124: Understanding Baby Sleep: Biology vs Sleep Training

“Sleeping like a baby” is one of the biggest myths in parenting. In this episode, we strip back the noise around infant sleep and look at what the science actually tells us. From circadian rhythm development to night waking, we explain why babies don’t sleep the way we expect them to, and why that doesn’t mean anything is wrong. We explore the full spectrum of sleep training methods, from cry-it-out to so-called “gentle” approaches, and break down what they are really doing: not changing biology, but changing behaviour. We also examine the evidence behind sleep training, what improves (parent perception, sometimes sleep onset), what doesn’t (night waking), and why the conversation around “self-soothing” is often misunderstood. Finally, we talk about the modern sleep industry, the rise of rebranding, and how vulnerable parents are being sold solutions to a problem that may not exist in the first place. No guilt. No ideology. Just clarity. Proudly Sponsored by www.happytummy.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This show is part of the Head Stuff Podcast Network.

SPEAKER_07 0:07

Welcome to the Baby Tribe. I'm your host, Afi Felkafash, Neonatologist, Pediatrician, and Lactation Consultant, and my co-host is Anne Deharty, obstetric anesthesiologist. This episode of The Baby Tribe is sponsored by Happytummy.ie and Biogaia Arland. Biogaia contains the probiotic Lactobacillus Ruteri, the only clinically proven probiotic to help infants with colic. They also have probiotics suitable for the whole family, like Biogaia Prodentis for Oral Health, one of my favorites. Let's get on with the show. Let's start by absolutely destroying one of the biggest lies ever told to humanity. Slept like a baby. Whoever came up with that phrase has clearly never met a baby or a parent or reality. Because if I slept like a baby, here's what my night would look like. I'd wake up every couple of hours for no clear reason, wander into the kitchen like a confused raccoon, raid the fridge three times, occasionally cry for emotional support, and just for variety, pee and poo myself in bed. That is not a good night's sleep, that's a cry for help. And yet, this is the standard we hold babies to. Now here's the real irony. I live with an anaesthetist. My wife literally gets paid to put people to sleep. Highly trained, years of experience, can knock out a fully grown adult in seconds. Couldn't get her own kids to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Nope.

SPEAKER_07 1:30

Absolute chaos. No protocol, no drug, no guideline, just vibe. So today we're going to unpack this properly. We're gonna talk about what baby sleep actually looks like, why your baby isn't broken, and why a lot of what you've been told about sleep is frankly nonsense. And yes, we are going to get into sleep training, the evidence behind it, and the very slick rebrand that is happening right now where everything is suddenly gentle, responsive, holistic, but somehow still ends with your baby sleeping alone on a schedule, like a tiny overworked consultant. So if you're listening to this at 3 a.m., holding a baby, questioning every life decision you've ever made, this one is for you. Anne.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_07 2:09

Welcome to the baby tribe.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Oh, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_07 2:11

Do you remember how crappy our babies were at sleeping?

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Oh, yeah, I know. But I think most babies are like I think we'll get into it today, but you know, it's it's the idea that your baby will just go down at like 8 pm and wake up at 8 a.m. the next morning is just ludicrous. Yeah. Absolutely ludicrous.

SPEAKER_07 2:31

Yeah. But um, spoiler alert, at this stage it's difficult to actually wake them up.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Oh yeah. Should the both of them have just barely like cracked an eyelid now.

SPEAKER_07 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Uh and it's 12 o'clock in the day. So at nearly the irony of ironies, and the one who refused to nap regularly puts herself down for a nap immediately after school for 45 minutes, and I'm looking at her going, Where was this when you were two, huh? And she can sleep anywhere. Yeah, but I did like the intro. Yeah. You know, the idea of like your baby just being like this little sleep machine. No, they're not. They're a doubly incontinent terrorist. It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_07 3:06

I think this episode is really important to do because there is still a lot of misinformation out there about sleep. And there is a lot of confusion about sleep training methods, what they really are, whether they work or not, whether they have any long-term effects on the baby in terms of neurodevelopment, whether they actually help parents, and this new trend of sleep consultants rebranding, because people are beginning to realize that sleep training words like cry it out may not be palatable or even at the moment. Like rebranding is interesting, and we'll talk about that. So, yeah, go. Let's let's do this. Let's do this.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

This what is normal for a newborn?

