One of the country's leading researchers updates his revolutionary approach to solving--and preventing--your children's sleep problems
Here Dr. Marc Weissbluth, a distinguished pediatrician and father of four, offers his groundbreaking program to ensure the best sleep for your child. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles. This valuable sourcebook contains brand new research that
- Pinpoints the way daytime sleep differs from night sleep and why both are important to your child - Helps you cope with and stop the crybaby syndrome, nightmares, bedwetting, and more - Analyzes ways to get your baby to fall asleep according to his internal clock--naturally - Reveals the common mistakes parents make to get their children to sleep--including the inclination to rock and feed - Explores the different sleep cycle needs for different temperaments--from quiet babies to hyperactive toddlers - Emphasizes the significance of a nap schedule -
Rest is vital to your child's health growth and development. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child outlines proven strategies that ensure good, healthy sleep for every age. Advises parents dealing with teenagers and their unique sleep problems
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: A little disappointed Comment: I was a little disappointed in the book. It often seemed disorganized, vague or at times talked rather lofty. There were a few good nuggets of info, such as 'never wake a sleeping baby' and knowing how many hours of sleep a baby should be getting and at what intervals. However, I was looking for more step by step - do this to get your child to sleep, but it seemed more like anything goes - no real strategies for dealing with my child. And there were lots and lots of horror stories from parents about their children crying for hours on end, and now I'm quite petrified to deliver mine... Customer Rating: Summary: Big disappointment Comment: I was looking forward to finding a good sleep solution for our 8 mo. old son who wakes at least every 2 hours during the night but this was NOT it. Anyone who subscribes to the cry it out method will find a gentler version from Ferber.
I guess I'm a softie... How in the world did you allow your child to cry for 2 1/2 hours and not attend to them? If it feels wrong, it's wrong. The fact that a baby sleeps through the night is not proof enough for me that this is a good method. Anyone would eventually fall asleep from exhaustion if they were crying nonstop and no one ever came to comfort them. You'd be afraid, worried and you'd eventually cry yourself to sleep. Any method that tells a parent to go against their instinct is NOT a method for me. Customer Rating: Summary: Worked For Us Comment: So I read a lot of Amazon reviews on controversial books. Reviews regarding books on politics, religion, philosophy, evolution, and music (particularly anything that tries to call itself punk) all have their share of condescension and bad blood, but I have never encountered the venom and vitriol as I have when reading reviews of baby books. I read parts of or skimmed most of the popular ones on a range of positions on the attachment-schedule continuum and each seemed to have strengths. So, while I really don't believe any method is perfect for all children, I can report that Weissbluth knows my little girl better than I do when it comes to sleep.
We did not have to try very hard to get on this schedule after the first couple months. The key insight for me was that the earlier you put your infant to bed the better (and later) they will sleep. Our daughter was regularly sleeping for twelve hours each night by 3 months. It seemed like each time we ran into problems we went to this text to read on the life stage and usually fond that it was a problem that Weissbluth had anticipated and offered advice for. I am sure this will not be the case for all kids. I am only offering you anecdotal evidence. But if your child is anything like ours, I highly recommend this book.
Another benefit of this book is that it actually includes graphs and statistics. I was completely flummoxed that a `science' as important as raising your child would be passed on to us the masses in such a completely unsubstantiated way. I can not believe that there are not many other parents out there that require empirical warrant for the positions they take on this subject. So while Weissbluth did not even come close to providing the kind of data I was looking for, he at least included some, which puts him in a class of his own. Customer Rating: Summary: GREAT Book on Sleep! IT WORKS!!! Comment: This book sometimes gets a bad rap for being too harsh in its methods. Not every parent agrees with the extinction method (also known as letting your baby "cry it out"). Letting your baby cry is hard, that's for sure, but IT WORKS. My sister got me this book when I was pregnant with my daughter, who was born in 2005. She is now 3 and a champion sleeper, thanks our adherence to the recommendations and methods in this book. My son, who is 8 months old, was a great sleeper from the day he was born, but developed the habit of getting up every 2 hours to nurse at night after his 6 month growth spurt. After two months of exhaustion (and one cranky, overtired baby), I finally got around to reading Dr. Weissbluth's chapter on Months Five to Twelve, especially the section on correcting sleep problems. Although I've read the whole book many times in the past 3 1/2 years, it was still helpful to review Dr. Weissbluth's ideas.
I realized that I was reinforcing my son's bad habit by getting up to feed him every time he made a sound at night. The first night of the extinction method, my son cried for TWO AND A HALF HOURS (from midnight to 2:30am). It was agonizing not to get up to comfort him. [This is the part where you need your spouse to be committed to this 100% because when you are ready to get up and go to your baby, you need your significant other to grab your hand and reassure you and remind you why you're doing this in the first place (or even to physically restrain you).]
The second night, my son slept for 10 hours straight (and so did I, without even getting up once to make sure he was okay, if that tells you how tired I was). IT WAS AMAZING.
It might take more than one night (Dr. Weissbluth says that the average is about 3 days/nights to reset the sleep schedule), but trust me, it really works. You have to steel yourself for a few difficult nights, but it's really worth it in the long run.
This book has been my bible whenever we encounter a sleep problem! Customer Rating: Summary: Great for solving toddler sleep problems! Comment: I love this book for toddlers (one year plus). We co-slept with our daughter until that age, then moved her into her own crib. I'm not sure we could have done it without this book. This book is excellent for sleep problems with toddlers, absolutely amazing.
Our daughter refused to stay in her big girl bed until we established a system of sleep rules and rewards. The sleep rules we have chosen are: 1. stay in bed 2. be quiet 3. close your eyes 4. go to sleep. Our daughter gets a cookie every morning if she followed the sleep rules. Same deal (an additional small treat) if she stays in her bed until morning.
I would not use this book for infants unless you are prepared to let your baby cry it our for hours.
