I wasn’t planning on writing a post this week.
Right now, I’m deep in book-writing hibernation. Tucked away in the mountains, surrounded by jagged peaks dusted with early snow. Fall leaves spinning down outside. Crisp air pouring in when I crack the window for fresh inspiration.
It’s the kind of uninterrupted quiet I’ve been craving to finally sink into the chapters that have been living in my bones.
Chapters about the magic of motherhood. The origins of sleep training. The way our culture has systematically reshaped what it means to care for a baby. (And how we can take it back!)
I’ve been writing about how this journey started for me, over a decade ago when our dry-humoured English midwife looked at my thirty-weeks-pregnant belly and said, matter-of-factly: “He’ll sleep with you.”
At the time, I thought she was odd. We’d just bought an expensive organic crib.
But she planted a seed. And that seed grew into a questioning, a curiosity, and a path that would lead me here.
I’m no longer living in the land of broken sleep and stolen naps. And yet, I continue to write about this topic. I can’t let it go. Why?
Because I believe non-responsive sleep training is a human rights issue, both for babies who are ignored and dismissed, and for mothers who are robbed of the experience of caring for their babies in the way they are wired to. And I’ve always been a person to stand up and shout when I see injustice.
I also believe that the choices we make in parenting are important. That they matter. And that they compound.
If you can respond to your baby and parent through the night. If you can take the responsibility on your shoulders for the needs of a little human you brought into the world. If you can learn that you can do hard things and come to embody that. If you can tap into your humanity, and deepen your intuition. You will, consciously or not, choose a fork in the road of parenting.
When your baby becomes a toddler, the idea of time outs won’t enter your mind.
The thought of threatening and punishing and shaming and controlling…they won’t FEEL right.
And so, you will have set yourself on a path of connection, of deep psychological intimacy, of unconditional love (in your actions, not just your words)…and your parenting journey will still be the hardest thing you’ll ever do, but it will also be the most rewarding, the most magical, the most life-changing experience of your life.
This is why I continue. Because this is activism. And at heart, I’ve always felt compelled to speak up when I see something that is just…plain wrong!
So, when this new sleep training paper started circulating.
And the messages started flooding in. My phone lit up, again and again and again. DMs. Emails. Voice notes from mothers with shaking voices.
“Tracy, have you seen this?”
“Does this change anything?”
“I’m so confused. Everyone’s celebrating it. Am I wrong? Can you explain?”
So I closed my manuscript. I spent the $24.95. I downloaded the paper. Made a strong cup of coffee. Sat by the fire. And I read every single word.
And here’s what I need you to know:
I’m not rattled. Not even a little bit.
Because this paper changes absolutely nothing about who babies are. Or who mothers are. Or what connection means.
Let me explain why.
When Something Aligns With Biology, It Doesn’t Shake
Here’s the thing about truth: when something aligns with human biology, with how babies are actually designed, with what mothers feel deep in their bones…it doesn’t shake.
Not when a behavioral paper gets published.
Not when sleep consultants celebrate it on social media.
Not when western culture tries, again, to convince mothers that responding to their babies is somehow wrong.
Intuition is power.
Biology is power.
Connection is power.
And no study will ever change that.
Biology doesn’t bend to accommodate cultural preferences. A baby’s nervous system doesn’t reorganize itself to fit modern adult schedules. And a mother’s intuition doesn’t disappear just because someone with letters after their name tells her to ignore it.
This is what grounds me. What has always grounded me.
Because I’m not building my understanding of infant sleep on behavioral studies from clinic-based researchers who make their living selling these methods.
I’m building it on an understanding of developmental neuroscience, attachment theory, evolutionary biology, stress physiology, cross-cultural evidence, my lived experience and the lived experience of thousands of mothers who share with me.
And none of that has changed.
What This Paper Actually Says (And Why Everyone’s Talking About It)
The paper is titled “Should you let your baby cry at night?” and it was published in Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation. (1)
First, let’s be clear about what this paper is: It’s not new research. It’s a commentary piece; essentially an opinion article written by researchers who advocate for behavioral sleep training methods. They’re reviewing existing studies and defending their position.
The authors argue that extinction-based methods (EBMs) are safe, effective, and should be the “first-line treatment” for infant sleep problems.
What are extinction-based methods? They’re the technical term for what most people know as cry it out, controlled crying, ferberizing, graduated extinction, spaced soothing and more.
Basically: dismissing a baby’s communication and leaving them alone to cry at bedtime with delayed or no parental response, with the goal of teaching them to “self-soothe” and fall asleep independently.
The paper’s main claims:
- Over 30 years of research supports these methods
- There’s “no evidence of harm” in the short or long term
- Critics are basing their concerns on “two flawed studies” about cortisol (by Middlemiss, 2012 and 2017)
- Two more recent studies (Blunden et al. 2022, Gradisar et al. 2016) show no elevation in cortisol and no impact on attachment
- The temporary stress these methods cause is “necessary” for development
What’s interesting: The paper spends significant energy criticizing the two Middlemiss studies for having “questionable methodology”, while the “better” studies they cite to replace them are…small, short-term, and clinic-based. The authors accuse critics of cherry-picking research, while doing exactly the same thing themselves.
