I'm a midwife and sleep consultant. Here are the 9 biggest lies you've been told about baby sleep.
By Jazz Kostov, Midwife, Sleep Consultant and Author of Let’s Sleep The First Year.
A mum recently messaged me in tears.
She'd been told by three different people that she was "creating bad habits" by rocking her four month old to sleep. Another said she should never let her baby nap in the pram. Someone else insisted that any overnight feeding past six months was unnecessary.
She was paralyzed by conflicting advice and utterly exhausted.
As both a midwife and sleep consultant who's helped thousands of families, I see this constantly. Parents are drowning in outdated, contradictory information about baby sleep. Well meaning advice from friends, family, and even some health professionals can make things so much harder than they need to be.
Here are the 10 biggest misconceptions I hear repeatedly - and the truth behind each one.
1. "Sleep training means leaving your baby to cry it out"
The lie:
Most parents think 'sleep training' automatically means closing the door and letting their baby cry alone for hours. I've had mums tell me they'd rather be exhausted forever than do that to their baby (and fair enough!).
The truth:
There are dozens of responsive approaches to help your baby fall asleep independently. Methods that encourage you to be present and responsive while helping your baby learn to self-settle. You can respond to your baby's needs AND work toward better sleep. You don't have to choose between the two.
What I tell parents:
Choose an approach that aligns with YOUR parenting style and suits your baby. If something doesn't feel right in your gut, it's not the right method for your family. There's no one "correct" way to approach sleep - despite what rigid sleep advice on the internet might tell you.
2. "Never wake a sleeping baby"
The lie:
This is treated as an unbreakable rule of parenting. “Let them sleep!”, “Don’t wake them!”. Someone literally said this to me recently about our 9 month old baby when I was about to wake her from her lunch time nap.
The truth:
Sometimes waking your baby from a nap is exactly what you need to do to protect bedtime. If your baby is sleeping three hours in the afternoon and then fighting bedtime until 9pm every night, it may well be due to the big sleep in the afternoon. Wake windows and total daily sleep matter more than this so-called golden rule (and again - this will be so different for every baby).
I've had parents tell me that simply capping that afternoon nap by 30 minutes transformed their evenings from a two hour bedtime battle to a peaceful 20 minute wind down. And I've absolutely experienced the same with both of my girls.
What I tell parents:
If bedtime is consistently late or difficult, look at their naps. You might benefit from waking your baby to preserve the evening routine and ensure they have enough sleep pressure for nighttime.
3. "More daytime sleep = better night sleep"
The lie:
People assume if a baby is tired, they should sleep as much as possible during the day.
The truth:
In my experience, too much daytime sleep can actually prevent babies from building enough sleep pressure for nighttime. At six months, if your baby is napping more than 4 hours during the day and fighting bedtime or waking frequently overnight, they may be getting too much day sleep. Making a slight change to their naps can make all the difference.
Think of it like hunger - if your baby ate a huge meal two hours ago, they're not going to be hungry for dinner. Same principle with sleep. Too much day sleep means not enough sleep "hunger" for night.
What I tell parents:
Age appropriate wake windows and total daytime sleep amount are important. Sometimes a little less day sleep means better night sleep. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I see it work time and time again.
4. "Babies should be able to sleep anywhere, anytime"
The lie:
A "good baby" should be able to sleep through noise, light, chaos, and basically function like a tiny zen master who's unfazed by their environment.
The truth:
While some flexibility is essential (and 100% necessary for maintaining your sanity!) babies do generally have longer sleeps in dark, quiet, consistent environments. Expecting them to have a long nap in bright, noisy cafés or busy playgrounds often is unrealistic (especially if you have a FOMO baby like mine!).
Would you have a long nap in a brightly lit shopping center with announcements blaring? Probably not. Neither will your baby. But don’t confuse this advice with me saying you shouldn’t offer naps out and about (because I absolutely encourage you to do a mix and enjoy some naps on the go with a podcast in your ear, coffee in hand and sunshine on your face mumma!).
What I tell parents:
If routine and longer naps are important to you, then aim for at least one nap per day at home (most days) in a dark room with white noise/rain/wave sounds. This is your "priority nap" - usually the lunchtime sleep. The other naps can be more flexible - pram walks, carrier naps, on the go. It's about balance: structure with real life, not rigidity that traps you at home.
5. "You're creating bad habits if you help your baby fall asleep"
The lie:
Any feeding, rocking, or comforting to sleep will permanently impact your baby's ability to sleep independently. You must put them down "drowsy but awake" from day one or you've failed. You’re ‘creating a rod for your own back’ (eye roll).
The truth:
In the early months, babies often NEED help falling asleep. Their nervous systems are immature. They need comfort, closeness, and support. Around 4-6 months, you can start introducing independent sleep skills gradually (if you want to!). But helping your newborn or young baby to sleep isn't creating "bad habits" - it's responsive parenting.