SPEAKER_07 3:49

I think one of the most important things for people to realize is that newborns, and when I mean newborns, we're really talking about the first six months of life. Newborns do not have a settled circadian rhythm. They do not recognize day, they do not recognize night. And they wake up regularly for feeds and they are far too young for routines. So it's not that they are bad sleepers, they're just uh immature sleepers. Their sleeping pattern is different to adults. And why is that the case? There's actually a biological and a physiological reason for the way they sleep.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 4:28

Babies are not meant to have a circadian rhythm because they need to feed little and often, especially over the first couple of weeks. This is almost a survival mechanism that helps them wake up to feed, reduces the risk of sudden infant death. It is something that even adults do naturally without us realizing.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

That's a really good point.

SPEAKER_07 4:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

So we all wake up multiple times during the night, change our positions, roll over in bed, and we're back asleep and we just don't remember it.

SPEAKER_07 5:00

Yeah, so adults have a 90-minute sleep cycle. Okay, whereby they go into deep sleep and then they actually go back to very shallow and light sleep. And as adults, we wake up, we just don't remember that we do. Because we have learnt to, and I'm doing inverted commas, self-soothe. Okay. Yeah, now you're hitting trigger words. And I'm sure a lot of you will relate to this. When you are generally stressed, overtired, have a lot on your mind, sick and unwell, you're far more likely to become aware of your sleepwake cycles and wake up in the middle of the night and find it hard to go back to sleep.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

And feel a bit fraught and all that kind of stuff. Okay. And that is your inability to soothe yourself back asleep because of the circumstances that are in your life at that point in time. The expectations that we have is that the baby will become like us maybe sooner than they're able to.

SPEAKER_07 5:55

Yes, exactly. We all hear about the average sleep duration that babies do in a 24-hour period. What is important to emphasize is that is an average. So a recent study was done actually in Ireland that looked at the duration of sleep in a hundred healthy babies. And what that study showed is that healthy babies between the first four months of age can sleep for as little as eight to nine hours in a 24-hour period total.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 6:29

To as much as 18 hours. And that doesn't change much over that four-month period. Okay. And there is no real circadian rhythm in that pattern, meaning that they don't sleep more at night and less during the day. Gotcha. Even the duration of their sleeping episodes varied hugely from as little as 45, 90 minutes to as long as two to three hours.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Okay, so you're finally starting to get to know your baby's lack of circadian rhythm. You hit one of these phases of what's called sleep regression. And you know where kind of the baby's about four or five weeks and you've kind of finally settled down, you're getting over the shock of having a baby, the baby stops sleeping, you're wondering what have you done wrong? Have you introduced something that's now upsetting the baby? What is it?

SPEAKER_07 7:14

There's a lot of studies that show what we're observing, regardless of the label, is actually a real thing. So babies, when they go through developmental bursts in their brain, which can happen in terms of increasing their sensory awareness of the world around them, their need for soothing during the night can also change. So it's not that the babies are sleeping less, but they may change from needing less prompting to go back to sleep and they go through less signaling, meaning that they're not calling out for your help, to going through a phase of calling out more because they need that support, because they're going through a big developmental change.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 7:56

And then that slowly subsides again. There is a phase between three to four months of age, sometimes a bit longer, where babies tend to signal more than in the early new more period, and then after that four to five months phase. And that's what people label as sleep regression.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

And does that coincide with like a growth spurt, needing to feed more? Because I remember people used to say, Oh, at six weeks they do six to eight weeks they do a growth spurt, they'll be waking up more. At four or five months, same thing again.

SPEAKER_07 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

So is that is it it tends to coincide with a physical growth spurt as well, does it?

