Sleep problems don't harm your baby’s mental health and development but can seriously affect parent wellbeing

It's not true that low sleep need babies, or babies who wake excessively at night, are more likely to have behavioural or learning or mental health problems in later childhood.

• Babies with low sleep needs develop normally, even though they might always be low sleep need children and adults. Having a low sleep need baby does pose particular challenges for you as a parent, though. You can find out about caring for a low sleep need baby here.

• Babies who wake excessively at night also go on to develop normally. They will take the sleep they need over a 24-hour period. But these babies' very fragmented sleep pattern is not sustainable for parents. The baby's body clock needs a reset.

As a parent, you will naturally want to make sure your baby gets enough sleep to learn and develop and reach her full potential. If someone you trust tells you that your baby needs a certain amount of sleep to develop normally, and that you should sleep train, you might give that a try, because you want to do the right thing by your baby! Parents often experiment with sleep training because it's still the most widely used approach in health systems in the West. Trying things out is definitely a parenting strength.

But research shows that sleep training

• Doesn’t decrease the frequency of night-waking in babies. You can find out more here.

• Often increases parental stress or distress about baby’s sleep. You can find out more here.

• Doesn't improve developmental or mental health outcomes for children.

This might be surprising to hear. I don't recommend sleep training, because sleep training often makes life much harder than it needs to be for families. You can find out more here and here.

Excessive night waking, however, is not good for you, nor for your whole family. In The Possums Sleep Program, we work with your baby's body clock settings so that your baby returns to normal, more manageable night waking!

Selected references

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