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If you are struggling to sleep train your baby, here is some good news. It might not be a great idea to sleep train the baby. You can happily say goodbye to the extra effort you have been putting into the ‘training session’. Relax while your baby learns when to sleep (1). Here are top reasons why you need not sleep train your baby:
1. Sleep Training Might Interfere With Your Baby’s Regular Sleep
Deep and prolonged sleep in babies might not be a good thing. We all have different sleep cycles. We wake up between each cycle and then transition into a new sleep cycle without even realizing it. Babies and young children have shorter sleep cycles lasting about 45 minutes each, as they wake up around 10 to 12 times a night.
While it could be difficult for parents to deal with, the frequent waking up of babies is not a bad thing because it safeguards them from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS.
2. Sleep Training Masquerades Babies’ Thought Process
Babies lack the skill to control their emotions. As adults, we are blessed with sophisticated neurological events that help in regulating our emotions. But babies are not gifted with such faculty. Therefore, by leaving babies to their own through sleep training, as a measure of self-soothing, we are mistaken to think that they are calming down. The reality is that babies might still be in the state of anxiety even if they look calmer outwardly.
3. Sleep Training Is Not A Long Term Solution
Studies which advocate that sleep training has no negative impact on babies showed that they have no long-term positive effect either (2). So, if you thought your sleep trained baby was sleeping differently from the untrained ones, you would be wrong.
4. Sleep Training Might Only Make Crying Worse
You are forcing your baby to sleep. So expect a lot of cries. Babies might also cry because they are anxious, scared, uncomfortable or hungry. Sometimes sleep training ends up making the babies distraught.
5. Sleep Training Doesn’t Stregnthen Baby’s Confidence In You
If your baby is wailing or crying, it has a reason. It wants your attention. But if you simply try to pacify her by pats, it won’t suffice. The child needs reassuring actions and caressing from you. But if you keep it superficial, your child could lose trust in you. Moreover, some babies go through Separation Anxiety, when you have to let your baby understand that she is ok and that you will not leave her at any stage.
6. Sleep Training Impacts Breastfeeding
Babies need to be fed several times in the night. They need to wake up to be breastfed. Getting up every now and then in the night is difficult for you, but is good for the baby. Sleep training might deprive the baby of the goodness of breastmilk during night.
7. Sleep Training Does Not Make Your Child Independent
It’s rather contrary. Your child will become independent only when it’s time, and it knows that it is secure enough. Forcing sleep to keep them detached from you will only cause more anxiety and make your child more dependent on you.
