“We are seeing either children are taking the medication in an inappropriate amount intentionally or accidentally ingesting it,” said Stephanie Felton, D.O., associate medical director for the emergency department at the medical center in Fort Worth. 

The trend mirrors a similar spike seen at Cook Children’s in 2020. During that year, patients reported getting the idea from TikTok videos claiming users could hallucinate by taking a dozen or more allergy pills. While that trend eventually faded through education and public awareness, a recent resurgence has prompted medical experts to issue a new alert for parents and caregivers.

“These are heartbreaking cases because these are usually normal, healthy, fully-functioning children that can have dire effects because of this choice,” said Dr. Felton.

She adds that these incidents often bring to light underlying issues, including bullying or psychiatric illnesses such as depression or anxiety.

The Power of Open Dialogue

Medical experts say open communication is the first line of defense in preventing an overdose. Dr. Felton acknowledges these can be difficult conversations, however, she emphasizes it can make a potentially life-saving difference.

“Be aware of what they're dealing with, their environments, what they're looking at, what they're watching,” explained Dr. Felton. “Ask them questions, direct questions.” 

Because Benadryl (diphenhydramine) is an over-the-counter medication, it is easily accessible to children and teens. Experts say it is important to communicate that consuming any medication improperly can be detrimental to a person's health in both the short and long term. 

“There is specific per age, per weight, how much you can take of a medication, if you go outside of that you can cause harm to your body,” said Dr. Felton.

Recognizing an overdose

While it may seem trivial because it is an over-the-counter medication, Dr. Felton explains that an overdose can have lifelong effects. This includes heart arrhythmias, electrolyte abnormalities, or urinary retention that can impact the kidneys. Hallucinations can also affect the brain.

Monitor for these symptoms of an overdose:

• Hot but not with a fever
• Pupillary size
• Heart arrhythmias
• Seizures
• Difficulty breathing
• Hallucination

Tips for Poison Prevention: 

Safe Medication Dosing 

• Follow the dosing directions listed on the medication by using the appropriate measuring items, such as a medicine cup or oral syringe.
• Double dosing is NOT twice as effective, and in many instances can cause internal damage.
• Adult medications may be too strong for children and should not be given in half doses. Only give medicine to your child that is intended for children.
• Print the medication schedule to keep the right dosage for your family. 

Safe Storage 

• Many people leave medications on bathroom and kitchen counters as well as bedroom nightstands as a visual reminder to take them. Avoid unintentional injury and store medication up high, locked, and out of reach.
• Hang purses and personal bags up high so children cannot reach prescriptions, vitamins, or other regularly used medications.
• Remember, when visiting friends and family, it is ok to have an open discussion about safe storage. 

Safe Disposal 

• DEA Drug Take Back Day is on April 25th from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Visit a medication drop box at a local pharmacy. For more information on poison prevention, visit www.meddropbox.org.
• The best disposal option is to find a drug take-back location, which may be found in retail, hospital, pharmacies, and/or law enforcement facilities.
• Removing any unused or expired medication in the home can reduce the risk of access. 

 Related Stories:

• Spring Break with Allergies: Things to Be on the Lookout For This Season
• Cook Children's Experts Warn of Dangerous Social Media Challenges on 'The Doctors'
• TikTok Videos Encourage Viewers to Overdose on Benadryl

Statistics, no matter how alarming, sometimes blur into faceless numbers when parents hear them on TV or read them in a news story.

That’s until it’s your child in the emergency room, hooked to an IV while receiving treatment for ingesting too many pills—in this case, over-the-counter pain meds often used to relieve menstrual cramps—with the intent of harming herself.

And then suddenly, those numbers have a face. For Betty, a Tarrant County mom who asked not to be identified to protect her 14-year-old from any stigma attached to her attempted suicide, the face that came fully into focus was her own teenage daughter’s.

Betty’s daughter is among the many children and young adults across the country who’ve used excessive doses of common drugs, like pain relievers or allergy medications, with the intent of harming themselves. National studies have shown OTC meds as the No. 1 means used by youths in suicide attempts and the third-leading cause of youth suicide deaths.

