Emily Oster

5 min Read Emily Oster

A good night’s sleep can help you recharge for the next day, but sleep also ends up being a big stressor in a parent’s life. With new information surrounding sleep training, wake windows, and white noise at our fingertips, making the right decision for ourselves and our kids feels even more exhausting. You’re constantly wondering: What’s the best way to get my baby to sleep through the night? How many naps is my toddler supposed to be taking? Will I ever get enough sleep again?

a parent giving pacifier to baby and trying to sleep
RDNE Stock Photo Project / Pexels

Below, you will find 10 of my most popular articles on ParentData about sleep. And feel free to ask a question if you have something else on your mind.

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Is There a Best Method for Sleep Training?

There are few things in parenting more likely to provoke strong feelings than sleep training. Depending on who you ask, sleep training is either completely necessary to raise a competent child or a surefire way to create an attachment disorder. Most of these claims are not evidence-based. In the data, whether you sleep train your child or not does not drive long-term outcomes. Read more


Sleep Survey Results: The Nights and Sleep Survey Results: The Naps

A two-part series on sleep. There are a million questions to ask of the data about sleep. Overlying this whole discussion, though, is the big question of what to even expect in terms of a typical pattern of sleep. At what time do most people put their kids to bed? How many times do the kids wake up? What’s a standard number of naps by age? These aren’t prescriptive, but sometimes seeing something about the experience of others — the average and the range — can give us context for our own experience, both now and in the future. Read more on nights / Read more on naps


White Noise and Developmental Delays

After day care and plastics, perhaps the most common group of panic headlines on Instagram involve white noise. White noise as cause of developmental delays. White noise interfering with speech. White noise causing hearing loss. Often these claims are very vague — “Is White Noise Ruining Your Child?” — leaving much room for imagination. To evaluate the claims about any dangers of white noise, we need to be specific about what they are and why you might be concerned. Read more


Are Newborn Wake Windows Real?

This question is easy to ask, but it holds volumes about the struggles of the first months of parenting. For one thing, it is the subject of contentious online discussion. “Wake windows” are closely related to baby schedules. Some people swear by baby schedules! Some people think that putting your baby on any kind of schedule makes you a monster. The only thing for sure is that whatever you do, you’ll be told you’re doing it wrong. The idea of wake windows also feeds into our unmet desire for control. It is extremely hard to face the fact that your baby is just random in their behavior. Read more


How Do I Get My Toddler to Sleep Longer?

There are two ways to look at this issue. One is to ask whether it is a problem for your child. It may or may not be. The average preschooler needs 10 to 13 hours of sleep a day, most of which should be at night. But there is a wide range of “normal” even outside of this. If your child doesn’t seem tired during the day, they may be getting enough sleep for their needs. However: that does not mean less sleep can’t be a problem. It definitely can be, so let’s think about how to fix it. Read more


How Much Sleep Do We Actually Need?

First of all, eight hours of sleep is a myth for everyone. Even within our current “single sleep” mode, eight hours is really based on nothing. So how do you know whether you’re getting enough sleep? And if you’re not, how can you improve it? Read more


When Should I Get My Baby on a Sleep Schedule?

There are two underlying principles for getting your baby on a sleep schedule. One is that babies need plenty of sleep; when they do not get enough, it’s a problem. The other principle is that sleep schedules tend to help parents sleep better and function better. Read more


Your Child Is Not Getting Enough Sleep

Even if we do not know precisely why, we know that sleep is important for people, including (perhaps especially) children. We know this from data. But here is the harder point to absorb. If you want to live by this sleep data, if you want to have your child get an appropriate amount of sleep, that may mean giving up something else. Read more


How Can I Get My Kid to Sleep in Their Own Bed?

All sleep behaviors, including sharing a bed with your child, are habit-forming. And kids are really, really responsive. The first question here is: Do you want to go back? Read more


What Can I Do About Exhaustion?

A reader question about proven ways to deal with exhaustion and bad sleep. We’ve all been there! Read more

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