The Sleep-Training Dispute
Priya, aged 14 months, has begun waking four to five times each night and crying until her mother, Anh, picks her up. Anh has returned to shift work and now averages five hours of broken sleep. A parenting forum she follows recommends 'controlled crying': leaving Priya to cry for set intervals that lengthen each night, arguing that this teaches self-settling and that responding 'spoils' the infant. Anh's sister, a childcare worker, insists that picking Priya up each time is what will build secure attachment, and that ignoring her cries risks lasting emotional harm. Anh's partner works away and she has no family nearby. She wants to choose an approach within two weeks, before her next roster change, and asks a psychologist for guidance.
1. Explain how attachment theory and research on infant sleep would inform Anh's decision, and evaluate the claim that responding to Priya's cries will 'spoil' her.
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Anh's decision is best framed through attachment theory rather than through the forum's slogan. Attachment is built from a history of sensitive, consistent responses, not from the number of times an infant is picked up. A 14-month-old is in the clear-cut attachment phase, so crying at night is a signalling behaviour, not manipulation; infants this age lack the cognitive maturity to plan or 'train' a parent.
The 'spoiling' claim is not supported. Responsiveness predicts security; the risk to attachment comes from chronic unavailability or inconsistent care, not from comforting a distressed toddler. However, the sister's position overstates the reverse claim too: brief, structured settling approaches have not been shown to cause lasting harm in typically developing infants, and prolonged parental sleep deprivation is itself a risk to sensitive caregiving.
A defensible judgement weighs both: Anh should choose an approach that reduces night waking while preserving responsive daytime care, check that Priya is well and not teething or unwell, and avoid rigid 'extinction' if it leaves Anh unable to respond consistently. The key variable is not which method she picks but whether care remains predictable and warm.
2. Identify two confounding variables in the family's informal 'evidence' and explain how each could distort their conclusion.
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First, developmental change: night waking fluctuates with teething, illness, and developmental leaps such as walking. If Anh changes approach during a difficult week, any improvement may reflect the passing of that phase rather than the method. Second, parental expectation and reporting bias: a sleep-deprived parent who has invested effort in a method may notice and remember better nights and discount bad ones, inflating apparent success. A third possible confound is the simultaneous change in Anh's roster, which alters bedtime routines independently of any settling technique. Without controlling these, the family cannot attribute change to the method.