Why it’s making waves: Sleep consultants and behavioral sleep researchers are celebrating it as vindication. They’re sharing it widely on social media as “proof” that sleep training is safe. The message being broadcast to exhausted parents is clear:
“See? The science says it’s fine. You can let your baby cry. Stop feeling guilty. Just do it.”
And for mothers who’ve been resisting the pressure to sleep train and who’ve been following their instincts to respond at night, this paper is being wielded as evidence that they’re wrong. That they’re overthinking it. That the “experts” have spoken.
So let’s talk about what this paper actually reveals and what it conveniently leaves out.
The Context Nobody Talks About
What I’ve been writing about recently in my book, and the timing here feels almost eerie, is the history of sleep training. Where it actually came from. Who created it. Why it was invented in the first place. And here’s what most people don’t know (or what I didn’t know as a new mother):
Extinction-based sleep training didn’t emerge from mothers.
It didn’t come from attachment science or developmental psychology or infant mental health research. It wasn’t created to serve babies. It was created to serve adults. Society’s need for productivity. The cultural demand that women remain available to everyone except the tiny human who needs them most.
It came from late-1800s and early-1900s male physicians who believed:
- Crying built character
- Babies needed discipline
- Maternal responsiveness was weakness
- Infants could (and should) be trained
- Emotion was a problem to be suppressed
These were not people studying babies’ emotional well-being.
They were people trying to produce obedient, quiet children and efficient households.
The behavioral sleep methods used today are still rooted in that soil. They’re just repackaged with softer, modern, affirming language and presented as “science.”
This context matters.
Because a method born from fundamentally misunderstanding babies will always misunderstand babies.
When we are a species designed for togetherness. When connection is an irreducible need. You simply can’t build safety on a foundation of separation.
You can’t create security and trust through intentional unresponsiveness.
You can’t support healthy development by teaching an infant that their communication doesn’t matter.
Science Without Context Isn’t Science, It’s Marketing
The new paper argues that extinction-based sleep training is “safe,” “effective,” and the “first-line treatment” for infant sleep challenges.
On the surface, this sounds definitive. Official. Settled.
But look closer.
The authors are not neutral observers studying infant sleep from multiple angles.
They come from the exact same behavioral sleep lineage. They created these methods. They teach them. They run clinics based on them. Their entire careers are built on validating the behavioral approach.
This doesn’t make them bad people.
But it does mean the science they produce is deeply, deeply contextual.
When the success of a method determines your professional identity, your income, and your status in the field, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to see outside of it.
This is human nature. It happens in every field.
But it also means we need to stop pretending this research is objective. This is confirmation bias with footnotes.
“No Evidence of Harm” Is NOT the Same as “Evidence of No Harm”
This is the part most parents are never told. And it’s the part being spun the hardest right now.
When researchers say “there is no evidence of harm,” what they actually mean is:
“We have not adequately studied this.”
It does NOT mean:
“We have thoroughly studied this and found it to be safe.”
Those two statements are opposites.
“No evidence of harm” is NOT the same as “evidence of no harm.”
And yet they’re being used interchangeably by sleep training advocates.
To actually claim “no harm” with confidence, we would need:
- Large, diverse sample sizes
- Long-term follow-ups (years, not days)
- Comparison of sleep training intervention and supported sleep intervention
- Biological markers beyond cortisol
- Objective nighttime stress assessments during the actual intervention
- Objective measures of how babies actually sleep beyond parent reporting
- Attachment measures across development
- Mother’s mental health assessment
- Breastfeeding outcomes
- Cultural comparisons
- Replication by independent research teams with no financial stake in the methods
We have none of this.
What we do have are:
- Small studies
- Clinic-based designs
- Short-term outcomes
- Heavy overreliance on crying reduction as a proxy for well-being
But here’s what every mother needs to understand:
Quiet does not equal calm.
Stillness does not equal safety.
Silence through the night does not equal sleeping through the night.
Compliance does not equal regulation.
Behavioral change is not emotional development.
Ever.
Let’s Talk About Cortisol Because It Actually Matters
Some people dismiss cortisol as “just one hormone.”
This is misleading at best, manipulative at worst.
Cortisol is a central regulator of the infant stress response. It affects emotional regulation, memory formation, neural wiring, sleep architecture, immune function, and long-term stress sensitivity.
Of course cortisol matters.
And one of the most widely cited studies by Middlemiss et al. (2) found something profoundly important. This study was published in 2012 and examined changes in the synchrony between mothers’ and infants’ physiology as 25 infants participated in a 5-day inpatient sleep training program.
On Day 1 of sleep training: Both mothers’ and babies’ cortisol levels were elevated when babies cried. This makes perfect biological sense. When a mother hears her baby crying, her stress response activates. This is nature’s design, compelling us to respond to our crying babies.
By Day 3: The babies stopped crying. The mothers’ cortisol levels dropped as they believed their babies were now okay. But here’s what the researchers found: the babies’ cortisol levels remained elevated.
Silent body.
Stressed brain.
The babies had learned that crying didn’t bring help. They stopped signaling. But their nervous systems were still in distress. They just stopped communicating it.
