What Not to Do During Sleep Training (and myths)

I’ll be the first to say there is no right or wrong way to sleep train– the only “wrong” thing is responding inconsistently to your little one. That can just be really confusing and won’t help you reach your goals!

There are also a lot of myths out there about infant sleep in general that we will debunk in this blog! Let’s cover:

• does sleep training harm baby

• how long does sleep training work

• solids and/or rice cereal will help your baby sleep better

• never wake a sleeping baby

• later bedtimes always equal later wake ups

• the only reason babies wake at night is out of hunger

• it takes months and hours of crying for a baby to learn to fall asleep independently

• babies sleep through the night (truth: none of us do!)

• your baby will sleep through the night at X age or X weight

• keeping a child up more during the day will them sleep better at night

• sleepy signs are always reliable

• teething causes all babies to sleep badly

does sleep training harm baby

I don’t think I’ve ever been more confident when I say NO– absolutely not. There is zero evidence/research on actual sleep training that suggests it’s harmful for your child. In fact, the best research study we DO have about sleep training is a 5 year follow up that shows sleep training does not negatively impact your baby.

You can also view this blog about attachment, self soothing, no cry sleep training, and myth busting a viral anti-sleep training article.

how long does sleep training work

Sleep training works for however long you utilize your response for. Sleep training is a behavior modification (meaning changes in how we respond to our child/not that we don’t respond to our child). I always say no response is better than an inconsistent response because inconsistency in how you respond to your little one is more confusing to them.

This is why I prefer to use responsive methods because you feel more confident reverting back to that method whenever things are off track vs something like timed checks or extinction. I feel like parents are more likely to throw in the towel when they’re not given tools on how to respond to their baby without introducing habits they don’t want to sustain after the fact.

solids and/or rice cereal will help your baby sleep better

Back in 2018, an article went viral claiming the early introduction (before 6 months) of solids helps babies sleep better. And it’s always the advice we were given when we had our first child who didn’t sleep – just put rice cereal in his bottle and fill him up!

Here’s the thing- babies wake for way more things than just hunger! 

In fact, this study found that there was no difference in adding cereal to bottles and a child’s sleep.

The viral study was flawed though (despite going viral 🥴). Here’s the truth about the article:

• the infants who were given solid foods only slept seventeen minutes longer

• The Enquiring About Tolerance study was designed to see if starting selected solid foods in infants prevents food allergies.

• they took other data collected during the study and analyzed it looking specifically at sleep information. (the data is often used to answer questions that the study was not designed to answer.)

• The night time awakenings decreased from 2.01 to 1.74 per night. This translates to about one fewer awakening every four nights, or a little bit less than two fewer awakenings per week.

More often, what we see is that babies do begin to sleep better around the time solids are introduced but that’s more of a correlation (or a coincidence) than a result of introducing solids/causation.

never wake a sleeping baby

I think this advice was given many generations ago, when in fact there are several reasons why you may actually want to wake a sleeping baby! Here are a few:

• to help differentiate between days/nights

• to ensure baby is getting enough feedings in

• to ensure baby takes an adequate number of naps (child dependent of course)

• to align naps with a sibling so parents get a break

Seriously, it’s okay to wake your baby– painful as it may be!

later bedtimes always equal later wake ups

Check out this blog about late bedtime for babies! While there are reasons going to bed later may work for your child (ie age and needing less overnight sleep), what we see most often is that going to bed later causes your child to be overtired. When this happens, they have more cortisol in their system which actually can cause them to wake EARLIER and have the opposite effect of what you’re going for.

the only reason babies wake at night is out of hunger

All babies have protective and biologically normal wakings throughout the night. They could wake because:

• They’re cold

• They’re sick

• They woke up and couldn’t put themselves back to sleep (unable to connect sleep cycles without help)

• They woke up somewhere other than where they fell asleep (this is confusing for them)

• A strange noise disturbed them

The list really could go on for why a baby may wake up at night and hunger is only one of them. Check out this blog about night time wakings for the research and how to handle them!

it takes months and hours of crying for a baby to learn to fall asleep independently

Sorry, but if that’s what’s happening then something is out of place in the sleep puzzle. This study found that on average, the first night of sleep training with a separation based method took about 45 mins and reduced from there over the course of 1-2 weeks.

When using responsive methods, I do find that it takes a bit longer the first night and a little longer for progress overall (ie gradual changes = gradual progress, trading tears for time or spreading the tears out throughout a longer period of time vs front loading tears).

If it’s taking hours a night and you’ve stuck with it consistently– stop and reach out for some help tweaking the response, routine, timing, etc.

babies sleep through the night (truth: none of us do!)

We all wake on average 2-6x a night. This is no different for our little ones. The difference lies in how they fall asleep and go back to sleep. In fact, research shows the greatest predictor in disrupted overnight sleep is parental presence at bedtime. Meaning, if they’re helped to sleep to start the night, they will likely need that same assistance to return to sleep throughout their many sleep/wake cycles at night.

If we were to go to sleep snuggling our favorite pillow and wake up with it suddenly gone, we’d probably have a hard time going back to sleep without that pillow!

your baby will sleep through the night at X age or X weight

As we’ve found in our research about night time wakings, sleeping through the night has nothing to do with age or weight. There are factors that can help them sleep through sooner that parents can control, but there’s no magic marker for age or weight unfortunately!

The biggest predictor in night time wakings in parental help at bedtime to fall asleep (ie more help to fall asleep = more night time wakings for that help to go back to sleep).

keeping a child up more during the day will them sleep better at night

Similar to late bedtimes, the problem with this is depriving kids from *needed* day time sleep can lead to an abundance of cortisol which is not the sleepy relaxing hormone we want our children to have throughout the night. Usually, this will have the opposite effect unless they’re truly of an age to drop their nap or nap less during the day. It’s all about balance and not just taking blanket/general advice.

sleepy signs are always reliable

Oh man, I wish! It would make life so much more simple. Some kids always have reliable cues, some are only reliable when they’re newborns, some show them some of the time, and some show tired signs even if they’re well rested.

No rhyme or reason 🙃 but check out this blog for more info on sleepy cues for babies!

teething causes all babies to sleep bad

Another blanket statement– some babies will be affected more by teething than others (and by certain teeth more than others). However, the research shows the disruption from teething is actually relatively short term. So if you’ve been sleeping terribly for weeks AND there’s no tooth coming through… it’s probably not teething. Here’s a blog that goes into more details.

If you’re really struggling with sleep and just can’t figure out the different puzzle pieces, that’s where working 1:1 with someone comes into play! We are able to take a step back from the situation and see the larger picture, identify what could be corrected, educate you on normal sleep, and help manage your expectations with specific methods like gradual ones. View those 1:1 options here!