Although we did sleeptrain, I absolutely agree that is not for every family or for every baby. I found it very difficult, even though our experience was pretty easy. However, I will note here that I have read the research and there really isn't any convincing scientific anti-CIO research. Rather, there is a lot of evidence that sleep issues in children result in problems for children and parents both. Of course, there are multiple ways to resolve sleep issues, but it seems like most people I know have gone with "It will pass...," but sometimes it really hasn't. I have seen this issue do major harm to mothers and marriages both, so know that I am speaking with GREAT compassion for how hard it is, and yet with sincere concern.
I absolutely agree that sleep issues can result in problems for both children and parents. I think it may, I'm not sure, be true that for some families sleep training is the best thing - I certainly would not condemn any thoughtful parent who decides that for their family at this time it's the best thing to do. And yet, I absolutely would not under any circumstances have ever done it myself (and no, I did not have the kind of easy sleeper who never puts such a resolution to the test). I agree there's no good scientific evidence against it; but we wouldn't really expect there to be, for the kinds of harm (long term psychological) some people hypothesise it to cause; very difficult to study, and as far as I know, nobody ever has studied it. I still remember how I felt, crying in bed at night (much older than a sleep-training baby, but the pattern had been set: crying was ignored). Before I had a child, I stayed with friends who were sleep training their child at the time. It was terrible (doubtless because it set off PTSD in me: I don't think it was extreme by sleep training standards) and for many years I used to come back to that memory when I thought about having my own child. Finding out about attachment parenting, i.e. finding out that I didn't have to do that, was for me a crucial "aaahhh..." moment in feeling as though I might be able and want to be a mother. For as long as I thought you had to be prepared to do sleep training, I knew I couldn't do it.
My guess is that in and of itself, sleep training probably isn't harmful, although some parents like me are sufficiently traumatised that they can't do it, nonetheless. What can be harmful, I'm morally sure, is using it as the first step into a style of parenting in which it's OK to ignore children's expressions of need. Parents who have adopted that style are, however, most unlikely to be on a board like this which is dedicated to meeting children's needs, so: I don't mean you!
