The concept of ‘sleep training’ infants and young children to fall asleep without assistance and independently to stay asleep with few or no interruptions, has in the last few centuries been seen by many as a necessary and desirable part of a child’s development. Sleep training means that the child’s signaling behavior is either completely ignored, or that the caregivers show a minimized or delayed response to the child’s signals that they need care and help, for example through crying, calling or screaming.  Sleep training is therefore incompatible with the acknowledged importance of sensitive response. The research into the child’s overall development shows the importance of a child developing a secure attachment to his or her caregivers, and sensitive response is very important for this development. Sleep training can therefore risk damaging the attachment.

We have undertaken a study of the advice given to parents of young children in Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, with the intention of getting a wide picture of sleep training in practice in these countries. We have had a special focus on the guidance that parents receive from professionals, especially health visitors (sundhedsplejersker) and on a wide range of literature on the subject, which is handed out and often also promoted to parents. Although a variety of sleep training methods exist, a common factor is that the child often has to be left alone in the bed, where parents do not respond to the child’s signals. The most far-reaching form of sleep training is one in which the parents have to stay outside the room where the child is, even if the child is upset or crying – this is called ‘cry it out’, abbreviated to CIO. We have a special focus on this type of sleep training in our study

The survey consists of several components: a request for access to documents sent to Denmark’s 98 municipalities and subsequent inquiries to some of those municipalities, a voluntary questionnaire with answers from 3,627 parents from Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands and a review of official guidelines and other written material that is recommended for parents. The survey primarily covers the years 2017-2019, although the questionnaire was also open to parents of children born earlier than 2017.