SPEAKER_07 8:30

Yeah. So this is highly dynamic. This setback or change in sleep pattern can coincide with illness, can coincide with teething, it can coincide with a growth spurt. And the thing to be mindful of, and we'll talk about routines soon, is that there's this desire or instinct to change what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 8:49

Because the pattern has changed. Yeah. And the recommendation I would give is as much as you can, try and keep what routine you've developed. And if you start changing things, that actually confuses the baby even more.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

So I suppose it's just about having confidence in where you were. It's not that something has gone wrong, you haven't done anything wrong. Yeah. Just you keep on staying in the same place and the baby will come kind of back towards you from the whatever little upset they have. There's so much of it that kind of would correlate with adult experiences in life as well. Like if you've had an illness, if you're particularly snotty, if you have a toothache, you know, you're not gonna sleep well. Yeah. Um, but you know, you'll still try and comfort yourself with all the same routine things that you would normally do.

SPEAKER_07 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

So it like definitely it's it's I suppose it's just more about context and understanding.

SPEAKER_07 9:39

Yeah. So I guess to summarize things that we've spoken about so far, baby sleep duration, sleep pattern is quite erratic in the early newborn period. And what babies differ the most is in the support they need to initially fall asleep on their own, and then whether they signal or not when they are going through their sleep cycles, yeah, and whether they need help to fall back asleep. That's where kids differ the most. And even as an adult, you need a bedtime routine. You can't just put your head on the pillow and fall asleep.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

No.

SPEAKER_07 10:12

Different people have different ways of actually falling asleep. Yeah. You know, you might read a book for a while, you might listen to soothing music, you might do a bit of meditation, um, you might doom scroll for a while. That's not um advisable. Not recommended, but people do it. But people do it. So we actually, as adults, still need help to fall asleep on a little comfort mechanisms. We do, and then to think that a newborn baby should be able to just fall asleep on their own without support is bonkers.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

And I think as well, because then if you have a baby who's in a period of adjustment with regards to their sleep or still learning how to sleep, it's it's so hard. You're so vulnerable because you're exhausted all the time. And you know, you're up as much as they are, if not more, to be honest, because they've fallen back to sleep and you're still checking on them. Yeah. And then you're potentially also making their food with your own body or making your food with your own hands. So you're up and down to do all of that, you're changing them. Then you have to look after yourself. And like remember, sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Everybody is literally on their last nerve, yeah, and everybody's really vulnerable. And this is where the sleep training narrative comes in. The language, and you know, I do end up being the language police sometimes, the language around this and the marketing around it can be very exploitative, yeah, geared toward parents who are just really trying to survive because one parent is at home relatively isolated and sleep deprived, and the other parent is trying to still perform at work, yeah, probably. Yeah. So, what kind of sleep training narratives are out there? Which ones should we definitely try to avoid, or is there are there any? And are there any ones that can actually help?

SPEAKER_07 11:59

Okay, you've asked me so many questions that I now have to try and go through.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Yeah, you'll be thrilled. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_07 12:04

I'll be thrilled. Words are really important. Rebranding is really important because it changes how we perceive and accept things. And I find it far easier to define sleep training by the mechanism rather than by branding. All of the different sleep training methods are designed to do a few specific things. Okay, reduce the reliance of babies on their caregivers to initiate sleep, or reduce the signaling when they wake up, as in reduce the crying when they wake up in between the sleep cycles, and number three, learn to soothe themselves back to sleep themselves. No sleeping method can consolidate sleep. So there isn't a sleeping method that will make babies naturally sleep for longer if they are not ready to do that. And that is something really important for people to recognize. The baby will sleep longer when they are ready biologically.

SPEAKER_04 12:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 12:56

The core aim would be a combination of less feeding to sleep, less rocking to sleep, less contact to sleep, delayed response to signaling, and more time alone in the cot, independent settling. Which means that one more dad get more sleep. Do you know of any sleep training methods? Have you heard of that?

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Oh, sure, there's a million of them. I think when when our kids were young, there was books coming out on all of this.

SPEAKER_05 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

And if some of it was cryed out, some of it was a very set sequence of things that you did to settle them. But all of these things were going to take like weeks and months. And sure, we were crippled with sleep deprivation. So I don't think we ever managed to really consistently do any of them.

SPEAKER_07 13:36

Let's start with the horribly named extinction method.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Where you I feel like the the pure firm that came up with that needs to be needs to be fired.

