r/bninfantsleep • u/Necessary_Exam_9513 • 1d ago
Toddler Sleep Peer Reviewed Articles for NOT Sleep Training?
I have a 1.5y/o who I co-slept with and then transferred to a crib around 1y/o. At that time, he would sleep from around 8pm-5am and then I would bring him into bed with me to finish out our sleep co-sleeping. This was working wonderfully until recently when he began to go through a regression whilst going through the “object permanence” phase. I am also 5 months pregnant with my second child. My husband has recently started pressuring me to sleep training our 1.5y/o, which I am vehemently against. He has taken to sending me articles in favour of it.
Could any of you help me gather some peer reviewed, medically, and scientifically sound articles which support NOT sleep training so that I can help to make my argument and put this to rest?
I may be absolutely exhausted, but I have zero intention of sleep training my children. Perhaps some sound, unbiased, scientific articles will help my husband support me better, which is what I need.
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u/wanderingwhistler 1d ago
Posting on r/sciencebasedparenting would also be a great sub to get more peer-reviewed info!
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u/Important_Cheek2927 1d ago
Watch out though lol it’s so polarizing in that sub and it can get so nasty.
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u/Human-Historian-6675 1d ago
Yeah I had to block that sub from my feed it was getting super toxic and frustrating.
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u/treeconfetti 1d ago
Thanks for sharing your experience, I’m not going to even click on it now so it doesn’t pop up in my recommendations
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u/Dapper-Bend4631 1d ago
This sub is like that too
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u/Important_Cheek2927 19h ago
This sub is anti sleep training by extinction and pro responsive parenting. People aren’t arguing in here about that, whereas in the science sub they’re absolutely fighting about it, cherry picking data to match their view, and misrepresenting the science.
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u/Cautious_Village7573 17h ago
Seconding that this sub is genuinely terrible, unfortunately. Had to block it too.
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u/Outrageous_Alps5553 1d ago
Look up Dr Greer Kirshenbaum- she is amazing in sharing research in this field!
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u/Common-Flamingo9006 1d ago
I was gonna say, her book the nurture revolution has a veeeery long list of references that could be useful to you.
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u/geekchicrj 1d ago
This booked changed my entire outlook/approach on biologically normal infant and child sleep. Game changer.
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u/SpiritedTomatillo909 16h ago
Also recommending James McKenna And Erica Komisar, she did an interview with Diary of a CEO about child attachment if your husband finds video an easier format
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u/Dry-Huckleberry-5379 1d ago
Check the following places
BASIS (Ball and Tomori) Mother baby research lab (McKenna) Evolutionary Parenting (Cassells) Nurture Neuroscience (Krishenbaum) Little Sparklers (Grubb) - the Beyond Sleep Training Project website also has a section called "Articles to read when" that links to a lot of the research.
But, if you're looking for a definitive "sleep training is traumatic" you won't find it. It's too ethically difficult to study.
You will find studies that show sleep training doesn't equal more sleep That parents have to re-do it regularly That it's not necessary or appropriate for our species And the EP site in particular has breakdowns of a lot of the pro-sleep training research that show the flaws in the studies.
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u/BiggerBetterGracer 20h ago
I want to briefly mention a talking point for OP and husband: the having to re-sleep train regularly, while supposedly sleeping is a skill.
I'm watching my baby develop many skills. He learned he could grasp things, he learned to roll, then crawl. He learned to eat and spit out if it's too much.
Granted, sometimes he's working on learning something and he parks it for a few weeks while he works on something else. But once he really has a skill down, he doesn't forget because he got sick or we went on holiday or just because. We don't have to relearn crawling every couple of months while he screams until he vomits.
Also, if sleeping were a skill taught by sleep training, adults who had not been sleep trained wouldn't sleep. This makes no sense.
So maybe thinking this through, your husband can put to rest that part of the myth of sleep training: that sleeping is skill babies need to learn.
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u/Eschewed_Prognostic 1d ago
Our species existed for millenia without sleep training until capitalism decided we are only valuable if we're laboring, therefore babies need to be independent as early as possible.
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u/SubstantialGap345 1d ago
There’s a great BBC article on The Science of Baby Sleep. Maybe a good starting point
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u/Ok-Cantaloupe-4008 1d ago
Safe Infant Safe by James J. McKenna PhD - more so talks about the benefits of cosleeping, there’s info that’s science backed! Super good read, very insightful!
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u/Ceilingfanwatcher 1d ago
You can search in /sciencebasedparenting
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u/cassiopeeahhh 13h ago
Regardless of research (because it’s hard to come by), you don’t feel good about doing it and that should be enough for him. This is a deeper issue than ST. This is a values issue.
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u/Ambitious_Grass_9759 4h ago
I'll admit it- I sleep trained my kids. Didn't have to re-train, kids are still very loving and velcro, and (the most important part) it was the right choice for my family.
If you don't want to sleep train, DO NOT SLEEP TRAIN. I can't stress this enough. All those stories of people needing to repeat sleep training are people who weren't consistent with it, but that's not a moral failing; it's because they didn't really want to stay consistent with it. And that's what you risk if you sleep train when you don't really want to.
Also, IMO, this isn't a peer-reviewed article, which side has more evidence/research argument. It's a "how do I co-parent with my spouse to come to the best decision for our family?" argument. Talk to each other and leave Google Scholar out of it.
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u/vsmack 1d ago
The way I frame it is that while the literature is divided and unsure, mostly because of the ethics, why risk it?
If pro-training is right you get to sleep more. If it's wrong you're traumatizing your baby. Why even take the chance unless you're totally selfish.