Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
by Marc Weissbluth
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Book Reviews of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
Book Review: AMAZING
Summary: 5 Stars
I felt compelled to write a review about this book...It literally changed the way that I think about sleep. My son was always a good sleeper, and we were very blessed that he started sleeping through the night (9 hours or more!) at just over 2 months of age. That lasted until about 3 months, when he started waking up again. Around that time, he also started fighting taking naps. I would nurse him until he fell asleep, sneak him into his crib, and tiptoe out of the room. If he woke up, all hell broke loose and we started the process over again...It was exhausting, and my poor baby was hardly getting any sleep during the day, unless he slept in my arms. We bought this book when he was 3.5 months old. After ONE night of following the plan exactly as he describes, the bebe is back to sleeping through the night, but now its between 11-12 hours STRAIGHT. He also takes three solid naps a day. I put him in his crib awake, he smiles, finds his thumb, and goes to sleep on his own. It is truly amazing and adorable. He wakes up from naps and bedtime happy and alert, and he actually tells me when he's ready to nap. I've learned how to read his cues, and we can plan the day around his nap needs. Whenever someone tells me that they are shocked at how much he sleeps, I just think to myself that that is how much babies NEED to sleep, it's just that most babies/kids are overly tired.
I highly recommend this book. It gives a lot of detail about why sleep is so important, and it gives information for how to handle the older child who starts waking up again. The first night was hard, we both cried, but after that, things changed for the better. IMMEDIATELY. My 5 month old can even sleep away from home, so it's not like we're attached to his crib. Sorry for the long review, but I hope it is helpful for someone else. And good luck!
Book Review: This is an essential book when having a baby!
Summary: 5 Stars
Someone my husband works with gave us this book at our baby shower. The woman who gave it to us pointed out that she followed the general principles of the book and NEVER had sleep issues with any of her kids. I finally started to read the book when our son was about 5 weeks old. This book has helped us nurture a 14-month-old who sleeps 12 hours at night and takes two 2-hour naps.....and has been doing so since he was about 2-3 months old (napping more frequently when he was a little younger). This book discusses how much sleep infants/children require at their respective age from a biological/neurological/physical/developmental standpoint. The author approaches the topic in a very non-judgemental way and provides several examples of how his suggestions have helped specific families as well as ways he has had to problem solve with families when his suggestions didn't work the first time. This is nice b/c many other books I've read don't troubleshoot if the authors suggestions don't work. The book operates off the basic premise that we need to respect our children's sleep needs and really fight to provide them the opportunity to sleep as much as they need (e.g., no evening trips to the supermarket with the kids in their pjs, and no more taking the baby to lunch with your gal pals to nap in the infant carrier instead of napping peacefully at home).
BOTTOM LINE: All of my co-workers, family member and friends are jealous of how well our kids sleep. Their great sleeping habits started when I implemented the strategies discussed in this book. I regularly use strategies in this book to make recommendations to my friends when they ask for help getting their kids to sleep better. This book is a must buy! The last bit I would like to add is that you have to be very consistent or it probably won't work!
Book Review: No More Tears
Summary: 5 Stars
I've used Dr. Weissbluth's book for my first two children, and with the advice I got from it, I feel like a saner person and a better mother. When my oldest son was two, he couldn't fall asleep on his own, and as a result didn't fall asleep until close to 11pm every night. Every day he threw tantrums and was inconsolable. A friend told me about Dr. Weissbluth's book, so I bought it and learned that I should put my son to bed by 6pm. Yes, the philosophy is counter-intiutive, but it is based on decades of research--and it works! The difference was night and day. My son not only fell asleep quickly--and on his own--but slept later in the morning (he had been getting up around 5am, but now slept until 6:15). From then on, he was a happier child, rarely threw tantrums, and excelled at school. With my daughter, I put her to bed early and had no sleep problems with her until she was about two. When she stopped napping, the chapter on re-establishing the nap really helped. I learned I was putting her down for a nap too early, so started a later nap. She not only started napping again, but slept now for two hours every afternoon instead of 30, 45, or 60 minutes. Without Dr. Weissbluth's book, I would be overwhelmed, overtired, and overextended. Now that I have a third child, I put him down before he becomes overtired. I am confident that if he ever needs to re-establish his naps, I can turn to Dr. Weissbluth's book and get him back on track. I've bought this book half a dozen times: twice for myself (the first copy was passed down to my brother when his daughter was born), for my sister-in-law, and for a few friends. It's not only a perfect gift for first-time parents, but also for seasoned moms and dads who face challenging sleep issues.Book Review: useful but annoying
Summary: 2 Stars
Weissbluth is a pediatrician with a background in sleep research. He stresses the vital role of good sleep in healthy development, often comparing children's need for sleep to their need for food (for example, he coins the phrase "junk sleep" in analogy to "junk food"). After convincing the reader to take sleep seriously (a valuable contribution in itself), he sets out some sensible advice for achieving healthy sleep. A notable feature of Dr. Weissbluth's approach is that he sees nothing wrong with letting a baby "cry it out" in order to learn self-soothing skills. This contrasts sharply with the views of Dr. William Sears, the "attachment parenting" advocate. (In fact, in the final chapter of Weissbluth's book he can't resist taking jabs at Dr. Sears' ill-informed sleep advice. Baby advice is apparently a nasty business.)
The ideas and research may be sound, but the book itself leaves much to be desired. The book begins on a gratuitous and superfluous note with a forward written by supermodel Cindy Crawford. By the end of Chapter 1, though, you're wishing that Cindy had written the whole book. Dr. Weissbluth may be an excellent pediatrician and sleep researcher, but he's a lousy writer. The prose is monotonous, repetitive, poorly organized, and sometimes frustratingly ambiguous. The reader is subjected to endless testimonials written by his former patients, describing how miserable their lives were until Dr. Weissbluth saved the day with his penetrating advice (inevitably, "put the baby to sleep earlier"). There are a dozen or so diagrams ("figures") in the book, each consisting of a baffling jumble of words and arrows. One such graph has a node inexplicably labeled (I swear I am not making this up) "infanticide".
Book Review: Awesome tools for any parent!
Summary: 5 Stars
My son started having issues napping when he was about 5 months old. He started taking two 30-minute naps a day, which after a month started to wear thin on us both. Most people told me, "oh, he's just cat napping," but it was obviously affecting his personality as he got crankier and crankier. I ran across this book when he was over 6 months old and I have read several different parenting books, but this was the first one that worked for me! My son's bedtime was 8pm and I didn't want to put him down earlier for fear that he would wake up super early. But the large premise behind this book is the idea that a well-rested child will sleep better. So, the more sleep the better. I gave it a shot and it worked like a dream! We slowly moved his bedtime back and as soon as we did he started to nap longer! Now he goes to bed at 630pm, sleeps through the night until 6am and takes two naps that are at least an hour and a half a piece! He is a much happier little man and I love the quiet time to myself for a couple hours a day.
Some people take issue with letting your child "cry it out," but Dr. Weissbluth actually puts all the different ways out on the table (extinction, gradual extinction, check and console, lay down with him, etc.) and says (refreshingly) to do what works for your family. Bottom line: watch your child's cues, wind him down for sleep and then put him down. He highly stresses to not let them get overtired because then they sleep poorly and in my experience he's right! It took a little crying for my son, but after about a week we can put him down and he talks to his stuffed doggie for about 10 minutes and then goes right to sleep. It's a parent's dream come true...