“I really didn’t put those in the category of prescription medications, so I never put them away,” Betty said of the handful of OTC meds—a combination of Motrin and Midol—her daughter swallowed earlier this year. (Motrin contains ibuprofen, and Midol is a mixture of acetaminophen, caffeine and pyrilamine maleate, an antihistamine.) “I want other people to know, and to even have lockboxes for their medications, so that someone else doesn’t have to go through what we went through.”

Her daughter, who went to school but said it wasn’t the same because of COVID restrictions, had felt isolated and been sad because she missed her friends, she said. She faced the typical teenage stuff like low self-esteem, Betty said, but she had no idea her daughter was considering suicide.

“She’s seeking treatment now, but I want to be really clear, ‘Put all your medications away, not just your prescription medications,’” she said.

Betty is far from alone in facing this issue. Other parents across the nation also are grappling with children and teens who are intentionally overdosing with easily accessible OTC meds.

In a study published by The Journal of Pediatrics in May 2019, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Central Ohio Poison Center found that suspected suicide attempts by self-poisoning in children and young adults had doubled in the past decade. The research, which targeted ages 10 to 24 during 2000 to 2018, also showed suicide attempts using OTC meds had tripled among girls and young women.

The same researchers later expounded on the initial report, pointing out that the two most commonly used substances among all age groups were OTC pain relievers—such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin—followed by antidepressants.

Last year, a study conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital focused specifically on the use of OTC pain relievers in suicide attempts, showing a 57-percent hike in overall cases from 2000 to 2018. Children and young adults between 6 to 19-year-old made up half of the cases, and of those, 73 percent were female, the study showed.

Researchers analyzed 549,807 suicide-related calls made to poison control centers across the United States that involved OTC medications. The study, published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety journal, also determined a 34-percent rise in the frequency of those cases during that time period, caused primarily by a jump among calls involving 6- to 19-year-old females, researchers said.

The results from the study showed the breakdown of OTC substances involved in the calls: 48 percent, acetaminophen alone; 33 percent, ibuprofen; and 19 percent, aspirin. Acetaminophen and aspirin accounted for 65 percent and 33 percent of deaths, respectively. Aspirin created the most serious medical outcomes for 36 percent of the cases and 68 percent of the cases with aspirin were admitted into a health care facility compared with other OTC pain relievers. Overall, while suicide-related cases using acetaminophen and ibuprofen climbed, the number involving aspirin decreased, researchers found.

Although local numbers on these types of cases are not yet readily available, physicians at Cook Children’s Medical Center are noticing a similar increase in intentional OTC medication overdoses.

Stacey Vanvliet, M.D., an inpatient pediatric hospitalist at Cook Children’s, said suicide attempts “have become part of my daily practice” and most are overdoses on a substance that’s “convenient for the children and teens to grab.” While it’s mostly older ones, children as young as 8 or 9 come in for attempting suicide, she said.

“Commonly, we see Tylenol, Motrin, aspirin, Benadryl—things that people just stock in their cabinets to have on hand,” she said. “We see teenagers take huge handfuls of them.”

Many people have a misconception of how dangerous these drugs can be when ingested over the recommended dosage, Dr. Vanvliet said. For example, high levels of acetaminophen (as in Tylenol) can cause liver damage or acute liver failure as well as other serious health issues.

“I think another misperception is that there’s a certain type of patient or type of teen that might try to overdose. Or that there’s a certain stressor or pattern, so to speak, that this happens and then the teen goes for pills or whatever it may be,” she said. “But in my experience, that’s not the case. We certainly have children who have undergone significant trauma and have mental health issues…but we also have children who haven’t shown a whole lot of warning signs and are very high achievers.”

When a child or teen attempts suicide, it’s usually an impulsive decision, Dr. Vanvliet said, which makes the accessibility to OTC meds more dangerous.

“You’d be amazed at some of the things that trigger them to make a serious attempt. It can be something as small as, ‘My mom took my phone away because I got a bad grade,’ or ‘My best friend is mad at me,’” she said. “It’s not necessarily anything that’s huge…but they make these snap decisions, and they go take a handful of pills, and it could be really damaging. It happens over and over, unfortunately.”

