The Racial History of Sleep Training: Why We Need to Talk About It
- Sep 10
- 4 min read
A bit over a century ago, a few white men decided we had it all wrong.
Parents (mothers, mainly) were warned that too much responsiveness would “spoil” their babies. They were told that leaving them to cry alone would foster “independence.” “Experts” (who had probably never even changed a nappy, btw) asserted that babies should sleep separately, “self-soothe”, and adapt to adult schedules, regardless of their biological need for connection and co-regulation.
These ideas didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They were rooted in white, Western ideals. Ones that prioritized productivity, independence, and emotional suppression over responsiveness and connection. And yet, to this day, we treat these norms as universal, as though they are the gold standard of infant sleep, child development, and parenting.
Dr Luther Emmett Holt, Paediatrician and Author of 1894 book “The Care and Feeding of Children”
But here’s the thing: sleep training, as we know it, is deeply tied to colonialism.
How White, Western Norms Shaped The History Of Sleep Training
Before colonialism and industrialisation, many cultures around the world practiced, and still do, responsive, contact-based sleep. Babies slept close to caregivers, fed on demand, and were soothed when distressed.
This wasn’t a parenting trend; it was simply how babies were cared for.
But as white, male doctors and psychologists like Dr Luther Emmett Holt (pictured above) and John B Watson gained influence, they framed these approaches as wrong. Holt even wrote that a distressed infant “should simply be allowed to ‘cry it out.’ This often requires an hour, and, in some cases, two or three hours. A second struggle will seldom last more than ten or fifteen minutes, and a third will rarely be necessary.” In his view, comforting a crying baby risked making them dependent, weak, or incapable of self-regulation.
Watson took this even further. In his 1928 manual for parents, he warned: “Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task.” The message was clear: affection was indulgence and independence at all costs was the goal.
Meanwhile, the same societies promoting sleep training were actively separating Indigenous children from their families. In Australia, the U.S., and other colonised nations, Indigenous children were taken from their homes and placed with white families, in missions and boarding schools. These acts were designed to erase their cultures and enforce Western ideals of parenting and family structure. Indigenous caregiving practices, which emphasised responsiveness, co-sleeping, and extended breastfeeding, were dismissed as “uncivilised” and even deemed dangerous.
The Impact of These Ideals Today
We don’t often connect sleep training with race, but we should, because the effects of these histories are still felt today.
Even now, white, Western and WEIRD parenting norms dominate the conversation. Parents are made to feel like they are “doing it wrong” if their baby doesn’t sleep independently. Co-sleeping is stigmatised. Contact-based sleep is seen as a bad habit. And the fear of being judged or worse, having their parenting called into question, isn’t just theoretical for many families, especially for Indigenous and POC mothers and parents.
Women and people of colour are still far more likely to lose access to their children if they don’t conform to white, Western parenting standards. In child welfare systems, parental responsiveness, something long valued in non-Western cultures, can be misinterpreted as “overindulgence” or a lack of necessary structure. The policing of parenting isn’t new, and it’s not evenly applied.
We Need To Rethink Sleep Training. Who Does It Benefit?
So when we talk about sleep training today, we have to ask: Whose norms shaped this practice? Who benefited from making parental responsiveness seem unnecessary or even harmful? And why do we still treat these ideals as the default?
We need to recognise that sleep training, as it exists today, is a product of colonial history and cultural bias. More importantly, we need to make informed, intentional choices for our own families, rather than blindly following outdated, racialised parenting norms.
Because the reality is: Babies are wired for connection. All humans are. The pull you feel to respond to your baby isn’t a flaw; it’s a feature, fine-tuned over thousands of years of human development.
If you feel a sinking feeling when trying to follow those rigid baby sleep “rules”, listen to it. It’s there for a reason.
Dr. Jessica Guy, Child Development PhD, Sleep Specialist, AuDHD mum, and Founder of Infant Sleep Scientist
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References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2024). Closing the Gap: Child Protection. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au
Braga, A. (2025). The Ongoing Removal of Aboriginal Children from their Families of Origin in Australia. Retrieved from https://www.humanium.org
Collard, S. (2025). Aboriginal Women are Scared to Seek Help for Fear Their Children Will be Taken, Report Finds. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com
Holt, L. E. (1894). The Care and Feeding of Children. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
Rosier, J. & and Casey’s, T. (2020). From “Crying Expands the Lungs” to “You’re Going to Spoil That Baby”: How the Cry-It-Out Method Became Authoritative Knowledge. Journal of Family Issues. ResearchGate PDF
Psychology Today. (2020). Disbelieving the Importance of Mothering. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com
