Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

Hurry for Dr. Weissbluth! My one year old is now going to bed at 8 and sleeping through the night (4 nights and counting) for the first time in his life. He is also beginning to nap in his crib. A cloud has lifted from our house. This book combines discussions on sleep research with practical how-to information. Weissbluth emphasizes keeping the child from becoming over tired and training the child to achieve sleep continuity. He does recommend allowing a child to cry if neccasary, but that is not the ideal or primary thrust of the approach (like Ferber). I found this approach to be more logical and research based than many popular sleep books. It is better than Sears' "Nighttime Parenting" if you have a child with real sleep issues. It is more scientific and practical than "Babywise" (which my pediatrician says is based on poor research). It is a gentler approach than Ferber, who I feel puts too much emphasis on the act of crying. Also, this approach allows greater flexibility than Ferber's method.

Our 11 month old son was waking us up 3-4 times a night and would refuse to take a nap until late afternoon - and he was a CRAB! After one terrible night, at 5 am I got online to order a book and it turned out to be "Healthy Sleep Habbits, Happy Child." I decided to strictly follow Weissbluth's advice. After 3 tough days, our son was sleeping from about 8:30-6:00am! It was so hard to put him down and "let him cry it out" - it was against my nuturing-motherly instinct. But I am now convinced that it was in my son's best interest - because healthy sleep is sooooo important for their development. So don't let anyone make you feel bad about being diligent and letting your child learn to fall asleep on their own - including yourself. Sometimes the picking your child up when s/he cries may feel like the right thing to do but is not really the healthiest thing to do. It pays to have a baby who gets healthy sleep - and you will too! Think of it this way: if your child refuses to eat fruits & vegetables and will cry unless you feed him/her junk food, would you feel bad about enforcing healthy eating habbits - even if there's crying? No. It's like enforcing healthy sleep habbits. I never realized that by picking up my baby and nursing him when he cried in the middle of the night, I was enabling him to develop unhealthy sleep patterns. I was exhausted. I tried keeping him up really late to make him sleep longer - it never worked. But now that we're putting him down at 7:30/8:00pm, he sleeps until about 6:00/7:00am -- Go figure!

If you're having problems with you're child at night... GET THIS BOOK, IT'S GREAT!

I wanted to respond to the person who reviewed this book from Calgary. I am also from Calgary. Although the quotes you mentioned from the book are acurate, the context in which you have placed them in your review are not. I am a caring mother with a 7 mth old. I bought this book when my child was 3 mths old. The reason I read the entire book was because of its flexibility. In the section 4-12 mths where he suggests starting to allow your child to cry he also points out that if you are not ready for this approach to try again later when your child is older. We followed the Dr.'s advice. I was not comfortable with allowing my child to cry. The Dr. says that sleep training does not involve crying if you time it correctly and follow the biological sleep cycles of your child. We found that this book was a happy medium between those "experts" who suggest sleeping with your child until they are 12 and the other "experts" who suggest you let your child "cry it out" at 3 wks old. You definately have to take this program and modify it for yourself. He suggests you watch your baby and do what works best for you and your family. Nothing you read can be followed straight to the letter and work for everyone. I found as a new mother I was desperate to read something that would tell me the "right" information. The fact is, you just have to find what works for you and makes you feel good about being a parent and what works for your child. I now have a little boy who sleeps 9-11, 1-3, and the entire night from 7pm to 7am. He is happy and cheerful and loves his crib and all things associated with sleeping. Just a note, in total (over the past 4 mths of doing the program) this has involved about 20 minutes of crying total (not per day, or per sleep time). You do not have to leave them to cry to have this program work for you! Congrats Dr. for a book that CAN work for everyone.

This was an excellent book - I cannot tell you how much this book helped our sleepless, colicky infant. But, several friends with non-colicky babies actually recommended this for any infant. This book is a wonderful middle ground for those parents who do not want a severe schedule (BABYWISE) or the opposite end of the spectrum, attachment parenting (Dr. Sears). It was the only book that I found that spoke knowledgeably about colic, and gave the only helpful advice available on the subject (believe me, we tried it all). It is not a cry-it-out book, although some may look at it in that light. What it teaches you is this: 1. watch your child. 2. put him/her down to sleep when you first see the signs of tiredness 3. most children under 6 months do not stay awake for longer than 2-3 hours at a time without needing a nap. 4. DO NOT just put your child down to nap when you feel like it - that's just letting him/her cry, not TEACHING them to sleep. 5. Most children need to go to sleep at night earlier than you'd think. 6. Going to bed earlier promotes later sleeping (weird, but true. As the author says, it's not logical. It's biological - sleep promotes sleep) There's a lot more too. I really like that the author's data is based on studies that he has done involving the patterns of children who naturally sleep and nap well. No, it didn't give us a perfect baby. We happen to have a very sensitive high strung girlie, who also power-naps. But we went from a cranky post-colicky baby who took no naps or 15-20min naps and got up many times per night to a sweet smiling girl who now takes 3 45min-1 hour naps per day and sleeps from 6pm-7am (waking 2 times to nurse). Oh yes. The nursing. She used to think that nursing was the only way to get to sleep. After diligently following the advice in this book, she now can get to sleep on her own, no nursing. Not that it's perfect - she still cries 5-15 minutes at times before naps. But she is sooooooo much happier now. Gotta think something's working.

Our daughter slept with us in the family bed for 8 months. We loved it but I was tired of being a 24 hour a day mom since I lay beside her during naps. I looked for an approach to help her nap in her crib. Sears and other co-sleep advocates weren't very specific or helpful in this area. Ferber was relatively against the family bed and his techniques sounded too harsh to me. Weissbluth was almost the perfect solution. He was okay with co-sleeping and nursing the baby to sleep. He explained sleep and sleep training with the goal of helping readers find their child's natural rhythms and preventing sleep problems, instead of treating sleep as a problem (see Ferber). Weissbluth's methods resulted in some crying, but not "crying it out" by any means. Putting the baby to sleep at the right time was key. It took some patience, but after 2 weeks of daytime nap training she really caught on. Then we started putting her to sleep in her crib at 7:30 pm, intending to bring her into our bed when she woke. To our surprise, after 3 nights she slept in her crib until 7 am. I sometimes miss the family bed but we're all better rested now, and we can always cuddle in the morning.