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I keep reading things about Denmark banning cry-it-out sleep training. What do they know that we don’t? I’d love to get some sleep, but I’m second-guessing everything I thought I knew now!
— Very tired, but scared to sleep train
No, Denmark did not really ban sleep training, although I am asked about this specific claim a lot. Denmark is known to be a family-friendly country, and when this claim started making its rounds, it caused people to ask, basically, what do they know that we do not?
The reality is a bit different. Denmark’s health ministry historically had endorsed cry-it-out sleep training. In 2020, a set of psychologists wrote a letter to the board of health making many of the arguments you typically hear against sleep training (it raises cortisol, it harms infant attachment, etc.). Their goal was for the health ministry to stop including mentions of cry-it-out in their materials and also to endorse bed-sharing as a good option.
The health ministry wrote them back, saying that the advice the ministry gives on sleep is evidence-based. Then, at some point, the ministry removed the cry-it-out language from their webpages. There was no ban, but this has been taken as an indication that Denmark no longer supports this sleep approach.
Government agencies make decisions about their public health advice for many reasons, and I do not know exactly what happened here. But what I think is clear is that this isn’t based on some new, problematic evidence. And in general, there is simply nothing in the data to suggest sleep training leads to bad outcomes. Period.
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Thanks for clarifying! I wouldn’t take anything our own CDC says now as a good idea, and wouldn’t take this advice from Denmark if they were giving it, either. Do what the evidence says is good. Also, from my older child’s experience, we are definitely going to sleep train second child as soon as she is ready (currently only 4 weeks old) because it’s been wonderful for older one to become a good sleeper who stays in bed all night and gets enough sleep consistently and knows he has to stay there. He sucks his thumb a lot but at 4 yo, it’s been a very useful skill for him to sleep well.