News
Sleep training: Life preserver for parents or “symptom of capitalism”?
Todd Warnock/Getty Images

Todd Warnock/Getty Images
Well, I’m back. After a lengthy parental leave, when publication of the Planet Money newsletter decreased in frequency, I’m now working full-time and the newsletter will go back to being published weekly.
As always, I will continue to do my best to provide you with insights from the field of economics and keep you informed about what’s going on in the economy. And, don’t worry, this newsletter is not about to become all about babies. This week, however, it is. Now that I’m a working parent, I want to take just one brief moment to complain on behalf of all of us. Like millions of parents before me, I’ve discovered it’s hard to be productive when you’re sleep deprived.
There’s a ginormous mountain of studies that find that sleep deprivation is a serious drag on productivity. One recent study by economists Joan Costa-i-Font, Sarah Fleche, and Ricardo Pagan estimates that each additional hour of sleep per week increases the probability that a person is employed by 1.6 percentage points and increases a person’s weekly earnings by 3.4%.
Another study by economists Pedro Bessone and colleagues finds that it’s not necessarily just the quantity of sleep hours that matters for productivity, it’s also the quality of sleep. This checks out, personally.
The Modern Dilemma of Juggling Career and Kids
In some ways, the problem of sleep deprivation hurting productivity at work is a contemporary one. More than ever before, families have two parents who work outside the home. Historically, many women stayed at home and bore the brunt of baby-induced sleep deprivation. Today, more often than not, there are two drowsy parents who must go into work the next day and — not speaking from personal experience at all, ahem — may get into small tiffs at around 3 a.m. over whose turn it is to comfort or feed their crying baby.
Plus, thanks to efforts to combat Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) — which, we should note, seem to have been extraordinarily successful — parents are now instructed to avoid co-sleeping and to do things like put their babies to sleep on their backs as opposed to their bellies. While such measures have been found to reduce the risk of SIDS, they also may make it harder for many babies to sleep because many of them naturally want to sleep on their parents or their bellies.
Sleep Training
For today’s parents, there’s a tantalizing solution to the problem of sleepless babies: sleep training. For many, “sleep training” is a mere euphemism for the most infamous and controversial method: Cry It Out. Basically, you put your baby in a crib or bassinet in a separate room and don’t come back until the morning. If they cry, so be it. The idea is they will learn to self-soothe and become good sleepers.
Not all forms of sleep training are so severe, but most do involve some tolerance for crying and, because of this, many categorize most approaches broadly under the umbrella of “cry it out.”
In her bestselling book Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool, economist Emily Oster reviews the evidence on sleep training and concludes, “The bottom line is that there is simply a tremendous amount of evidence suggesting that ‘cry it out’ is an effective method of improving sleep.”
That said, sleep training is pretty hard, strategically, physically, and emotionally. That’s why there’s a whole cottage industry of high-paid sleep trainers, books, consultants, podcasts, influencers, and so on, who help parents with all this. Recognizing that sleeplessness is a problem for employees to be the most productive, companies like Meta (aka Facebook) have begun subsidizing the cost of sleep training coaching for their workers.
The Online War Over Sleep Training
Ever since we had a baby — and apparently started googling baby-related stuff — my wife and I have found our social media feeds to be jam-packed with baby-rearing and sleep training content.
For example, my wife was targeted with a post from a baby sleep consultancy called Taking Cara Babies that marketed their services to us (and our employers). “It’s true! Taking Cara Babies has a way your company can give you the gift of sleep (which will help you thrive as an employee). For more information to send to your boss or HR department, head to my stories or comment.”
It seemed pretty innocuous. But the most liked comment was the following: “Wish we had actual parental leave like the rest of the modern world so we weren’t forced to sleep train and get back to work like good little capitalists.”
It turns out this sentiment can be found across the internet, in comments, on sites like Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), and by influencers. There’s a large community of parents who disparage sleep training — and, in particular, any form of cry it out — as basically a cruel practice that sacrifices our babies’ well-being on the altar of capitalism.
Whole Mother Therapy, which provides online therapy to parents, for example, argues on their blog that “Sleep training is a symptom of capitalism—it cuts parents off from the natural attachment and nurturance that is essential for infant and baby development.”
“Sleep training is breaking your child’s mind and nervous system to fit into the productivity model capitalism requires,” tweeted an X user named ℍℝ.
But is not wanting to be really sleep deprived only driven by economic concerns? If I had the luxury of not working, I probably would still want to be well-slept. And aren’t there a whole bunch of countries that have capitalist economies — but, at the same time, robust safety nets — that give parents greater opportunity to stay home and be sleep-deprived without having to go into work? I’ll let you be the judge.
One of the biggest schools that opposes sleep training, or at least strategies that tolerate baby crying, is known as attachment parenting. This approach advises parents against letting babies cry on the grounds that crying is an expression of distress and that it’s unnatural and cruel to not do everything in our power to prevent it. I have friends who pursued attachment parenting. They not only refused to let their babies cry at night without intervention, but they also let their babies sleep in their beds (which, by the way, is not recommended by health experts for at least the first six months of your baby’s life). And let me tell you, years later, their kids are still interrupting their sleep. Not for us.
Emily Oster points out that sleep training has sizable benefits for parents. She cites a randomized controlled trial that found that mothers “were less likely to be depressed and more likely to have better physical health” months after sleep training their babies. “This finding is consistent across studies,” Oster continues. “Sleep-training methods consistently improve parental mental health; this includes less depression, higher marital satisfaction, and lower parenting stress.”
But what about the baby’s mental and physical health? In reviewing the literature, Oster finds no credible evidence that babies’ long-term well-being is impaired by sleep training. “Fundamentally, the argument against sleep training is theoretical,” Oster argues. She admits that it’d be better if we had more studies on this. “And yes, it is possible that if we had more data, we would find some small negative effects,” she admits. But, at the same time, she says, it’s also possible that, by promoting good sleep hygiene, sleep training could actually be a benefit to babies. She concludes that “You’ll have to make a choice about this without perfect data.”
As for us, we’ve pursued a strategy that you might call sleep training lite. Basically, when our baby cries in the night, we either feed him if it’s been a while since he’s eaten or we hold his hand and sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to him while he stays in his crib. Honestly, it worked really well between months 4 and 7. But recently, he started teething, and… well, we’re both really tired. Take that, capitalism.
News
Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks
President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.
A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.
The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.
The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”
Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”
But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.
In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.
Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.
Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.
Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.
News
U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid
Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
Jesus Vargas/Getty Images
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Jesus Vargas/Getty Images
Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.
The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.
The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.
According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.
Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.
“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”
Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.
The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.
Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.
News
Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS
The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.
Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.
Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.
Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.
Republicans are seeking a way around a filibuster on D.H.S. funding.
The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.
“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”
In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.
The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.
Democrats used the moment to hammer Republicans on affordability.
Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.
“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”
Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.
Republicans blocked Democrats’ proposals to address high living costs.
The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.
Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.
Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.
Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.
Republicans sought to amplify their hard-line messages on immigration, voter I.D. and transgender care.
While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.
Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.
The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.
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