So, what can be done to keep children safe? Many health experts and researchers propose restricting the amount of OTC meds that can be purchased at one time and suggest unit-dose packaging, such as blister packs, as well as promoting safe storage for OTC and other medications.

Responding to that call, The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation, a Fort Worth-based nonprofit group that targets suicide prevention, plans to launch Keep All Meds Secure (KAMS) public awareness initiative this summer. Christina Judge, the foundation’s executive director, said the initiative includes educating families and caregivers on the dangers of various medications, providing lockboxes for safe storage and advocating safe disposal of old medications. The foundation also offers free suicide prevention training to help parents to know what to look and listen for with a child who might be considering suicide.

The initiative began with a phone call that Judge received. A frantic mother, whose daughter had taken a handful of Tylenol and a handful of Advil, called the foundation seeking help in finding a bed at a mental health facility for her daughter.

“The pivotal moment was just hearing the anguish in the mother’s voice,” Judge said. “I asked her, ‘Did you know that these drugs in the hands of a suicidal child could be lethal?’ She said, ‘No. We just keep them in the cabinet above the sink.’”

“Well, that was enough for me,” Judge said, who researched the topic, presented a case for it and sought funding for the initiative.

Vanvliet believes programs such as KAMS will help with suicide prevention among children and teens.

“Education for parents and keeping those substances safe, I think, is a big part of preventing this from happening,” she said.

For Betty, what happened to her daughter has made her even more vigilant. She has always paid close attention to safety in her house. The family’s guns are always locked away in a safe, along with prescription medication. Now, she secures her OTC meds, too, she said.

She’s thankful her daughter, who’s getting ongoing treatment, didn’t suffer any long-term health effects from the incident. But Betty is highly aware that it all could have ended much differently that day her daughter tried to overdose.

“I think she got scared and came to me and told me. I’m so glad she did,” Betty said. “And I have to say if there were more pills in the bottles, we would have had a much different situation…it could have been much more harmful.”

“Like I said, we’d locked up everything else except for that. And if we had locked that up, maybe we would have avoided this,” she said.

Hospitalist nurse practitioner Amber Jewison and psychiatrist Kia Carter, M.D. were featured on the nationally-syndicated show “The Doctors” on Thursday, Nov. 5. The show highlighted a recent trend of TikTok videos that encourage viewers to take excessive amounts of the common allergy medicine diphenhydramine, aka Benadryl.

Cook Children’s first reported on these videos on Checkup Newsroom over the summer after three teens were admitted to the hospital for overdoses.

“We had three patients in a week who specifically told me they saw a video on TikTok that told them they could take Benadryl to get high, and it gave them a specific number (to take),” Amber said in an interview on "The Doctors." “When I viewed that video, I was pretty shocked.”

Patients who overdose on Benadryl can have abnormal electrocardiograms (EKGs) and may not be able to urinate. It’s even possible to suffer seizures. Amber has treated such patients and says parents are usually shocked to find out their child has overdosed.

“I try to tell parents that it’s really good to know what’s out there on social media and to be aware of what your kids may be doing,” she said.

And it’s not just shocking for parents. Medical professionals are also surprised to see healthy adolescents and teens taking part in these dangerous challenges.

“I was alarmed, I was extremely shocked that children are participating in something so lethal,” said Dr. Carter, who is also the medical director of Psychiatry at Cook Children’s. “Being a parent myself, it’s petrifying to think about the idea of my pre-adolescent daughter participating in this.”

So why do teens participate in dangerous viral challenges like the one involving Benadryl?

“I think people have to realize that children’s brains are not fully developed like an adult and judgement and executive function are a huge part in making decisions. When we see kids participating in these high-risk behaviors, we have to remember that their brains are not fully developed,” said Dr. Carter. “There’s some research also to show that social media and participating in these challenges is activating the reward center in the brain, which can cause kids to become further attached to participating in these challenges.”