SPEAKER_07 13:47

Well, extinction, so you extinct the parents, not the baby. Well, that's that's the cry it at method. Okay. Okay, so that's the cold turkey, full extinction, no checks at all. You leave the baby cry.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

And they eventually learn not to signal.

SPEAKER_07 14:01

Yeah. I don't recommend anybody do that.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 14:04

Because I don't think that biologically that is actually fair or kind to the baby. The studies have shown that it creates undue stress on the caregivers.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Just remember, we're talking about little, little babies. We're not talking about toddlers who are trying to chance their arm for a later bedtime and stuff like that. That's a very different developmental phase.

SPEAKER_07 14:25

And the baby stops signaling because they have learnt that there is no response.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

On an energy cost-benefit kind of thing, they realize that they're expending all of this energy and they're getting nothing in return for it.

SPEAKER_07 14:36

Yes. Now, it is effective at reducing signaling.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Yes. It will definitely do that eventually. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 14:43

But the studies show that it only does that temporarily.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 14:46

And that if you compare babies that underwent this method versus babies that didn't, by a couple of months' time, they both sleep the same.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

You've moved that forward.

SPEAKER_07 14:55

Yes, a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

But uh potentially at a stressful cost. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 14:59

Then there is for everyone involved. Yeah. Then there is the graduated extinction, which is the otherwise known as the furber method, which is a gentler way of doing the cry it out, where you put the baby down awake and you return at set intervals and there is minimal interaction during the checks. So it's a gradual withdrawal of responsiveness rather than the cold turkey. Yeah. Right. Now, bear in mind when I'm going through these methods, different people will do different things under these headings. Yes. Okay?

SPEAKER_03 15:29

I'm just giving you a gist of the packaged differently depending on what product you're buying into, essentially.

SPEAKER_07 15:35

And there's something that I remember doing with Maggie, which is camping out. So you stay in the room, you gradually move further away.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Oh yeah. This is where you end up crawling out on the floor. And so many parents are gonna relate to this.

SPEAKER_07 15:48

Yes. So the camping out method reduces your presence instead of your response. So you are responding, but every night you're like move an inch away from the bed and an inch closer to the door. Yeah. And then I remember when I eventually got to the door, like she'd cry out again, and I have to reset the whole thing again.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Oh, it's a nightmare.

SPEAKER_07 16:07

Do you remember like when we take turns and I'd leave at six and I'll say, see you at nine?

SPEAKER_03 16:11

Yeah. Oh my god, I know. It was bananas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 16:14

So it feels gentler, but it's still moving a baby more towards independent sleep.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

But are we just treating ourselves as parents? Probably. Yeah. Okay. Probably.

SPEAKER_07 16:23

Then there's other variations, which is the pickup put down, and then there's the fading method. Wake windows don't exist. And the controlled feeding intervals. That and the full extension are not methods that would suit the baby's biology. Let's just put it that way.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Okay, that's a really good way to phrase it, actually.

SPEAKER_07 16:40

And I often find when you have a schedule-based method, you put your life on hold because you want to adhere to the schedule to a T.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

And let's say Because you're afraid you'll break the baby. You're afraid you'll break the baby. You may be getting some sleep and you're just terrified you'll break the baby.

SPEAKER_07 16:54

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SPEAKER_07 17:30

Visit happytummy.ie to learn more and give your crew the gift of a happy tummy and a healthy smile. Hey there, Baby Tribe listeners. Did you know that we've got some amazing bonus material just for you? Baby Tribe Shorts is here. Quick evidence-based breakdown of all things science when it comes to mum and baby. You can find it as part of the Head Stuff Podcast Network. You can subscribe to Head Stuff Plus for as little as 5 Euro a month. We'll give you quick evidence-based takes on science behind maternal and infant health.

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And the best part is it's just 5 euro a month, which helps support us and supports Headstuff and all the incredible shows they produce.

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You can find all the details on HeadstuffPodcasts.com.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

The other thing that we can potentially change is how easy is it for us to respond.

SPEAKER_07 18:26

That you've hit the nail on the head.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Because I got more sleep with my second. Yes. Because I had him closer.

