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Hannah explains how she used sleep training methods with baby Ben. Dr Pamela Douglas 2016

Dr Pamela Douglas28th of Dec 202319th of Apr 2024

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In the video below, Hannah doesn't necessarily know that she's been using sleep training techniques, because the advice she's received about baby Ben's sleep has been given to her as if it is the best, most evidence-based way. But when you listen to Hannah, you'll hear that the way she's been trying to deal with Ben's sleep comes from the sleep training approaches.

Sometimes the names given to sleep training methods are confusing. For example, sleep training approaches are often described as being gentle, or as a kind of responsive settling. Because the neuroscience clearly shows that responsive care is best for your baby's development, many health professionals trained in sleep training methods like to believe that sleep training can be made responsive. But sleep training methods inevitably advise you to ignore or deliberately delay responses to your little one's communications or cues.

You can find out about sleep training and the problems with labelling sleep training as responsive here.

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What is meant by baby or toddler sleep training and will it help your little one wake less at night?

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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.

What is sleep training?

Sleep training our babies or toddlers isn't bad. But it is, in my view, outdated. Sleep training can make life with your baby or toddler much harder than it needs to be.

Many sleep programs now don't identify as sleep training, but continue to offer selected elements of it, at the same time as the sleep approach is promoted as gentle or responsive.

Sleep training aims to change the biology of your baby's or your toddler's sleep. It's based upon the (

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