The mothers and babies were now physiologically out of sync. The mother’s biology told her everything was fine. The baby’s biology told a different story.
That’s not learning “self soothing.” That’s learned helplessness.
That is not “proof of safety.”
That’s an ethical red flag waving frantically in the wind.
The nervous system tells the truth long after the behavior quiets. As Bessel van de Kolk says, “the body keeps the score”.
The Real Question Nobody’s Asking
Here’s what really gets me every single time this debate resurfaces: why do we need research to tell us whether or not responding to a crying baby is harmful?
Think about that for a second.
Why is the burden of proof placed on connection, not separation?
Why are we demanding that mothers justify gentleness?
Why are we bending science into pretzels to defend a practice that requires:
- Parents to override their instincts
- Babies to bury their biology
- Researchers to redefine “safety” in the narrowest possible terms
If a method requires all of that…we should pause.
Not because individual mothers who’ve used it are doing something “wrong.”
But because the culture that insists on it absolutely is.
We Live in a Culture That Distrusts Mothers And Profits From It
I remember those nights. Lying in the dark beside my sleeping baby, phone glowing in my hand, scrolling and scrolling. Googling “is breastfeeding to sleep a bad habit” for the hundredth time. Reading articles that made my chest tighten. Wondering if I was failing.
There were comments that stung like paper cuts:
“Still not sleeping through the night?”
“You’re creating bad habits.”
“Aren’t you worried he’s too attached?”
And here’s what I’ve learned since then and here’s what I need every mother to understand:
A mother who trusts her intuition cannot be manipulated.
A baby who is responded to is not a “problem” that needs fixing.
A family grounded in connection does not fuel a billion-dollar sleep industry.
There is enormous financial incentive in convincing mothers that their babies are broken.
That only an ‘expert’ can fix them.
That their instincts are unreliable.
That responding creates problems.
That connection equals weakness.
There is zero financial benefit to the economy from a mother who cosleeps, breastfeeds on demand, responds at night, and understands that waking is biologically normal.
A mother aligned with her instincts is not profitable.
But a mother disconnected from herself?
A mother doubting her baby?
A mother exhausted, isolated, and terrified she’s doing it all wrong?
That is the perfect market.
And sadly, we now have young women, mothers themselves, trained to become sleep consultants, spreading methods that disconnect mothers from their own wisdom. Not because they’re unkind people. Not because they want to cause harm.
But because we live in a culture that has systematically taught women to distrust their intuition, outsource their wisdom, disconnect from their bodies, and train their babies.
Why I’m Not Rattled And Why You Don’t Need to Be Either
I read the paper.
I read the limitations (they’re significant).
I read the enthusiastic summaries being shared all over social media.
And here’s what I can say with absolute clarity: nothing in this paper overturns decades of developmental neuroscience, attachment theory, evolutionary biology, maternal intuition, infant mental health research and the lived reality of millions of mothers.
Nothing in it makes babies less human.
Nothing in it makes connection less essential.
Nothing in it makes sleep training harmless.
The behavioral sleep world can and will continue to produce papers. They can cite each other’s work. They can create an echo chamber of validation.
But they cannot rewrite biology.
They cannot make a baby sleeping alone neurologically equivalent to a baby sleeping connected to their mother.
They cannot make an infant’s stress response disappear just because the crying stops.
Biology doesn’t negotiate.
If You’re a Mother Reading This
If you’ve ever ninja-rolled out of bed after twenty minutes of holding perfectly still, waiting for your baby to sink into deep sleep…
If you’ve ever laid in the darkness watching the rise and fall of your baby’s chest, feeling your heart swell and break at the same time…
If you’ve ever been made to feel weak for responding to your baby at night…
If you’ve ever doubted your instincts because the culture or a professional told you to…
If you’ve ever felt like the only mother who couldn’t just let her baby cry it out…
If you’ve ever suspected something about this whole system felt fundamentally off…
If you’ve ever Googled “is it normal” at 3am and found nothing but judgment disguised as advice…
You are not imagining it.
You are not wrong.
Your baby is not wrong.
Your intuition is not wrong.
A connected mother is a powerful mother and that terrifies a culture built on compliance and convenience.
A connected baby is a thriving baby and that doesn’t require products, programs, or expert intervention.
Connection is not a parenting trend. It is our species’ oldest wisdom.
And no amount of behavioral research will ever change that.
References:
- Should you let your baby cry at night? The “no” rumor persists, despite insufficient scientific evidence with cortisol-stress measures. Lecuelle, FlorianChallamel, Marie-JosèpheKahn, MichalMindell, Jodi A.Bruni, OlivieroClaustrat, BrunoAnders, RoyceFranco, PatriciaPutois, Benjamin et al.Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation, Volume 11, Issue 2, 127 – 130
- Middlemiss W, Granger DA, Goldberg WA, Nathans L. Asynchrony of mother-infant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity following extinction of infant crying responses induced during the transition to sleep. Early Hum Dev. 2012 Apr;88(4):227-32. doi: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2011.08.010. Epub 2011 Sep 23. PMID: 21945361.
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