SPEAKER_07 18:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

And because I breastfed for longer, because it was just easier to feed him that way, not because it was just my first was hard. Yeah. So we ended up doing a lot of top-ups and I had to wake up to make the bottles. Whereas with the second, because I was able to like feed him while I was pretty much half asleep. Yeah. We were both half asleep and then we felt like we slept more.

SPEAKER_07 18:51

Yeah. And my favorite method is the cue-based or the responsive approach.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

I know, but it's very hard at the same time of fee.

SPEAKER_07 18:59

No, it is. But let me go through it. So this is a non-training, or you basically follow the baby's cues.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

You wing it.

SPEAKER_07 19:04

Yeah. You respond to waking. There's no deliberate withdrawal of support either to put the baby asleep or soothe the baby back to sleep or respond to the baby when they signal. And that mechanism, we know, supports biological sleep maturation, but some babies will actually fall into a natural rhythm sooner. But you have less control, you're very vulnerable. And although it aligns with infant physiology, it may not work for you as a parent, and that is okay. Now I must emphasize you're not a bad parent for choosing to use any of those.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

Well, I think it sounds like that your baby will eventually hit some sleep rhythms. So you just need to find what works for you as a family in terms of where the balancing point is with all of those methods and with the baby, because every baby's different as well, and every family's needs are going to be different as your family like develops and as you have more kids. So I think it sounds really dynamic, which is a problem for people who need some structure in their lives. I think if you're a very type B personality and you're just fly by the city, your pants sure will wing it anyway, and that's how you're comfortable, great. But a lot of the time, life doesn't allow you to be that flexible. And I think that's where the conflict and the stress comes in.

SPEAKER_07 20:23

People ask, have any of those sleeping methods been assessed scientifically? And what are the results of those studies? So there are actually a lot of studies on various sleep methods as whether they help in baby sleep or not. But before we go through them, I want to caveat a few things. A lot of studies will mix and match the different sleep interventions in the intervention arm. So they're not really looking at one sleep method, they're looking at sleep training, and it can take the guise of a combination of what we've just discussed. Okay. And then the numbers of babies and parents enrolled in those studies are generally quite small. When you look at the outcomes, a lot of the outcomes are reported by parents rather than actual sleep studies on the babies.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 21:16

If you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Objective measures.

SPEAKER_07 21:18

Exactly. So the evidence base then as a result is quite messy and a lot messier than the sleep industry would have you believe.

SPEAKER_05 21:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 21:30

If you look at sleep training in general, there was a recent systematic review that grouped a lot of studies together, and again, those studies have all had different sleep training methods in them. But what they do show is that it reduces parent reported child sleep problems and improved maternal sleep quality. But there was no significant difference in the number of child night awakenings. So what it generally shows is it will not change the baby's biology, but it may change your perception of.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Exactly. So much of what you're advised to do is what those parents just happened to be trying when the child hit that point of maturation, be it food, sleep, toilet training, any of this. Like there's no one method that everybody says, this is it, this is what you do, this is what works. It's just what they happen to be trying when their child hit that maturity point.

SPEAKER_07 22:28

Yes. I guess the most important point to make is that some of those sleep interventions may change signalling. Does it depend on the method? Generally, no, because the biology is so different, the cry it out method can have very quick results in terms of reducing the signaling.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_07 22:44

Temporarily. But what the studies show is that that causes huge stress and anxiety with parents. But the other methods in general can, with varying effects, reduce how the babies signal.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 22:58

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Is there a difference between the different methods and say childhood anxiety, bonding, all of that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_07 23:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Kind of exp affection within the family, all of those kind of things that parents worry about with attachment.

SPEAKER_07 23:14

There is no obvious lasting effect and no obvious lasting impact on how a baby turns out.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Okay. Even regardless of what method you decide is right for your family, it's not going to affect your child's attachment to you as a parent. And it's not going to wire them for like stress for the rest of their lives.

SPEAKER_07 23:35

Exactly. And that's really important to realize. It's really important. I don't want parents to feel bad because parents may be listening to this that have tried some sleep.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

But you'll try anything. You'll try anything.

