Would you let your child scream for three hours as part of sleep training?
The great baby sleep debate has been ignited, yet again.
On Saturday, The Daily Telegraph stirred up controversy with a feature about parents trying the methods of “Babysleep doctor” Brian Symon. Dr Symon’s method – which he only recommends for healthy babies over six months – involves putting them to bed at 7pm, closing the door, and not opening it again till 7am, even if the baby cries for three hours.
Social media response was swift. Jacinta Tynan tweeted: “Babies vomiting & screaming. Controlled crying is cruel & inhumane. All babies want is love.”
Parenting author, Dr Justin Coulson, also weighed in: “If we did something like this to anyone or anything else who didn’t suit our lifestyle we would be charged with abuse. The babies stop screaming because they realise they are helpless. Cortisol floods their system creating enormous anxiety and stress. Crying it out may bring relief for some parents in desperate straits – but there are almost ALWAYS better ways of dealing with poor sleepers than anything this article suggests.”
Obviously, sleeping is a major issue for a lot of parents. Lack of sleep can be damaging for both parents and children. But I think we need to accept that babies and young children who don’t want to go to bed on their own aren’t just being difficult.
As American psychologist Dr Peter Gray points out, once you look outside Westernised cultures, babies and young children generally sleep in the same room as parents. In these other cultures, he says, parents don't have the same problems with getting their kids to go to bed.
