep you need for your mental and physical well-being. I am not opposed to co-sleeping, as long as it’s done safely. I am not opposed to feeding your baby to sleep as a form of soothing, if that’s what works for you and your baby. The only thing I’m truly opposed to is the fear-mongering and sleep-shaming in the parenting world — that’s a fight I’ll pick any day!