What The Fuck Is Happening?
Sleep Is Not a Skill: Normalizing Infant Sleep with Gillian Harrison
May 10, 2023
Season 3
Episode 18
Sammy & Rick Sniegowski
Holistic Sleep Specialist and Mama, Gillian Harrison, joins in on a conversation with Rick and Sam all about one of the things parents seem to be super stressed out about: sleep! Gillian shares her mission in normalizing infant sleep, how she approaches naps and nighttime sleep with her own daughter, and why sleep training not only doesn’t work in the way many parents think it does, but how it may be causing more harm than good.
In this episode:
- Realistic expectations surrounding infant sleep
- The detriments of sleep training
- The Holistic Sleep approach
- Why “self-soothing” is a myth
- The importance of co-regulation
- Alternatives to the “cry-it-out” method
- What’s the deal with wake windows?
Show References:
- What Really Happens When Babies Are Left To Cry It Out?: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies
- Paavonen EJ, Saarenpää-Heikkilä O, Morales-Munoz I, Virta M, Häkälä N, Pölkki P, Kylliäinen A, Karlsson H, Paunio T, Karlsson L. Normal sleep development in infants: findings from two large birth cohorts. Sleep Med. 2020 May;69:145-154. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2020.01.009. Epub 2020 Jan 20. PMID: 32087408
- Pennestri MH, Burdayron R, Kenny S, Béliveau MJ, Dubois-Comtois K. Sleeping through the night or through the nights? Sleep Med. 2020 Dec;76:98-103. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2020.10.005. Epub 2020 Oct 10. PMID: 33130350.
- Marie-Hélène Pennestri, Christine Laganière, Andrée-Anne Bouvette-Turcot, Irina Pokhvisneva, Meir Steiner, Michael J. Meaney, Hélène Gaudreau, on behalf of the Mavan Research Team; Uninterrupted Infant Sleep, Development, and Maternal Mood. Pediatrics December 2018; 142 (6): e20174330. 10.1542/peds.2017-4330
- Hall WA, Hutton E, Brant RF, Collet JP, Gregg K, Saunders R, Ipsiroglu O, Gafni A, Triolet K, Tse L, Bhagat R, Wooldridge J. A randomized controlled trial of an intervention for infants' behavioral sleep problems. BMC Pediatr. 2015 Nov 13;15:181. doi: 10.1186/s12887-015-0492-7. PMID: 26567090; PMCID: PMC4643535.
- Price, Anna & Wake, Melissa & Ukoumunne, Obioha & Hiscock, Harriet. (2012). Five-Year Follow-up of Harms and Benefits of Behavioral Infant Sleep Intervention: Randomized Trial. Pediatrics. 130. 643-51. 10.1542/peds.2011-3467.
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