Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep, 3rd Edition Hardcover – October 4, 2005

Yes, yes yes! Weissbluth's methods work if you take the time to read (and understand them) and then decide to commit to them. It is not necessary to read the book cover to cover since the book provides information and plans for an array of age groups. You can focus on the introductory chapter to provide important foundational info and then use the table of contents to guide you to the chapter on your child's age and/or specific sleep problem. Weissbluth knows sleep and the importance of establishing healthy sleep habits from the get go: he has 30+ years experience as a pediatrician, teaches at Northwestern Medical School, and founded the Sleep Disorder Center at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. His methods are humane, rational, and rooted in research and experience. And they WORK on real, fussy, irrational little people.Before I had kids, a colleague of mine said "One piece of parenting advice for you: sleep train your baby. My friends who didn't hate their lives." I took that advice seriously so read this book when my daughter was one month old, after it was recommended to me by my pediatrician, who is himself a father and a very compassionate and rational person. Our baby was incredibly fussy. Most of her waking hours were spent scream crying (she had no physical ailments), so I decided if our kid was gonna scream when awake, she'd better learn to be a good sleeper. At roughly four months of age (the age at which Weissbluth considers it developmentally appropriate to really dive into sleep training), I started sleep training...which basically means teaching a baby to fall asleep on her own and to put herself back to sleep on her own when she wakes. I can say confidently that Weissbluth's methods work IF you commit to them. And there is little reason not to commit to them as he clearly articulates his methods and provides explanations and research findings to support them. If you read this book, you will understand why establishing healthy sleep patterns is so crucial and how sleep problems early on can lead to developmental problems (behavioral, emotional) later in childhood.As far as I know, we had the only baby and now have the only toddler in our friend group who has had NO problems sleeping (from age 4 months forward)--during naps and at night, and that is because we strictly followed Weissbluth's methods and take sleep very seriously. We schedule activities/outings around naps and bedtime, which has never been a problem. We decided we could sacrifice some adventure and spontaneity for a few years until nap times are a thing of the past, so that we could establish and maintain good sleep habits for our daughter. Everyone else we knew was talking about sleep regressions, etc. Our baby never had any. Even during teething, no sleep problems. Weening off the breast, no sleep problems. After vaccinations, no sleep problems. Sick with a cold or fever, no sleep problems.It is true that legit sleep training may hamper your social life for a few years while your child requires consistent nap and bedtimes, but for us it was worth the tradeoff to have a healthy, well-rested kid who knows how to sleep. My husband and I have more quality time together than our friends because our kid sleeps.The method itself: Weissbluth provides different variations on sleep training, but he is clear that "cry it out" is the quickest, most effective, and least traumatic way to teach babies to sleep. Often times, parents see "cry it out" on paper and immediately write it off, thinking it must be inhumane. "Oh, I can't let my baby cry!," they think. However, that assumption is irrational and not based on evidence. Weissbluth does a great job explaining the reality behind cry it out and how it is the most humane and effective way to sleep train. As stated above, Weissbluth has over 30 years experience as a pediatrician, teaches at Northwestern Medical School, and helped found a sleep clinic at a children's hospital that specializes in sleep disorders. He is not a dungeon master. This guy knows kids and sleep and the problems caused by bad sleep habits started in infancy. My husband did NOT take the time to read this book, so when I decided to use "extinction cry it out," (feeding, loving on my baby and then placing her in her crib and walking out) he thought it was cruel. But after I explained the rationale behind it and her crying stopped after only a few days, and our kid slept, he became a believer. Each time we hear friends talk about the sleep problems their kids have and hear how they never let their kids cry or don't think it's important to maintain a consistent sleep schedule, I am reminded how wonderful Weissbluth's method is. My baby cried a bit the first few naps and nights we did cry it out. But then she slept. And at age 3 she still sleeps. And she wakes up happy and full of energy. She feels confident because she has mastered the skill of putting herself to sleep and she trusts her parents because we respect her need for consistent sleep. Meanwhile my friends who refuse a few days of cry it out have suffered through years of crabby, overly tired kids crying or of bed sharing and never getting any quality sleep or alone time. If you're ready to get serious about sleep, this book will change your life.