And even when babies CAN self-settle, sometimes they need extra comfort when sick, teething, going through developmental leaps, or just having a rough day. Responding to those needs doesn't undo all your work.
What I tell parents:
There's a time for everything. Newborns need lots of support. Older babies can learn self settling skills. Sick babies need comfort. Flexibility and responsiveness aren't the enemy of good sleep - they're part of realistic parenting. It's not all-or-nothing.
6. "Sleep regressions ruin all your progress"
The lie:
Once your baby hits a regression - the ‘dreaded’ 4 month, 8 month, 12 month, or 18 month regression - all your hard work is undone and you're back to square one.
The truth:
Sleep regressions are temporary developmental progressions. Your baby's brain is growing, they're learning new skills, and sleep can be disrupted for a couple of weeks.
If you maintain consistency through the regression as best you can, while being responsive to genuine needs, your baby's sleep typically returns to baseline within 2-3 weeks.
What I tell parents:
Expect regressions. They're a sign your baby is developing. Support your baby through them with extra comfort if needed. But keep your overall goal in mind for sleep - if longer chunks of sleep and self settling are your aim, then have a plan to support your baby to settle back into that pattern.
7. "Early waking (5am) is just your baby's personality"
The lie:
Some babies are just "early birds" and there's nothing you can do about it. You're stuck with 5am wake ups until they're teenagers who suddenly can't get out of bed.
The truth:
Persistent 5am wake-ups are (almost) always fixable. Yes, in my years as a sleep consultant I've come across a handful of babies and toddlers who do not shift their start time despite everything we try. But that’s the minority.
Early waking is usually caused by one or more of these factors: too much daytime sleep, bedtime too late (yes, counterintuitively), room too light in the early morning, baby getting cold as temperature drops from 3-5am or (and this is the biggest one) - parents get baby up early when they wake early. It just becomes their normal routine.
These are all adjustable factors, not personality traits. I've worked with countless families who thought they were destined for early mornings, only to shift wake up time to 6:30-7am by addressing these foundations.
What I tell parents:
If your baby consistently wakes at 5am and you want them to sleep until 6:30-7am, we can work on that. It usually takes 4-6 weeks of consistency, but it's rarely just "who they are."
8. "Babies need complete silence to sleep"
The lie:
You must tiptoe around the house, speak in whispers, and basically put your entire life on pause during nap time. Heaven forbid someone rings the doorbell (why do people always do that!).
The truth:
Babies actually sleep better with consistent white noise or rain sounds. It masks household sounds, barking dogs, traffic, and sibling noise. It also helps them transition between sleep cycles without fully waking. Trying to maintain perfect silence is exhausting for parents, unnecessary for babies, and often backfires because any small noise then becomes disruptive.
White noise creates a consistent auditory environment that signals "it's sleep time" and drowns out the unpredictable sounds that actually wake babies.
What I tell parents:
Use white noise or rain sounds at a safe volume (around 50 decibels, at least 2m away from your baby’s head) for every sleep - naps and nighttime. It's one of the easiest, most effective sleep tools available. And it means you don't have to freeze mid step in the hallway holding your breath.
9. "Formula-fed babies sleep better than breastfed babies"
The lie:
If you just switched to formula, your baby would magically sleep through the night. Formula is "heavier" and keeps them fuller longer.
The truth:
Sleep issues are about sleep associations, scheduling, environmental factors, and developmental readiness - not feeding methods. I've worked with breastfed babies who sleep like champs and formula fed babies who wake every two hours. Both feeding methods can have sleep challenges. Both can learn to sleep well.
What I tell parents:
Feed your baby however works for your family. Breast, formula, combination - it's all valid. The sleep skills and foundations are separate from the feeding method. Don't let anyone pressure you to change how you feed in hopes of better sleep. Address the actual sleep factors instead.
The mum who messaged me in tears? Once we addressed the actual sleep foundations - age appropriate wake windows, a dark room with white noise, a consistent routine structure - and stopped worrying about all the contradictory "rules" she'd been told, her baby's sleep transformed within a week.
She didn't leave her baby to cry alone for hours. She didn't stop responding to genuine needs. She didn't follow some rigid, inflexible method. She just had a clear plan that suited her life.
Here's what I want every exhausted parent to know: if the advice you're receiving doesn't feel right, trust that instinct. If you're being told you have to choose between responding to your baby and getting sleep, that's false.
If someone insists their rigid method is the only way and you're failing if you don't follow it exactly, RUN.
Baby sleep doesn't have to be this hard.
But it starts with separating evidence-based approaches from outdated myths, social media fearmongering, and advice that worked for someone else's baby but might not work for yours.
There's room for flexibility. There's room for responsiveness. There's room for different approaches that align with different families' values.
And there's room for you to finally get a decent night's sleep too.
Jazz Kostov is a registered midwife, nurse, sleep consultant, author and founder of Let's Sleep. She works with families to achieve better sleep using evidence-based, flexible approaches that work with real life. Find her on Instagram @lets__sleep or check out her new book at www.letssleep.com.au/book