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82nd out of 196 books
—
255 voters
The Baby Sleep Book: The Complete Guide to a Good Night's Rest for the Whole Family
America's favorite pediatric experts turn their attention to solving babies' sleep problems in a definitive book that offers immediate results. A comprehensive, reassuring, solution-filled sleep resource, this guide shows parents how to match the nighttime temperament of their baby to their own lifestyle, and provides practical tools parents need to help the entire family...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
October 26th 2005
by Little, Brown and Company
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This was really well-written but I'm still not sure where to go next! So it would get 5 stars if it worked like a charm. I took some notes in case I want to refer to them in the future:
--Sleep Tool Checklist (p 30):
*different sleeping arrangements
*charting baby's tired times
*sleep associations
*sounds to sleep by
*a loving touch
*a familiar scent
*a pacifier
*motion for sleep
*feeding baby partially to sleep
*back-to-sleep cues
*bedtime rituals
*nursing down
*wearing down
*fathering down
*nestling down
*patt...more
--Sleep Tool Checklist (p 30):
*different sleeping arrangements
*charting baby's tired times
*sleep associations
*sounds to sleep by
*a loving touch
*a familiar scent
*a pacifier
*motion for sleep
*feeding baby partially to sleep
*back-to-sleep cues
*bedtime rituals
*nursing down
*wearing down
*fathering down
*nestling down
*patt...more
In general, I found this a very helpful book in terms of identifying what our goals for our daughter are around sleep, rather than focusing on creating a convenient child. Creating an environment and a routine that teaches your child to sleep well is a very helpful framework.
It seems that all books written by male pediatricians have a certain air of the histrionic about them. Also, its a great idea to have a maid and extra help with the house if you can afford it. Plenty of people cannot howeve...more
It seems that all books written by male pediatricians have a certain air of the histrionic about them. Also, its a great idea to have a maid and extra help with the house if you can afford it. Plenty of people cannot howeve...more
Jan 02, 2010
Barbara
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
parents
Shelves:
parenting-family-advice
This book is for the co-sleeping, attachment parenting family who doesn't subscribe to the "cry it out" method of baby sleep training. I find myself mostly in this camp when it comes to my "parenting style" (if one be a part of a universal style, which is silly because every parent and child is so unique). I read Sears's Vaccine Book which was excellent. The tone in this book bothered me a little, though. The examples the author used made me feel that he thinks CIO is wrong and those who do it o...more
Where Babywise is on one end of the spectrum, this one is on the complete opposite. We didn't have great success with getting Charlie to sleep through the night, so I have been reading lots of books to get good ideas for Felicity, so I picked up this book. I am not a Babywise kind of person; it just wouldn't work for me. This one is a little closer to my style, but I am not extreme in this direction either, same as with Babywise. It was a little bit long because it basically said one thing: co-s...more
This is really 3.5 stars. Since we're mainly focused on Attachment Parenting, obviously this was aligned with our main viewpoints. But the insinuations that cry it out in any form will destroy your child... well please. It does have some helpful thoughts, and if it doesn't actually help our son sleep, at least it's helped me reframe nighttimes in my mind again, so I am less resentful of the 9 million night wakings, and focus on what I can do to fix it now (cosleep) and in the future (continue th...more
Good. I get overwhelmed with too many ideas and too many approaches. Sears is not saying you have to do it ONE way which I appreciate, but on the other hand, can't someone just tell me what to do?
A year ago I would have given this book 1 star. I was pretty anti co-sleeping. I always made a point to put DD1 in her own bed, and she wasn't really a great sleeper until she was 2, and even now she occassionally wakes up, or won't go to sleep.
Enter DD2. She HATED her bed. So what did I do? I tried everything, even crying it out. But this kid HATES her own bed, and screams for hours. So I finally decided to give co-sleeping a try. And do you know what? It works! This book has saved my life.
One...more
Enter DD2. She HATED her bed. So what did I do? I tried everything, even crying it out. But this kid HATES her own bed, and screams for hours. So I finally decided to give co-sleeping a try. And do you know what? It works! This book has saved my life.
One...more
I thought this book was maybe the most helpful out of all of the ones I read. I made me feel better about what I was doing, and less like a failure for not being able to implement a "method" described as in other books. I thought the best advice in this book was "If there is something you don't like about your sleep situation, change it". It didn't criticize co-sleeping or crying it out. It suggests trying everything and everything to find a comfortable sleep arrangement that works for your fami...more
Aug 20, 2008
Kelly
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Anyone seeking gentle ideas for nighttime parenting
I'm a big fan of Dr. Sears. I think his thoughts on parenting are reasonable, compassionate, and gentle. Several times when I've been frustrated with DD's sleep problems, I read what Dr. Sears has written and it helps me to try and view things from my daughter's point of view. He reaffirms my own "gut" feelings about how to parent my child. I like that he doesn't advocate "crying it out", even dedicating a whole chapter on how it can be detrimental to your child. However, he does make the point...more
There's a whole chapter on tips for what dads can do at night to help out. Love it! I copied the sleep chart to record when the munchkin sleeps every day to see if there's any sort of pattern. Last night I realized he's waking up every two hours, what the heck little monster! Overall the book had a lot of good tips and was very informative.