First time mom here. This book has been awesome in helping our little guy sleep better. I started reading this book when he was about 8 weeks old and began implementing it around the same time. It took us longer than "4-5 days" for him to fall asleep without crying, like maybe over a month, but now he generally goes down for naps and bedtime without a peep. He is 7 months old now. I started from the beginning knowing that setting a sleep schedule was very important and something I wanted to do. I just assumed that when he was tired, he would sleep. This is not the case, you actually have to make them do this. He was a pretty fussy guy for the first two months or so until he started getting consistent sleep. I was putting him to bed around 7:30-8 every night and he wouldn't take consistent naps during the day at all. I gradually started moving up his bedtime like the book recommends and it made a HUGE difference. He would always get super fussy around 5-5:30 in the evenings and it turns out this was him telling us he was ready for bed. We now put him down generally around 6, sometimes earlier if he is really fussy. I also didn't realize that there should be a period of wakefulness after feedings, not sleep right after a feeding. It was helpful to learn that they need about 1-2 hours of wakefulness between naps. Once I realized all that it became much easier to get him on a nap schedule. He takes 3 naps a day and sleeps from 6pm to 6am roughly. He started sleeping through the night about a month ago. By this I don't mean 6-8 hours, I mean he sleeps 12 hours without waking. The issue I am starting to have now is that he's waking up early. He used to sleep until 7-:730 but this was pretty much when he was getting a feeding in the middle of the night. Now he is waking up anywhere between 5-6:30. I leave him in there until 7, sometimes he returns to sleep but most of the time he doesn't. I remember reading in the book somewhere that this can sometimes happen and there is no known solution. This is a major bummer, I would love to sleep until 7 too! I wish that there was a way to ask Dr. Weissbluth questions as well. I would really like to know if maybe I'm doing something wrong?Other than that, this book has saved us. People think we're looney tunes for putting our baby to sleep so early but you wouldn't believe the compliments we get on how he's such a happy, carefree baby. People actually like beg me to let them babysit and I'm almost positive it's because he is well rested. This book really works! Some reviews have stated that it's hard to navigate and wordy. I didn't find this the case on the first read, however, when you're trying to go back and find something to re-read it is a little tough to figure out where it's located in the book. As far as being wordy, I think it's because there is a lot of research and a lot of repetition, you have to remember that this book is going to be read by moms and dads who are sleep deprived so repetition is necessary. This book is not telling you to abandon your child and leave them to cry for 8 hours. This book is telling you to use common sense. If your baby is crying out in pain, then go check on them. But if your child is just crying normal cries, let them be. We decided there was no way we could leave him the whole night, so the first night we decided to let him go 45 minutes before we went in. He cried for 20 minutes and then passed out. That was his trend for several weeks, cry 20 then pass out. If you give them time to get it all out and soothe themselves, they will do it. Now the only time he wakes is if his paci falls out. You CAN do this! I promise!

This is my favourite book of all time. My son used to wake up every 20 minutes all night long when he was a baby and this book helped us correct this very efficiently. It was a real game changer! I’ve since bought many copies for friends who are becoming new parents who all have had a ton of success due to his advice. I’m now rereading the book for the arrival of our second baby and reminded how absolutely genius he is. If you are going to read only one book before your child comes this one is it! It should be require material for every parent!!

Conhecimento científico com linguagem acessível.

He leído varios comentarios acerca de lo "difícil" que es de leer este libro. Si alguien quiere una pequeña lista de tips sobre como dormir y mantener dormido a un bebe la puede encontrar en internet, en blogs y con familiares pero seguramente no sera información confiable. Por otro lado si algún padre quiere realmente entender el tema y aplicar una serie de metodologías este libro es una joya. El autor menciona todo lo que ha aprendido basándose en dos fuentes; experimentos formales realizados en todas partes del mundo y en evidencia de sus propios pacientes. El autor va haciendo recomendaciones para cada etapa de vida de un bebe y la mayoría de las sugerencias resultan muy útiles para entender y mejorar los hábitos de sueño de un bebe. Puede llegar a ser muy frustrante para cualquier padre que un bebe no logre dormir bien y en el libro explica a la perfección varios conceptos como la duración de las siestas y las diferentes metodologías usadas par lograr que los bebes duerman bien.

Excellent book, highly recommended!

Nice book helped me to put my swing habituated 7 months old to sleep