AI and Sleep Training
I founded Mother Together over six years ago now, at a time when AI was only just beginning to touch our lives in serious ways.
Only recently has it crossed my social media feeds that maybe AI can put together a sleep plan for children based on their age and temperament, and parents can save themselves a few hundred dollars on courses like TCB.
At first, a lump formed in my chest. Am I slowly becoming obsolete? Why should parents continue to seek sleep support when there are completely free options on the internet?
The truth is, free information has been out there for a very long time. I am the first to tell parents that when I jump on a Discovery Call. What I am offering is not rocket science (in fact, I often repeat this exact phrase when chatting with a prospective family). Sleep isn’t rocket science at all. There are hundreds of books, blogs, and now artificial intelligences that are trained to pull upon the expanse of the interwebs to compile a plan for you.
So, I did it. I swallowed my pride and went to ChatGPT and asked it to write me a sleep plan for a 9-month-old baby who has been rocked to sleep for nights and naps, who is sensitive to separation, and who is able to pull to stand. The plan constructed for me really wasn’t bad! It hit most of the key points.
But do you know the many things that ChatGPT just can’t do in a real way?
ChatGPT cannot:
Make a mom feel seen and understood when she is exhausted and at the end of her rope, ready to seek some help with sleep
Share the experience of having lived through sleeplessness, sleep training, or all of the good we feel on the other side of the work
Draw on years of experience working with kids whose sleep isn’t average. ChatGPT, like most sleep courses, cater to the middle of the sleep spectrum and don’t address the kids who fall outside the lines.
Keep you company on that first night of sleep training to reassure you that everyone is going to make it through, and that it will get so much easier!
Celebrate your successes with you. Human connection over your victories cannot be replaced with a computer saying “great job!”
Give comprehensive context and education for sleep. I see parents seeking quick tips for fixing sleep every single day. “Do this! Try that!” is never enough without taking a look at the full picture of who your baby is and what they need to sleep better, I promise!
Commit to your success. When I say that I am personally invested in your family getting more sleep, I couldn’t mean it more deeply. My brand and my reputation hang on finding creative ways to make sure that we meet your goals.
Create a comprehensive sleep plan, with all of the puzzle pieces necessary for success. Likewise, parents cannot prompt it to add more if they themselves don’t know what the missing pieces are!
That said, ChatGPT can:
Do everything a sleep course can do. Save your money, y’all.
Provide generalized guidance on how to sleep train and even home in on some specific sleep challenges, like short naps.
Steer you toward age-appropriate sleep schedules. These will more than likely include ranges of sleep needs and not do a great job of catering to the uniqueness of your little one in a meaningful way
Give you quick tips to improve sleep. These will probably be compiled from myriad blog posts from around the web.
So, here’s my real-life advice. AI is not the enemy, and it can absolutely be a valuable tool! When you need to troubleshoot, it is a great first step and one I wholeheartedly support.
But, AI will never replace the connection that lies at the heart of Mother Together. Supporting moms one-on-one has always been a core value of mine, and with the advent of AI for every problem, I feel only more convicted that I have always been on the right track to best serve families.
