I was pretty devastated when I read that I had damaged my first child by attempting to sleep train. The sleep training parents I know, however, are damn amazing and absolutely not damaging their kids in any way, shape, or form. In fact, a recent study out of Flinders University in Australia found that the "cry it out" method is not harmful to children, nor does it cause children to develop emotional, behavioral, or parental attachment problems or cause any long-term damage.

I know babies are fragile, but as long as you love them and do what you think, know, and research shows is best for them, your baby will likely be totally OK.

Sleep training parents swear by the independence it helps create in their children. For a long time that shocked me. I don't want my baby to think they have to be independent at such a young age! I want them to know that mama will be there for them no matter what.

When witnessing my sleep training friend's 20-month-old child, however, it's apparent that she still absolutely knows mama is always there for her. She is not damaged, traumatized, or at all ambivalent toward her mother. Independence does not equal ambivalence.

Do I really have to explain this one? Duh.

When your 5 year old and your 7 year old are constantly crawling into your bed, still, you might look back on your decision to co-sleep and be less-than-thrilled.

It is a conundrum, to be sure, and I'm not willing to sleep train my 15 month old to avoid the repetition of this cycle. But there are moments, especially after the fifth night in a row of having a 7 year old's elbow in my spleen, where I wish I'd had the gut strength to sleep train.

There's nothing like it, in fact. There's nothing like the sleep I get when my baby is not in bed with me, either, as evidenced by the comatose state I inhabit when my partner sometimes takes the baby in the morning and I sleep for two more hours.

It's been a while for me now. In fact, I've never spent the night away from my 15 month old. I'm not sure my little one knows how to get to sleep without me or my partner. But when you have that freedom, as sleep training parents usually do, it must feel damn amazing to have a guilt-free night out not worrying about how your children are (or aren't, as the case may be) sleeping.

Not having to worry a bout what time you'll get home because your baby will fall asleep without you? Priceless.

Not only are Netflix marathons healthy, but they can't happen as much or as reliably when you have to go to bed at 7 o'clock with your infant.

Sure, you never know what type of crib the hotel will have, but at least you know the pack n play will suffice. Whereas us co-sleeping parents? We could be looking at a last minute how-to-prevent-baby-from-falling-out-of-this-tiny-full-sized-bed crisis.

Whether you choose to co-sleep, sleep train, or your baby is one of those fabled few that sleep perfectly without assistance from the start, what my sleep training friends have taught me is that it's likely more about me than my baby. Any sleep method is, isn't it? I totally didn't have the stomach for sleep training and I still cringe when I think about the horror my partner and I went through when we tried it. But is my first baby really damaged by that attempt, almost eight years later? Probably not. Am I still OK with the fact that I don't have the stomach for sleep training? Absolutely. Co-sleeping or sleep training both appear to actually be fine for our babies. So just pick the style that works for you and your family and don't let other families, with different needs and styles, shame you on any count.

Sure, babies are fragile and need their parents for so many thing, but the one thing sleep training parents can (and do) teach co-sleeping parents like me is that babies are also super hardy. Whether they thrive or not has literally nothing to do with whether we sleep train or co-sleep with them.