Episode 48: Sleep Training: What We Know (and What We DON'T KNOW) from the Research

with Amanda Ruggeri

This week on NOTU we are diving into my bread and butter- sleep! More specifically, biologically normal infant sleep, sleep training, and bed sharing. These topics are so important and yet so misunderstood. That’s why I was happy to talk with science journalist and mom Amanda Ruggeri, who has dug into the research herself to write several deep-dives on infant sleep as well as other parenting topics.

I find that *most* people want to be informed when it comes to sleep in 2 areas: sleep training and bed sharing. Those are the areas where people feel the research is really important. And they are not wrong! Peer-reviewed research can be very important when making certain parenting decisions especially when safety and security of our children is at stake.

Here’s the thing though- lots of these studies aren’t always measuring what we think they are measuring. And some of them leave out swaths of important nuance and grey area. No study on humans can be perfect of course, so it’s important to consider other factors besides just data when making these choices for our families.