About book Good Night Sleep Tight: The Sleep Ladys Gentle Guide To Helping Your Child Go To Sleep, Stay Asleep, And Wake Up Happy (2006)
It's not a bad book. I like that it gives full details for each age range, because even if that's repetitive, it allows the parent to just read one section. If we're still having sleep issues in 6 months, I wouldn't mind reading the section dealing with that age range.Some of this is the same as all the other books. The graduated extinction procedure is a little more in-depth, though:"Shuffle" - Move farther away every 3 nights or less.Nights 1-3 sit in chair next to crib, comfort with touch (intermittently)and voice, picking up only if extremely upset (over the crib if possible, briefly). Stay there until he's asleep.Nights 4-6 - move chair halfway to door, and comfort from there with voice. Get up if needed to pat/stroke a little, or pick up if hysterical.Nights 7-9 - move to doorway, where he can see you dimly still. Soothe from there.Nights 10-12 - soothe from hallway, still visible, and intermittently but still responsive/present.After that - stay in hall where they can't see you, if crying go to door to check every 5 min.No problem with these things:Put down drowsy but awake.Feed upon waking from naps.White noise.Motion sleep is not as good as crib sleep.Need to try this:Naps - should try for 90 min or more, morning and afternoon. Try to get him back to sleep if he doesn't stay asleep that long (shush, or be in the room but leave alone - experiment to see what works) Nap training - same as nighttime, but if he's still awake/crying after an hour, leave the room and then return and do a dramatic wakeup/ naptime is over. Can be difficult, ok to give up after a few weeks and try again in a month or so if it's not working yet.Not sure if I'm ready for (or agree with) these things:Try not to feed more than every 3 hours (except one additional late-afternoon cluster feed)Feed only once between bedtime and morning - either a dream feed at 10/11pm, or when he wakes as long as it's after 10 (or at least 2 hours later than bedtime). If he wakes at other times, reassure (shush/pat, or pick up/put down if needed) but don't feed. Or instead of dream feed count backwards from wakeup time, using the longest he's ever slept w/o food overnight, then don't feed after that. (E.g. he wakes at 6, so if he can go 5 hours, don't feed after 1am.)At 4 mo bedtime should be between 8 and 9 (7-8 by 5th or 6th) (we are doing earlier...? but he is often skipping the late-afternoon nap, too.)"At 4 mo your child should be able to sleep about 8 hrs at night w/o a feeding. At 5 mo, he should be able to go for 10."Bringing him into my bed at 5am is intermittent reinforcement... if I don't want to cosleep full time I should always put him in his crib. Under 6 mo is easiest time to end cosleeping.
In The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight, Kim West provides a lot of information on the science of sleep as well as a program to teach children from newborn to age five how to sleep better on their own. The first four chapters provide a great foundation for understanding how children sleep and why it is so important to help teach them to self-soothe and to not rely on their parents to help them get to sleep in the middle of the night. Although I read the majority of the book for the purpose of doing this review, most people could then skip to the chapter that corresponds to the age of their child as much of that information is repetitive, simply adapted slightly for different age groups. The last section of the book also has some chapters that everyone should probably read on medical issues that can cause sleep difficulty, dealing with breaks in the normal routine, and taking care of mom and dad. The chapters about co-sleeping and twins and siblings will also be helpful for many families.One thing I loved about this book was all the stories from parents about how the Sleep Lady method has worked for them. It helped me know that I was not alone in not starting out quite right and showing me that we can still work with Elizabeth to develop better sleep habits. The stories also show how easily the Sleep Lady Method can be adapted for different parenting styles.West places a heavy emphasis on having a schedule and routines to help the child know when it is time to eat, sleep, and play. This gives the child a sense of security in knowing what is coming and what is expected of them West also acknowledges the need for some flexibility in these schedules and often directs parents to follow their instincts about what will work best for their child.Overall, I would definitely recommend this book for new parents or for parents who need help with their child's sleeping. Obviously, the earlier you start working on a child's sleep the easier it will be but West demonstrates success with her method with preschoolers as well. She packs a lot of information and advice into the book and it may be hard to remember it all for a sleep deprived parent but West breaks it down and makes it sound manageable.
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Easy to followA more gentle cry it out methodSo Holden hadn't slept through the night in MONTHS (a few random full nights here and there) and we were about to hire a sleep coach.The sleep coach had a list of recommended reads and this book was the main one.So before dishing out a load of cash for a coach, I decided to read this book.All it took was my adjusting Holden's bedtime to the time suggested in the book and he has slept through the night since.We haven't really even needed to use her method yet, but the book is well written, easy to follow, and backed by science and psychology.
—Heather
This is the only baby sleep book I own, and it's because I found it for $1 at the Good Will. A lot of people really like it, so I read it before my son was born and tried to implement her strategies as he grew. + Pros: West's delineation of the amounts of sleep that are normal for different age groups and the types of routines/schedules that work for different age groups were the clearest I found, and the most accurate to what my son was doing. We didn't try her "Sleep Lady Shuffle," but it didn't seem like a terrible idea and I think it would work well for some families.- Cons: West says she breastfed her own children, but it seems like she's not well-educated about breastfeeding and what's normal for breast-fed babies at *all.* This is bad, because a lot of babies won't be able to be night-weaned nearly as early as she seems to think they should be, and she sometimes suggests formula feeding over breastfeeding for sleep purposes, which is just baloney. If a mother's willing to breastfeed, she should be supported in that, not told that she's ruining her baby's sleep. - Another huge problem for us is that West does not address sleep regressions, common at 4 and 9 or 10 months, as a normal part of development, and she certainly doesn't devote any time in the book as to how to get through them. Sleep regressions are really challenging times for everyone, and she completely ignores the existence of that challenge, potentially making parents feel like they're doing something wrong when their kid is just going through a normal, difficult stage. She addresses some sleep issues like teething and regression in the last chapter, but it needed to be front-and-center in the age-appropriate chapters to be meaningful. I have such mixed feelings about this book, but I think overall, it doesn't really fit with my parenting philosophy and nothing she says is evidence-based. Some of the advice seems actively harmful. I do not recommend.
—Danielle
Any book that gets my baby to go from waking to eat 3-4 times/night to sleeping 10 straight hours in just over a week WITHOUT me leaving her alone to cry herself to exhaustion gets five stars in my book! I chose this book after looking into a few "sleep training" methods because I felt like it was a very balanced approach. It doesn't ask to choose between never letting a child cry (and probably not sleeping for the next 5 years) or turning a deaf ear while she screams.Kim West offers a guide to helping your child sleep - whether you are starting with a newborn or a 3 year old - but her plan leaves plenty of flexibility for parents to follow their own parenting style and encourages us to trust our instincts. Her advice made a lot of sense to me, I was comfortable trying her approach, and, the biggest test, it worked! I will definitely reference this book again (especially the sections on older ages that I didn't read) as my daughter's sleeping habits and schedules change.
—Kate