SPEAKER_07 23:45

And they may have heard that these sleep methods can harm babies.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

I remember being told that.

SPEAKER_07 23:51

There is no evidence from the studies that it has a long-term impact. And you have to remember a lot of these studies, there's a lot of confounders there, right? So a baby that had disturbed sleep, whereby you employed, let's say, the cry-ratt methods that ended up having anxiety, there may be other circumstances that have led to all of the above.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 24:14

Rather than it being that the sleeping method that have led to anxiety. One thing that I can for sure push back on in terms of sleep training methods.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 24:24

I would highly not recommend that you employ any of them in the first six months.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Okay. So in the first six months, you do not believe that sleep training is a good idea.

SPEAKER_07 24:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

That's a long time.

SPEAKER_07 24:37

Most of the studies that we've just described have had very few babies under six months.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

Ah, that's a bit of a mic drop.

SPEAKER_07 24:46

Why sleep training sits awkwardly with infant biology in the first six months? We've we've talked about this before, but just to kind of emphasize, there is an immature circadian rhythm. There's nothing you can do to change that. Right? Night feeding is normal and is important for babies. They will have to wake up to feed because they, especially in the first four months, they can't last.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

No, they can't last six, eight hours, like on average.

SPEAKER_07 25:08

On average. Most babies can't. Yeah. Proximity to a parent that's regulatory, it's not a bad habit.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

This is true because we talk about how like kangaroo care, skin to skin, for very, very small babies. It helps them regulate everything from their heart rate, their breathing, and their body temperature. Yes.

SPEAKER_07 25:28

And we know that in this age group, separation from parents can actually raise cortisol levels in babies. No.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Sure. It doesn't mean that you're wired for stress for the rest of your life. Correct. But it is acutely stressful at the time.

SPEAKER_07 25:40

It is acutely stressful. Arousal is actually part of safe infant physiology.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

When you say that though, if you do have a baby that one of those very few babies that happen to be able to sleep six hours early on, it doesn't mean that they're at higher risk of sudden infant death.

SPEAKER_07 25:58

And that's a really good point that you bring up because you follow the baby's natural biology and cues. And as we said at the beginning of the episode, there's huge variation in that. So maybe just to kind of summarize everything we've spoken about, because some parents may be confused. Sleep training can work in some babies, generally after six months, by changing behavior around normal infant sleep onset, feeding, proximity needs, signaling. It does not suddenly make infant biology more adult-like.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

There's no right or wrong way to do it. You're just trying to survive those first few months until the baby starts to mature into a more steady circadian rhythm.

SPEAKER_07 26:39

Which brings us on to the sleep training industry.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Oh my god. Yeah. Well, I think people can hear from the chat already, like we're all primed just desperately looking for a solution, aren't we?

SPEAKER_07 26:53

No. I have nothing against people that call themselves sleep consultants.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

No, that's fair. Experts are experts.

SPEAKER_07 27:00

The problem is this is not a regulated term.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 27:03

I can call myself a sleep consultant tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 27:06

And start giving advice. There is an extra bit of work for parents to do. And the consultant training sites themselves frequently acknowledge that sleep consulting is not a regulated field. You may get marketing accreditation, you may get certification, but it's more of a business credential. There are sleep consultants that I really like that are psychologists.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 27:26

You know, we had Emma Bagnall on our on our episode a few times, and she's one of the consultants that I always refer parents to because she has the approach of acknowledging the variability in sleep in babies and giving parents tools to empower them to deal with this variability.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Excellent.

SPEAKER_07 27:45

Some of those may employ some of the training methods that we spoke about. But this is acknowledging that it's not going to change the baby's sleep behavior, it's going to change how you are and how you respond.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 27:56

Which is what the studies show.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 27:58

Pretty much. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

How you survive the signaling.

SPEAKER_07 28:00

Yeah. The problem is now why it's becoming confusing is that a lot of the sleep industry now have become very fluent in soft language.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Marketing experts.