Dr. Carter says it’s also important to realize the difference between a child participating in an online challenge, and one who is actively trying to harm themselves. She says kids who are taking part in challenges because they want to fit in are usually active and part of a social group. Kids who are taking medicines or over-the-counter substances to harm themselves are often excluded or bullied on social media.

Her advice for parents - be aware.

“Know what your children are doing on social media, participate and ask questions,” Dr. Carter said.

“We've definitely seen a high number of adolescent suicide attempts over the past couple of months, especially during COVID-19,” said Kia Carter, M.D., medical director of psychiatry at Cook Children’s Medical Center. “We've also seen younger kids endorse suicidal ideation.”

At Cook Children’s, the vast majority of patients treated for self-harming are girls, typically between the ages of 13 and 15. But Dr. Carter says she’s had patients in her unit as young as 4 years old talking about wanting to die.

“We've seen a huge increase with younger kids knowing what death is because of video games,” said Dr. Carter. “We have to assess their cognitive level and find out if they know what death means or do they think it’s like the video game where they die, but get a backup player.”

So far in 2020, 192 kids have been admitted to Cook Children’s for attempting suicide. Compare that to the same time period in 2015 when the hospital saw 88 patients - less than half of the current statistics.

Unfortunately, the data from Cook Children’s Behavioral Health Center is in line with a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The article, released Sept. 11, shows suicide rates among 10 to 24 year olds have increased 57.4% from 2007 to 2018.

"It's a real trend that has been demanding, for a while, a serious public health and research effort to understand what is happening and why," said Anna Mueller, an associate professor of sociology at Indiana University Bloomington. In an interview with USA Today, Mueller said she doesn’t buy that it’s just social media, though we do know many children express anxiety and depression linked to social media.

“Social media plays a big role in the mental health of children and teens,” said Dr. Carter. “They experience bullying online, they may not feel self-worth because they’re comparing themselves to what they see on Instagram. They’re also getting ideas on the internet about how to harm themselves.”

Dr. Carter says social media and sites like YouTube have made self-harm almost acceptable. She says children are looking to those avenues to find out how many pills to take or other ways they can attempt suicide.

“A lot of kids will research how much medication to take to not wake up,” said Dr. Carter. “I would say 99% of the overdoses we see have some over-the-counter component.”

Since January, 31 children have been admitted to Cook Children’s for ingesting too much Benadryl. At least three of the Benadryl overdoses are linked to a TikTok challenge, but the majority of cases were among patients intending to harm themselves. Other drugs commonly found in medicine cabinets such as Tylenol, aspirin and ibuprofen are also frequently used.

So why do children and teens take these drastic measures?

“When people feel like they're not going to get better and there's no way out, they tend to go to these levels,” Dr. Carter explained. “I think the biggest thing is hopelessness. When kids feel like they don't have anyone to talk to, they don’t feel like they can communicate with their parents or they’re getting bullied and they don’t have a social circle. Some kids also are struggling with gender and sexual identity.”

About 30% of the children assessed by Cook Children’s Behavioral Health Center report issues with gender or sexual orientation. Among those are patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a feeling of discomfort or distress that can occur when someone feels their gender identity differs from their sex.

“There are some kids who physically don't feel comfortable in the body they're in and they don't feel that they relate to the other girls or the other boys. We see this occur a lot around age 10,” said Dr. Carter. “A lot of times parents feel like it's a phase, and that might be true, but I would encourage parents to not minimize it because kids can begin to feel hopeless.”

She suggests parents keep an open mind, listen to their children and get them in to see a licensed professional counselor. And she says it’s ok to not agree with their feelings, but to share those thoughts with your spouse or a friend instead of the child.

“If you're resistant to it, your child's going to shut down and that can cause a whole realm of depression, hopelessness and not wanting to be alive anymore,” she said.

With COVID-19 and social distancing, spotting signs of depression and hopelessness can be challenging. Things that may have seemed out of the norm in the past, like avoiding social activities, may not be so odd now. But Dr. Carter says watching for changes in behavior is still key.

“Most kids still want to play video games and have their cell phones, so if they don’t want a new video game and all they want to do is sleep, you’re going to want to assess where that change is coming from,” she said.

