The Sleep Training Decision Dr. Becky Still Feels Shame Over

There’s a parenting truth many are afraid to admit: You can listen to all the podcasts, read all the books and take all the TikTok advice, and still, there’ll be moments you regret. Whether it’s a time you yelled or a boundary that could’ve used a little more softness, small decisions can balloon into something that makes you feel like a “monster” in hindsight. The good news? It happens to almost everyone—even fan-favorite child psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy, as she recently admitted, and those “monster moments” don’t have to define your relationship with your child.

In the latest episode of her Good Inside podcast, Dr. Becky opened up about teaching her now 7-year-old daughter to sleep independently and the decisions she made that she now looks back on with shame. “My daughter was 3. She wanted to come into our room at night. And I said no. I thought I was holding a boundary, but really, I was holding onto fear,” she shared in a clip from her podcast posted on Instagram. “I didn’t let her come into my room. I think I was so fearful. I don’t know of what. It was like this rigidity of like, ‘I can’t do that. She’ll be in my room forever. That’s my boundary.’ I don’t know what it was.”

“She slept outside our door on the wood floor for months,” Dr. Becky shared tearily. “She told us she was ‘a wood person’ who didn’t like beds.⁠ I think she hardened around it and was trying to compensate, and it became this almost joke I look back on…I feel like a monster as I talk about it, like she was 3. I would have handled that totally differently.”

Reflecting, Dr. Becky said she missed what she sees now: a perceptive, deeply feeling kid struggling with change and needing a sense of safety from her parents.⁠ But at the time, all she knew to do was stick to her boundaries. “If I could go back, I’d do it differently. But here’s what I also know: Repair is powerful. And yes, even I have regrets from my parenting journey. It is never too late,” she added. “That period did not define my relationship with my daughter. She’s not permanently scarred from that…I’ve repaired that in a million different ways, both to her face and mostly in the way I think I’ve tried to dive into learning and committing to doing better… I know from my relationship with my deeply feeling kid that that stage did not color or dictate the entirety of her journey or our relationship.”

Dr. Becky’s vulnerable admission resonated deeply with parents online, prompting a wave of emotional responses. Some thanked her for her honesty, while others questioned the boundary she set. Many saw their own parenting regrets reflected in her words. “We all have our ‘monster’ moments. I wish I could go back too. We didn’t know then what we know now,” one parent commented. Another added, “The ‘perfect parents’ in this thread are so exhausting. Thanks for keeping it real and human as always.”

The story struck a nerve, especially around sleep training, a topic where boundaries, emotions and expert advice often pull parents in many directions. “There’s a strong component in Western and US culture that prioritizes independence, sleeping in separate bedrooms and having strict boundaries about that with your kids,” says Natalie Gontcharova, The Bump senior editor and mom of one. “Parents often feel a lot of pressure to maintain and promote those boundaries, as this is what many mainstream experts recommend.”

While some understandably found the details hard to hear, others appreciated Dr. Becky’s honesty and the work she’s done since. “It’s universally hard as a parent to maintain boundaries that feel good for both yourself and your child. It’s also really, really difficult to admit a parenting mistake. But as Dr. Becky says, repair is important—and that’s exactly what she’s doing by candidly discussing this,” Natalie adds.

At the end of the day, Dr. Becky’s story is less about one decision and more about the reflection that followed. It raises a question that many parents may find worth asking: Are the parenting choices you make rooted in your own values—or in fear and a need to fit the mold? When you begin to truly discover what’s authentic to you, and works for you and your child, you can hopefully run into fewer “monster moments” and foster more opportunities for growth, repair and connection.