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  • what is 'sleep training'?

A video about sleep training and one of the earliest systematic reviews showing it doesn't decrease frequency of night waking in young babies

Dr Pamela Douglas19th of Apr 202422nd of Apr 2024

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This article is part of a collection inside The Possums Sleep Program called Deeper Dive, which explores the more complex scientific, historical and social contexts in which families and their babies or toddlers live and sleep. You don't need to read Deeper Dive articles to be helped by The Possums Sleep Program.

This 20 minute video, recorded in 2014, addresses baby sleep in the first six months of life. It discusses

  1. What sleep training (or first wave behavioural approaches to baby sleep) are

  2. Problems that arise in researching this topic and interpreting the data (Associate Professor Peter Hill)

  3. The findings of the systematic review that Associate Professor Peter Hill and myself published in 2013, investigating the use of sleep training approaches in this age group.

You can find out about sleep training and the latest research here.

Selected references

Douglas P, Hill PS. Behavioural sleep interventions in the first six months of life do not improve outcomes for mothers or infants: a systematic review. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2013;34:497–507.

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Next up in why might sleep training make sleep worse?

Sleep training often makes baby or toddler sleep worse

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This article is part of a collection inside The Possums Sleep Program called Deeper Dive, which explores the more complex scientific, historical and social contexts in which families and their babies or toddlers live and sleep. You don't need to read Deeper Dive articles to be helped by The Possums Sleep Program.

How can sleep training make your family's sleep worse?

There are a number of ways in which sleep training can make your little one's sleep and your own sleep worse. Here are some examples.

Sleep training might result in

  • Your baby or toddler waking more often in the night after a few weeks, because advice to lengthen daytime naps gradually disrupts the body clock. You can find out about this for babies here, and toddlers here

  • You spending long periods of time trying to get your little one to go to...

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    Our babies and toddlers don't resist or fight sleep, though you might hear this said
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