Other signs of depression to look out for include:

• Declining grades
• Lack of concern about appearance and hygiene
• Changes in eating and/or sleep
• Self-injury such as cutting
• Less motivation
• Alcohol/drug use
• Acting highly anxious or agitated
• Recklessness

If you feel your child needs help, please talk to your pediatrician or call 682-885-3917 for a referral to Cook Children's Behavioral Health Center.

Three teens were treated at Cook Children’s in May after overdosing on the common allergy medicine diphenhydramine aka Benadryl. Each of these patients said they got the idea from videos on TikTok that claimed users could get high and hallucinate if they took a dozen or more of the allergy pills.

One of the teens who ended up at Cook Children’s is a 14-year-old named Rebekah. She took 14 Benadryl pills in the middle of the night on Memorial Day.

“I got a call from mom and she was telling me I need to wake up,” said Katie, Rebekah’s mother. “I didn’t know what was happening.”

Katie was asleep when Rebekah appeared in her older sister’s bedroom, obviously intoxicated from the pills. The eldest sister called their grandmother for help, likely trying to avoid getting in trouble with their parents.

“It was scary. She had fractured sentences, hallucinations. Her resting heart rate was 199,” Katie explained. “We rushed her to the local ER and they decided to transport her to Cook Children’s.”

While at Cook Children’s, doctors performed an electrocardiogram (EKG) and they didn’t like the results. Rebekah was admitted to the hospital and observed overnight. Thankfully, her heart rate returned to normal the next day and she was able to go home.

“What struck me was that we had three teens come in for the same thing in one week,” said Amber Jewison, a hospitalist nurse practitioner at Cook Children’s Medical Center. “None of these patients were trying to harm themselves. They all said they saw videos on TikTok and were curious to try it.”

What these patients didn’t realize is that not only can a Benadryl overdose be harmful to your health, it can also be deadly.

“Too much diphenhydramine can cause a high heart rate and trigger arrhythmias,” said Jewison. “It can also cause hallucinations, seizures and require a catheter to drain urine from the bladder due to not being able to urinate.”

For Katie, the experience was eye opening. She said she never imagined her daughter would try such a thing and was completely shocked by the ordeal.

“As a parent, you worry about drugs and you know the signs for drug use. I never thought about having to lock up my allergy medicine,” she said. “I just want other parents to know about this because it’s dangerous and I had no idea. And I’m angry. These people are essentially prescribing medication without a medical degree and our kids are trusting them.”

Fortunately, Rebekah shouldn’t have any long-term health effects due to her overdose. Her mother hopes this incident will be a wakeup call for the teen and prevent her from putting herself in danger in the future.

In addition to the Benedryl videos, parents should also be aware of a popular TikTok challenge. It’s called the nutmeg challenge, in which TikTok users drink two to four tablespoons of nutmeg with milk or water and film their reactions. The objective is to get high from the large amount of the spice, but doing this can have detrimental effects on the body.

According to the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), one to four teaspoons of nutmeg can cause dry mouth, agitation, hypothermia, hallucinations, among others — and in some cases, coma and death.

So if your child or teen has a TikTok account, or spends any time online at all, it’s a good idea to monitor what they’re watching. Remember, they’re still developing the part of the brain that controls judgement and impulsivity. It may help to remind them that online challenges, even with things that may seem harmless, can have scary and serious consequences.

Both allergies and colds share a lot of similar symptoms:

• Sore throat
• Runny nose 
• Sneezing 
• Coughing 
• Feeling tired 
• Feeling achy

Honestly, it can be hard even for us to tell the difference when we examine kids.

HOWEVER, you don't get a fever with allergies. If you have a little fever (or a big fever), that's most likely a cold.

ALSO,  "itchiness" in general of nose and eyes, makes me think more allergies than cold.

AND, the time is important - Did  it come on really quickly? That's most likely a cold. Has it been going on for months with a slow onset? Most likely allergies.

Both allergies and colds can make you more susceptible to other problems like ear infections and sinus infections. That's why we say if your symptoms are lasting longer than 2 weeks, come in and see us so we can help.