The organization of the book was frustrating, because they emphasized the importance of a baby's age for each technique, but weren't always clear about which age they were addressing at a given time. Also, there was a depressing underlying message that you're not really supposed to get enough sleep anymore once you have children.
I skimmed the bits that weren't applicable to me (twins, older kids, etc.), but really liked the rest. Some of the more judgmental Sears followers made me worried about reading this, but I found it to be encouraging and understanding. They certainly don't hide what they believe to be best, but they accept that that ideal can't always happen and offer advice for those situations (like if you are formula feeding). The exception is their problem with the cry it out method, which I agree with, so I...more
If you have read 'The Baby Book', much of the information is repeated. However, there are some more indepth explainations for sleeping troubles. Also a section on how to move a 'cosleeping' baby to their own bed. That was quite an eye-opener.. it is a process.
Horrible book! It basically tells you that you are a horrible parent if you ever let your baby cry, and that co-sleeping is the only way to go. Add in some product placement for the Ambi, and that is the whole book. Yuck.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has or is having a baby. The Sears family goes through their philosophy of helping babies learn to sleep, and I collected a lot of good ideas. Although the book is sometimes a slow read, the information is great. The book is even better because it is not a group of doctors spouting ideas they haven't tried -- these are apparently the techniques the Sears family has used on their children, plus those used by their clients in their pediatric practice.
Gave me some good ideas about helping my child realize that sleeping is a soothing thing, not scary and stressful. I'll probably revisit when he's a toddler...I'm sure things with his sleep will be constantly changing. :)
The Baby Sleep Book had useful information throughout. “Twenty-three Nighttime Fathering Tips” is an incredibly helpful section, which I give to fathers-to-be. The sections on sleep associations, tips for toddlers to go to sleep and night weaning have also been helpful for me. This is definitely a book that I would recommend to parents as a resource to look up information about sleep, but I found it a tedious cover-to-cover read. The explanations are long and there are so many examples that may...more
my favorite part is that is gives you a guide that corresponds with age: how much sleep should your baby typically get and the book extends to toddlers and preschool age children. hooray!
this book kind of contradicts the book i read right before this on sleep...i kind of feel like i'm wasting my time here, reading all these baby books if they are all just going to contradict themselves.
I didn't read this one thoroughly because I just ran out of steam. But it seems good. I liked the tips for reducing night nursing in an older child, which we don't need yet.
I really enjoy Dr. Sears books. He does a great job at looking at all angles of parenting but he personally leans towards attached parenting and its benefits.
There are a lot of complaints about this book saying its useless if you're not Breastfeeding and co-sleeping. But i'm not co-sleeping and i still found it very educational. There are plenty of sections just for formula feeding moms as well. You just skip over the parts that don't apply to you. It alternates chapters on infant and toddler issues, and really gives you all the information so you can create a plan for your own child. I'm still hesitant to change my baby's sleep patterns, but i think...more
I like this one better then the no cry sleep solution, but I havent yet seen a need for it. I dont really find night time parenting complicated.
Sears are such gentle folk and offer good advice for helping your child to sleep in an attachment parenting way. However, word of caution that they really adhere to holding your baby during sleeping and co-sleeping, which is absolutely wonderful. HOWEVER, we've learned that if you always do this, baby will ONLY want to sleep on/near/by/under/over/next to you. And I mean always. If you want independence sometimes, it's wise to teach your baby to learn to sleep on their own - gently. I recommend P...more
I only read the co-sleeping section for my term paper, but I have heard great things about this book from fellow moms.
This author is not a fan of the "cry it out" method. He thinks it is normal for a child to sleep in bed with you until 2-5 years and they will move back to their bed when they are ready. Not sure I am buying that.
Helpful information and tips written by MDs. They are completely against the crying it out method.
Abandoned 11/30/09 because The Boy (at 17 months) seemed to get his sleeping act together on his own without much in the way of real interventions.
I wanted to like this book. And a lot of it I did like. But it also seems like the central message of this (and a lot of other baby sleep books) is to adjust your attitude because you can't adjust your baby.
Which is fine. And true. And right. But when you're frazzled and sleep-deprived, it's a little hard to swallow.
Would I recommend it to parents wit...more
I wanted to like this book. And a lot of it I did like. But it also seems like the central message of this (and a lot of other baby sleep books) is to adjust your attitude because you can't adjust your baby.
Which is fine. And true. And right. But when you're frazzled and sleep-deprived, it's a little hard to swallow.
Would I recommend it to parents wit...more
I didn't find anything new or anything that you could have just easily got of the internet. Went through the book pretty fast.
A great resource full of various sleeping situations and how to deal with them.
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Dr. Sears, or Dr. Bill as his "little patients" call him, is the father of eight children as well as the author of over 30 books on childcare. Dr. Bill is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. Dr. Bill received his pediatric training at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital in Boston and The Hospital for Sick Children in T...more
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I totally understand that feeling...
Nov 29, 2008 04:42pm