The Best Techniques for Getting Babies to Sleep



Researchers recently tested common techniques for improving babies’ sleep, and found that both are effective and lead to no long-term risks or developmental complications.

The researchers focused on two common sleep methods: “graduated extinction” and “bedtime fading.” Graduated extinction is also called “controlled crying,” and involves letting babies soothe themselves to sleep without intervening every time they cry. Bedtime fading involves pushing back a baby’s bedtime so that they fall asleep more quickly.

Results show that both techniques helped babies fall asleep more quickly, and controlled crying helped babies sleep more soundly with fewer disruptions throughout the night.

Even more significantly, the researchers discovered that neither sleep technique negatively affected the babies’ emotional development or their ability to socially and emotionally bond with their parents. These results are important, because many parents hesitate to use sleep techniques for fear of upsetting their child or damaging the child’s development.

Controlled crying in particular worries parents, because it requires parents to ignore their baby’s cries so the child can learn to self-soothe. Many parents express concern that this technique will cause emotional damage or cause their child to have attachment issues. However, the research team in this recent sleep study suggest that these worries are unfounded.

The study included 43 babies aged 6-16 months and their parents. According to the parents, all of the babies had problems sleeping. Researchers divided the parents into three groups: one group was told to practice controlled crying, one group practiced bedtime fading, and the third acted as a control and changed nothing about their babies’ sleep habits.

Parents in the controlled crying group were instructed to wait a few minutes before responding to their baby’s nighttime cries. After waiting, parents could comfort their baby but not pick up or hold the child. The parents gradually increased the wait time between hearing their child’s cries and responding.

Parents in the bedtime fading group were told to push back their baby’s bedtime by 15 minutes for a few nights. If the baby continued to have trouble falling asleep, the parents could push the bedtime back an additional 15 minutes.

After three months, researchers found that the babies in the training groups fell asleep an average of 10 to 13 minutes faster than the babies in the control group. The control group babies experienced little to no change in their sleep habits.

The researchers also found that babies in the controlled crying group woke up only once or twice per night by the end of the study. When the study began, the babies in this group were waking up an average of three times per night.

The sleep training also had positive effects on stress levels for the babies and their mothers. Moms in the study experienced a decline in their stress levels after one month. Babies in the sleep training groups also had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol compared to the control group, according to saliva samples taken by the researchers.


The study also tested for the possibility of any long-term negative effects of the sleep training techniques. A year after the study began, children from all three groups showed similar emotional and behavioral development, as well as attachment to their parents.  The researchers are confident that sleep training is a healthy and effective way to treat babies’ sleep problems.