"How do I know what to do?" Well, that depends on a lot of things.

Is your child under age 1? If so - this is more likely a cold than allergies (a child has to be alive longer than a year to develop allergies to their environment). Elevate the head of their crib. Stick a blanket under the mattress. Would you want to lay flat on your back with a bad cold? Suck out all that snot with a Nose Frida (dont knock it til you try it). Use saline drops. Tylenol (or ibuprofen if over 6 months) for the headaches and throat pain. Run a hot shower and sit in a steamy bathroom for a bit. And lots of lovins. There ain't much you can do for the tiny ones. They just have to push through it.

If they're over age 1 and they have what seems to be a cold, try some honey along with all of the above. It's been proven to help just as much as medication. There are some over-the-counter medications that have honey in them too. I wouldn't try cold medicines until they're at least 4. Studies don't even show that they help much.

If it's allergies - you have lots of over the counter options like Benadryl, Zyrtec, Claritin, and Allegra. Some nose sprays are also very helpful and we can prescribe those in the office. And there is a prescription medication called montelukast that I find can help some kids.

Also, a wise allergist once told me that if you rinse out your kid's nostrils when they come indoors, it helps a lot (it washes away all the allergens/pollens clinging to the hairs in the nose and really helps symptoms go away faster). You could also try nasal saline spray here and just have them hold their head over the sink.

Hugs!

Dr. Diane

You don’t expect tragedy and you certainly don’t expect that tragedy to occur as a result of negligence by your child care provider.

Unfortunately, for Katie Mulkey of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, this is exactly what happened. On May 13, she dropped her son Haddix off at the babysitter’s house where his unlicensed childcare provider allegedly gave him two tablets (an adult dose) of Benadryl to help him sleep because he was fussy. When the babysitter went to the back room to check on him later, he wasn’t breathing.

Of course, the family is devastated but they have taken the opportunity to educate and advocate against the use of medications to help babies sleep.

Here are the lessons to learn:

1. Medications have indications for use and they should be used for those reasons and those reasons only. Benadryl works fine for allergies and even for itching. Benadryl is not a baby sedative, period. The promotion of its use for sleep in babies is irresponsible and dangerous.
2. Medications have dosing for children. The difference between the effective dose and the fatally toxic dose is not always as big as you think. Kids are harmed and die from overdoses of just about every over the counter medicine you can imagine. Know the dose and use the appropriate one.
3. Medications come with a dosing cup. Use the cup or syringe to measure out your child’s medications. Using a teaspoon from home doesn’t work because they will likely under or overdose your child.

Use of medications is a huge responsibility.

Giving medicine to your child should only be done by you or by your explicit instruction. They should be given for the right reasons at the right doses.

The anger and subsequent anxiety I felt after hearing about “The Newborn Sleep Book” surprised me. I am not a “crunchy” pediatrician by any means. I have taught families to sleep. This is why the feeling I got in my stomach is unexpected.

The book is written by two pediatricians in New York who happen to be brothers, Lewis and Jonathan Jassey. The premise is that, through proper training, you can space a newborn’s feeds out to every 4 hours, resulting in them being able to sleep through the night. Their recommendations include: allowing them to cry until their scheduled feeding time, using Benadryl^® for sleep disruptions and increasing feeding volumes during the day to enable skipping nighttime feeds. It’s not the fact that they recommend sleep training; it’s their method that I find upsetting.

This goes against everything you are likely to hear from your pediatrician (certainly me), including the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP says some newborns feed as often as every 1.5 hours, while others about every 3 hours. The AAP also says breastfed newborns will feed 8-12 or more times per 24 hours once a mom’s milk has come in.

Oh and here’s something else important from the AAP: “If your baby isn't waking on his own during the first few weeks, wake him if 3-4 hours have passed since the last feeding.”

