Sleep Training for Babies or Survival Training for Parents?

In short

Babies waking at night may be normal. Parents being expected to function as though they haven't been awake half the night is where things get more complicated.

What we're talking about

• 0:00

  Unpacking the myth of perfect sleep and parental struggle

  “Is he sleeping through the night yet?” It's one of those questions that seems to follow new parents around. But what does “sleeping through the night” actually mean? And why does it so quickly start to feel like a measure of how well you're doing as a parent? My son wasn't a magical unicorn sleeper. Far from it. And like many exhausted parents, we tried a lot of things in the hope of getting everyone a little more sleep. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether our expectations of baby sleep were part of the problem.

• 4:32

  Where did baby sleep training come from?

  Sleep training isn't new. I look back at some of the ideas that have shaped the way generations of parents have been told to approach baby sleep, from Dr Luther Holt's The Care and Feeding of Children in the late 19th century to Dr Richard Ferber's graduated approach in the 1980s. These methods might differ, but they raise a bigger question for me: when did teaching babies to sleep independently become something parents were expected to actively achieve? And how much of that expectation is really about babies, versus making family life fit the demands of the world around us?

• 9:07

  Is the lack of support the real baby sleep problem?

  This is where my rant really begins. What if we've misdiagnosed a lack-of-support problem as a baby-sleep problem? Babies wake up. Parents need sleep. Both things can be true. But modern society has decimated much of the village that once helped parents cope, while still expecting us to raise babies as though that village exists. When parents are working, functioning, caring for other children, running homes and generally trying to remain vaguely human, broken sleep isn't simply inconvenient. It can become incredibly difficult to sustain. Perhaps the question shouldn't always be: How do we get the baby to sleep? Maybe it should be, Why are exhausted parents expected to cope with so little support?

• 11:19

  Are sleep regressions really regressions?

  Ah, sleep regressions. Just when you think you've cracked it, everything changes again. But I prefer to think of them as sleep wobbles. Because babies aren't machines running faulty software. They're growing, changing and developing, and their sleep can change along with them. My son's sleep eventually improved at around a year old. Not because I'd finally discovered the magical parenting trick everyone else knew. He was simply ready. It made me question how much unnecessary anxiety comes from comparing our babies with arbitrary milestones and other people's children. Different babies have different rhythms. Perhaps that's allowed.

• 15:38

  Why does modern parenting make baby sleep so stressful?

  Sleep training itself isn't necessarily the villain here. There are different approaches, including more responsive methods, and every family is dealing with its own baby, circumstances, needs and limits. What interests me more is the environment in which parents are making these decisions. We're expected to encourage independence, establish routines, return to work, function normally and somehow remain patient and emotionally available while potentially surviving on fragmented sleep. So how much of what we call a “sleep problem” is actually the collision between normal baby behaviour and the realities of modern life?

• 17:41

  Practice self-kindness and connect with community

  If you're currently in the trenches of baby sleep, this isn't about telling you there's one correct way to handle it. It's about giving ourselves a little more grace. Do what works for your family. Ask for help when and where you can. Find the people who make you feel less alone. And remember that the phase you're in right now isn't necessarily forever. These days, my son has Froggy, his beloved comforter, and thankfully his sleep is a very different story. Turns out babies change. Who knew?

The takeaway

• Baby sleep is individual, and “sleeping through” isn't a parenting achievement badge.
• Sleep training exists in a much wider context of parental exhaustion, work, expectations and limited support.
• Sometimes the problem we're trying to fix in the baby may actually be a problem with the environment parents are expected to function within.
• Different approaches work for different families. There doesn't have to be one universally “right” answer.