Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child MP3 CD – Unabridged, December 15, 2015

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.

I bought this book while pregnant and read much of it during my now 10-month-old son's first months. I found it to be terribly difficult to wade through largely because the writing style is weak. I sense that Dr. Weissbluth, in his more recent edition, took the advice to "clarify his style" (based on critiques) to mean that he should boldface certain suggestions and make lists of bullet points. However, it's not boldface and lists that make things easier to follow, but the actual writing. I'm afraid this book would only be easy to follow if it were rewritten by someone else. He is clearly a bright man with a scientific mind, but his writing style is not well organized and consequently, the book is unnecessarily hard to get through. It is much easier to follow the less informative book "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley, who actually is an author first and foremost but is not a scientist. Weissbluth has the mind of a scientist who probably pulled "C"s in writing classes. His style might not bother some, but if you're looking to skim through and quickly grasp what he's saying, you're in for a disappointment.That said, much of the information contained in the book is incredibly useful. I have bought and read several other sleep books, and this one is more scientific and gives more concrete information than the others. For instance, it breaks down babies' bio-rhythms for different ages. If you have a 10-month-old, like I do, you can determine not only the best duration and number of naps, but the actual times the naps should occur. It's terrific advice, because (especially for those with younger babies), you will find as baby ages that they get more "into" their playtime and less likely to show signs of fatigue. Thus if you know around when they should nap and what's appropriate for their age range, you can be sure and start to calm them down and get them to try and nap around the appropriate times.Many of the readers in other reviews have found this book advocates a "cry it out" approach, which many parents, including me, find hard to stomach. However, I don't agree this book is a "cry it out" book. On the contrary, I think this book suggests several possible approaches and doesn't advocate any one approach except in circumstance with extremely colicky and post-colicky babies. In cases where nothing else is working, Dr. Weissbluth says cry-it-out or "extinction" is the best way. Part of the problem is that the book's writing style is unclear, so it's really hard to discern exactly what the author's approach is.A very important element of the book is that it claims many babies will continue to wake through the night until the age of nine months, and that none of the advice given really is intended for babies of under four months. For those babies younger than four months, the book explains likely patterns and colicky behavior but does not suggest crying it out.Now that my baby is ten months, I find the book terrifically helpful reference. If the baby misses a nap, for instance, I reference the book to see that you then keep the baby up a little longer so they make their next nap, starting that nap earlier, or take a little earlier bedtime. Whenever I have followed the book's schedule advice, it has worked (except during times of illness).One final note on the writing style. In addition to the book's long, redundant sentences with dangling modifiers, unclear verbs and so on, there is a tendency to call children by nasty names. "Brat", "brattiness", "spoiled" - all of these are words which I find to be absolutely abhorrent in connection with babies. The use of these terms to me connotes a fundamental disrespect for children which I cannot tolerate. There are several techniques which I also find abhorrent - one comes to mind where Weissbluth recommends putting a timer (literally) under your baby's pillow and setting it every time you go in the room to comfort the child so that it goes off to let you and them know when it's time to go. Please, even a child knows when he's being put "on the clock". If my husband, another relative or friend did that to me I'd think it was terribly disrespectful. What about simply telling the child you're going back to bed instead of relying on a ticking clock to do your job? This and the use of the mean-spirited words gives me the sense that Weissbluth is a little cold-hearted in his view of children. I don't like the idea of basing decisions about child-rearing on parental convenience (though of course parents have needs too, and as Dr. Spock said years ago, "Parents are people too.")However, I am giving the book four stars because I think that his information and age appropriate guidelines are so useful that it is worth wading through his poor writing and some negativity or hostility about children simply for this reason. Rather than reading the book all at once, which might make your brain explode with the effort of wading through his prose, read the parts that apply to your child's age right when you need them.

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.

This book is amazing, it helped us tremendously!

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Muito elucidativo! Importante para mães de qualquer viagem! Cada filho é um e aprender nunca é demais! Livro claro e direto!