So that’s a group of 62,000 pediatricians’ recommendations who I tend to agree with on most things and two pediatricians who I couldn’t agree with less.  But I’m not finished making my case. Here are 8 myths I found particularly bothersome in the book:

1. MYTH: The authors have “continually researched and practiced (their) method, adjusted, and practiced some more.”

FACT: The best report of their results is this: a “ballpark estimate is that, since we started coaching parents …over 15 years ago, nine out of 10 parents who have followed through have been successful.” My scientific mind is not satisfied and neither should yours. I am not asking for a randomized, double-blind placebo trial, a simple survey would have been better than a “ballpark” estimate.Very few things in medicine have a 95 percent success rate. So, if you have the research, prove it … if not, it would not be that hard to get.

2. MYTH: Their method is the best way to get your child to sleep through the night.

FACT: The results I do see reported in the book are underwhelming. Their testimonials of patients who began to sleep through the night, included children with ages ranging from 6 weeks to 3 months.  A 2010 study in Pediatricsshowed that 37 of 75 babies were sleeping through the night during their third month. If you took testimonials of parents from that study (which are often the best case scenario), I would imagine you would find plenty of babies who would be sleeping through the night just as early as the Jassey families, many with no fancy plan.

3. MYTH: The authors are Ok with saying that their method may not work for everyone.

FACT: They go on to say later, “sleep training is by no means selfish on the part of the parents. In fact, since its benefits to both baby and family are undeniable, we might say that not sleep training…is a more selfish choice.” First of all, “undeniable?” Not so fast. That is still up for debate. I guess everyone has the right to make their own choices, even if they don’t mind making selfish choices, by not sleep training their children. It’s like saying; there really are no dumb questions, unless you ask a dumb question.

4. MYTH: Scheduling, even from a very early age poses no risk to babies.

FACT: Scheduling from birth as they suggest is dangerous and puts babies at risk, period. Not feeding on demand puts moms at risk for lactation failure. Their recommended 8-12 feedings (for 1-2 days) on demand is not enough for many moms to establish good milk supply. Ask any lactation consultant or pediatrician who understands milk production and they will either laugh or cry at the suggestion that scheduling this early will not affect milk production. In addition, infrequent feeding places babies at risk for increased weight loss and more severe jaundice, which requires further treatment and testing. If you are my patient, please do not schedule your baby from birth!

5. FACT: Crying babies are not all hungry (I actually agree with them, up to a  point …)

MYTH: You should never feed a baby before the time you have scheduled for them.

FACT: The authors state that our first response to a crying baby should not always be to feed them (again, I agree). However, I feel that we can go through our usual steps to comfort them (change diaper, pacifier (if a family chooses), rocking, etc.) and if they do not work, it is reasonable to attempt to feed.

6. MYTH: The authors state that they do not endorse formula feeding over breastfeeding.

FACT: Their method involves careful measuring of volume to ensure your baby gets enough each day don’t “have” to feed at night. Breast feeding simply does not work this way. A breastfeeding mom can’t simply feed a little bit longer… when the breasts are empty, they’re empty. So, while they may not endorse formula feeding, their method could push families toward formula feeding.

7. MYTH: If your baby’s sleep is disrupted for any reason (teething, vaccines, etc.), a combination of Tylenol^®, Benadryl^® and Motrin^® will help to “reset their clock.”

FACT: Uhhh, not for my patients. If your baby is fussy and you think it might be pain from teething, I am Ok with giving a dose of Tylenol or Motrin, but not along with Benadryl. The benefit is slim and the risk of an adverse event (whether appropriately or inappropriately dosed) is too high. Of course, they also mention using teething gels and you should know how I feel about them. There is no reason to treat a normal developmental stage with medicine.

8. MYTH: Feeding your child on their schedule means they will not “become hungry at inconvenient times-like 2 a.m.”

FACT: Parenting is about facing inconveniences. are ways to help your child fit into your life better than others, the very premise of this statement offends me. I’m sorry if your little baby woke up and tried to bother you at night for something to eat. I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.

The authors do address a concern in their book. It happens to be about co-sleeping, but that’s not important to them:

“We are inherently suspicious of any parenting technique that is so obviously weighted to the parents’ wants over the potential benefits to the child.”

Huh? Me too. This is why I would never recommend their book to my parents.