Toxic stress and sleep training
debunking the myth about toxic stress and babies’ sleep
What is toxic stress?
There are three different types of stress:
· Positive stress
· Tolerable stress
· And Toxic stress.
There is no doubt that toxic stress impacts children’s brain development, social and emotional skills, and ongoing physical development. It has serious long-term consequences, and it should be avoided at all costs.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) research into toxic stress and its impact on the development of young children states: “In contrast to positive or tolerable stress, toxic stress is defined as the excessive or prolonged activation of the physiologic stress response systems in the absence of the buffering protection afforded by stable, responsive relationships”.
“Equating a few nights of sleep training within the context of a loving, responsive home to long-term neglect and abuse is fear-mongering”
It is known that toxic stress is unhealthy, and that it happens due to prolonged exposure to stressful experiences without support. In these instances, children are left unsupported in an emotional and psychological state of stress and anxiety.
Yet this is not what happens in a professional sleep training programme.
Can sleep training cause toxic stress?
No, it cannot. That’s because sleep training isn’t an unsupported environment Much like your children’s first day at preschool, sleep training can be challenging at times, yet it is not unsupported.
The guide for Toxic Stress and the different types of stress from The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University helps shed light on what happens to children when they experience stress. Following this guide, it is easy to see how sleep training will not cause your baby to experience toxic stress.
While some parents are uncomfortable letting their babies cry for long, that does not mean that when their babies do cry, they are experiencing emotional neglect, or are at any risk of toxic stress. Any baby who has siblings cannot have their needs met immediately and does need to wait, sometimes while crying. This does not mean their parents aren’t attentive to their needs or dismissive of their crying.
Sleep, stress, and maternal well-being
While advocates for attachment parenthood point out the importance of responding to babies' cues and attending to their needs, it is equally important to consider maternal mental health and well-being when it comes to sleep deprivation.
Lack of sleep and sleep deprivation raise the chances of postnatal depression and anxiety (PND/ NDA). Mothers who cannot sleep well and who wish to attend to their babies’ needs as soon as possible are experiencing elevated anxiety and stress levels, which impact their mental health.
We know how hard it is to tolerate anything when we are tired, let alone overtired. We don’t eat well, struggle to concentrate, get easily annoyed, and simply can’t handle life very well.
The same goes for overtired babies. Sleep regulates appetite and mood and is crucial for learning and development, and storing memories. Frankly, we can’t function without it.
The Harvard Medical School video about Why Sleep Matters explains it in detail here.
A study by Dr Jodi Mindell et al. examines the reduction of parental stress and successful sleep training. The study used four types of techniques, ranging from hands-on to hands-free techniques. Parents who intervened less had greater success in supporting their babies to settle to sleep. The duration of babies’ crying reduced faster, and parental stress reduced significantly within one week.
Will my twins experience toxic stress while sleep training?
Crying is a baby’s means of communication. Babies cry for many reasons: when they are tired, hungry, upset, disappointed, hurt, sad, uncomfortable, etc. It’s natural and it is important because it lets us know they need something.
Twins learn early on that sometimes they will need to wait before someone attends to their needs. It’s part of their twin reality. If your baby needs to wait for their feed because you haven’t finished feeding their twin, they might get loud and unsettled, yet they are not neglected, and they do not experience toxic stress.
The same goes for sleep training. One or both might need to wait (how long is a personal decision depending on the method you choose to use), yet they are at no risk of experiencing toxic stress.
While you may not be able to use a full no-cry settling method with your twins, as these methods require a 1:1 adult-baby ratio at all times, you can employ a gentle settling technique that involves minimal crying.
Will sleep training damage my babies’ brains?
As noted above, given that sleep training does not cause toxic stress experiences, your baby’s brain will not be affected by learning to self-settle or settle in the cot. Sleep training is a process of supporting babies in developing self-settling skills, co-regulating to assist in self-soothing, and gradually reducing parental assistance when settling to promote independent settling.
The notion that sleep training will impact parent-child relationships or compromise secure attachment is also not based on research but rather speculation. There is no evidence to suggest that parents who have sleep-trained their babies are less responsive, supportive, or loving than those who chose not to sleep-train. Nor is there any evidence to suggest they are less close to their children, and vice versa.
There is a lot of fear spreading online these days about the impacts of sleep training and parent-child relationships, and how it may compromise secure attachment in the long- term or affect children’s brains. The article Is sleep training harmful offers a deep look into online fear-mongering around sleep training. It addresses the research and the facts behind misused research to paint a grim picture of sleep training, and its long-term impacts on parent-child relationships and a child’s brain development.
Spoiler alert: most of the research findings are either positive or neutral when it comes to sleep training, not negative.
If you don’t want to sleep train your babies, that is 100% your decision to make, it is not for everyone. Yet it is a valid choice for many parents, and it should be a personal decision for every family.
If you want to know more about how I can help you and your twins get better sleep, book a free discovery call today. Or, you can book your sleep consultation package below.