Parents Talk: Are There Consequences to Sleep Training?

When you have a baby, the one thing you need the most is often the one thing you get the least - sleep.

It's not for lack of trying. Often as parents, we're so spent at the end of the day that all we want to do is fall into bed and drift off for the night. Easier said than done with a baby in the house.

Many parents have turned to different methods of sleep training to help babies fall asleep. Two of those techniques - controlled comforting and camping out - have both been criticized for being too harsh for a child.

But a new study from health professionals in Australia is telling another story.

The study, published in Pediatrics journal, found "no long-term emotional harms linked to two popular behavioral sleep interventions."

Researchers studied 225 children who underwent some form of sleep training from 7 months old through age 6. Half underwent some form of sleep training, either "controlled comforting" (also called "graduated extinction") or "camping out."

What do you think? Do your agree or disagree that there are long-term effects of sleep training? Did you sleep train your child/children? Tell us in the comments.