By Good Night Consultant
I’m often confronted with individuals bombarding me with statistics (they have read on this VERY credible Google source called [email protected]) of how sleep training is “bad” for you. Often this is a taboo subject in my industry because of all the negative connotations around it. Phrases like “crying it out” have often scared parents right out of considering parenthood.
I know I am putting my head on the block by commenting on it, but I feel that it is such an important question that it cannot NOT be addressed.
My personal opinion (and I’m keeping this to my personal opinion although it is also my professional opinion) is that sleeping is a skill that we need to teach our children. It is a skill and a discipline. It is us (as parents) that often interfere with the process of learning how to sleep well (with bottled, dummy’s rocking etc) .
It has been proven over and over how sleep is fundamental to our well being, development and growth, so how can teaching your child to sleep better be wrong? I believe that making sure our children gets the sleep that they need is so much more important than our own predispositions towards phrases, methods or any other thing. Isn’t what is best for our child the most important thing here?
I’ve never met a client who has contacted me because they are selfish in wanting to “sleep through the night”. It is always about how bad sleeping habits in a family is creating havoc in their children and marriages life. It is not about us. It is about our children, and they need sleep!
I help parents to teach their children how to sleep, because honestly, it can be taught. And yes, sometimes your child will protest and cry, because that is what children do when they don’t get their way – they protest change!
And think about it, if it was as easy as to just leaving your child to cry (or “crying it out”) will parents pay me to tell them that?
So always follow your instinct, you have been chosen to be your child’s parent because you are best person for the job. And if co-sleeping works for your family (and EVERYONE, including Dad – is happy about this and gets all the sleep they need) then who am I to say that that is wrong?
However, if the current set up is not working, with unhappy tired and cranky parents (and children, and babies!) then do something about it! Because you can!
#sleeptraining