Infant Sleep Training - Is it necessary?

If you think about it, isn't it rather bizarre to sleep train an infant? Sleep comes naturally to all things living. So, why is it that sleep training came about?

My lil boy has never been sleep trained and only recently has he willingly decided to sleep in the comforts of his own bed. When it happened, I then remembered what it felt like to roll around in my sleep and not have to wakeup with a sore arm or neck the next morning!

I have never been a fan of co-sleeping but it was the only way I could ever get a proper nights sleep and successfully breastfeed P. There were many nights I lay wondering when I would get my "bed independence" back, some people even told me that it would go on for 2 years or more! So imagine my surprise when P decided that he too required his own "bed independence".

Having said that, I am a strong believer that babies will learn in due course. As a modern society we are too caught up with competition and expectations that we forget babies are babies afterall.

Below is an excerpt from the Australian Breastfeeding Association regarding sleep training. An interesting read that prompted this short post.

Why do we never ask 'Is it safe for babies to sleep alone?'

Many parents are encouraged to train their babies to sleep through the night alone; however, current scientific research demonstrates that babies are at greater risk when they sleep alone.
 
'Science does not support our current culturally based ideas of "normal" infant sleep - where solitary infant sleep without breastfeeding is thought to be normal or desirable. Most families will, and do, respond to infants' individual needs. Training infants to sleep through the night alone, and at an early age, goes against the infant's neurobiology and psychology. Babies need to be close to an adult and to feed frequently', says Dr James McKenna, who is the Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Endowed Chair in Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame.
 
Having pioneered the first physiological studies he is recognised as one of the world's leading authorities on mother-infant co-sleeping, in relationship to breastfeeding and SIDS risk factors. In acknowledgement of his scientific work in the field of SIDS, infant sleep and breastfeeding research he was inducted as a Fellow into the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008, an honour accorded a small percentage of America's top scientists.
 
Dr McKenna goes on to say: 'Sleep training is a recent western innovation completely and unnecessary and comes from a western-industrial view that "normal" healthy infants should sleep throughout the night after 3 or 4 months. The questions is not whether they can, but whether they should, or be forced to. They shouldn't. They need to feed frequently to supply nutrients to a brain trying to grow and expanding at a speed never again to be matched throughout the infants' life. The first year of life is not meant for sleeping alone. At least three epidemiological studies at least show that infants should never sleep outside the company of a supervising, committed adult'.