SPEAKER_07 28:09

Yes. So they don't say sleep training anymore, they say responsive sleep training, gentle sleep support, holistic sleep consulting, sleep ability, emotionally attuned independent sleep. It's all the same stuff repackaged. And when you actually end up looking at what they do, it is one of them sleep training methods that we spoke about already.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Yeah. I know it's it's about the integrity and sincerity behind it when you're actually targeting very vulnerable people who are at the end of their tether and probably don't have a truckload of cash to bandy around either, like exactly to be exploitative.

SPEAKER_07 28:50

So what are the evidence-based alternatives to doing nothing? Yeah, tell us. The first thing people need to do is that they need to acknowledge that night waking during infancy is normal. Yes. Okay. If you are breastfeeding, having the baby in close proximity to you is also easier. Easier and acceptable. And we have done an episode in the past, please go and listen to it about safe co-sleeping. Cue-based approaches to the baby sleep pattern rather than early, rigid clock-based expectations are better in the early newborn period. But you can do things to support the development of a circadian rhythm.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 29:32

So I think doing a routine that works for you will help support that. Will help support that.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

But not to be so rigid that you feel like you can't leave the house if you have to.

SPEAKER_07 29:41

Correct. I was even more talking about a nighttime routine. Like parents with newborns are rarely going to be out after 6 p.m. You know what I mean? This is true. This is true. But what I'm saying is, yes, implement a routine, but don't expect miraculous results early on.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 29:58

But babies will slowly take to the routine. And I think the most important thing to do if you have a routine is to try not to change it if they go through a change in their sleep patterns. I mean sleep regression.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 30:12

And as the baby matures, those nighttime calming routines actually work really well.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 30:17

And you you know yourself, you got into a routine of singing to them, even though they still didn't consolidate their sleep, at least they ended up but it's while you enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

It relaxes parents as well.

SPEAKER_07 30:28

Yeah. Sleep when the baby sleeps is such a bullshit term.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Thank you. I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_07 30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

I'm so glad that you said that. I really, really am. Because like you just have so many million things to do because life is still going.

SPEAKER_05 30:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

And unless you have a full-time housekeeper made cook chef person who's going to do everything for you, it's just not possible.

SPEAKER_07 30:52

Yes, but what is possible is to, if you can, try and share the load with other people and go easier on yourself in terms of having your house perfect. So you you literally go down to the bare necessities.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

Yeah. And some days covered in babysick is your best option. That's fine.

SPEAKER_07 31:12

Yes, and don't feel that you have to portray this picture of a put together person that has no issues. Because it's not real. Because it is not real, exactly. So sleep when the baby sleeps, bullshit.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Try and if occasionally you get to, fantastic, but that's about it.

SPEAKER_07 31:30

Yeah, exactly. So that's, I guess, are the principles that I like applying.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

Well, I think it's really reassuring, to be honest, yeah, for parents to understand that whatever you're doing to try and survive it based on your family's needs is okay. Yeah. And it's going to be different from family to family and person to person and child to child.

SPEAKER_07 31:57

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

And if you're surviving at fair play.

SPEAKER_07 32:01

Normal sleep is variable, fragmented, cue-driven, and biologically immature.

SPEAKER_05 32:07

A bit like yourself.

SPEAKER_07 32:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 32:08

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_07 32:09

Sleep training can produce modest short-term gains for some families after six months of age in general. It does not provide an extension of their sleep duration. You need to also recognize that night waking is not a pathology, and babies will need feeding, holding, and comforting. And that is just their biological norm, especially early on. And always remember to employ safe sleeping practices. Babies are not broken, they're just babies.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

And the next person who says, Are they good? Do they sleep for you?

SPEAKER_07 32:42

Punch them in the face.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Well, no, we can't advocate violence, but we can advocate a really stern look.

SPEAKER_07 32:48

Sometimes that's worse than violence.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

When done right.

SPEAKER_07 32:51

Okay, thank you. Bye. The Baby Tribe is proudly sponsored by Happytummy.ie, the exclusive distributor of Bayagaya Probiotics, providing support for gut and oral health for the whole family.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

This show is part of the Headstuff Podcast Network, a hub for the creative and the curious. Shows are produced in association with Headstuff and the Podcast Studios Dublin. Find out more or become a member at Headstuff Podcasts.com.