Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child Author: Marc Weissbluth M.D. | Language: English | ISBN:
0449004023 | Format: EPUB
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child Description
Review
“I love Dr. Weissbluth’s philosophy that the most important thing to have is a well-rested family. And fortunately, thanks to this book, most days (and nights) we do!”
–from the Foreword by Cindy Crawford
From the Hardcover edition.About the Author
A pediatrician with thirty-two years of experience, Marc Weissbluth, M.D., is also a leading researcher on sleep and children. He founded the original Sleep Disorders Center at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital and is a professor of clinical pediatrics at Northwestern University School of Medicine. Dr. Weissbluth discovered that sleep is linked to temperament and that sleeping problems are related to infant colic. His landmark seven-year study on the development and disappearance of naps highlighted the importance of daytime sleep. In addition to his own research, he has written about sleep problems in manuals of pediatrics, lectured extensively to parent groups, and appeared on Oprah. Dr. Weissbluth has four sons, two grandsons, and, thankfully, one granddaughter–and they are all good sleepers. Linda, his wife of more than forty years, has provided both inspiration and original ideas for this book.
From the Hardcover edition. See all Editorial Reviews
- Paperback: 346 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books; Revised edition (April 12, 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0449004023
- ISBN-13: 978-0449004029
- Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This was an excellent book - I cannot tell you how much this book helped our sleepless, colicky infant. But, several friends with non-colicky babies actually recommended this for any infant. This book is a wonderful middle ground for those parents who do not want a severe schedule (BABYWISE) or the opposite end of the spectrum, attachment parenting (Dr. Sears). It was the only book that I found that spoke knowledgeably about colic, and gave the only helpful advice available on the subject (believe me, we tried it all). It is not a cry-it-out book, although some may look at it in that light. What it teaches you is this: 1. watch your child. 2. put him/her down to sleep when you first see the signs of tiredness 3. most children under 6 months do not stay awake for longer than 2-3 hours at a time without needing a nap. 4. DO NOT just put your child down to nap when you feel like it - that's just letting him/her cry, not TEACHING them to sleep. 5. Most children need to go to sleep at night earlier than you'd think. 6. Going to bed earlier promotes later sleeping (weird, but true. As the author says, it's not logical. It's biological - sleep promotes sleep) There's a lot more too. I really like that the author's data is based on studies that he has done involving the patterns of children who naturally sleep and nap well. No, it didn't give us a perfect baby. We happen to have a very sensitive high strung girlie, who also power-naps. But we went from a cranky post-colicky baby who took no naps or 15-20min naps and got up many times per night to a sweet smiling girl who now takes 3 45min-1 hour naps per day and sleeps from 6pm-7am (waking 2 times to nurse). Oh yes. The nursing. She used to think that nursing was the only way to get to sleep.
A friend purchased this book for us before our son was born, and we read it cover-to-cover. When our little guy entered the world, it didn't take long to discover that he had horrid colic, acid reflux to boot, and wouldn't even sleep lying down. We used his swing at firt, and as a breastfeeding mom, he often landed in bed somewhere in the middle of the night. I was determined, however, to have him in his crib before I went back to work at 3 months and this book helped me accomplish that... until he was about 6 months.
Once he was old enough to "decide" what he liked and didn't like, and probably due to seperation anxiety- he wouldn't go to sleep easy (cried every night) and began to wake a lot at night, crying for HOURS. After two weeks of the "ignore him" method, and then going "this isn't working at alL!", we tried another 3-4 weeks using the Ferber method (go in every few minutes). We were pulling our hair out. He was SOOOOO unhappy all day after a night of crying, and it got to the point where when you went to put him in his crib for a nap, he would arch his back and just sob... and scream at night. NO ONE was sleeping. Once he could stand (at 7 mos), he would cling to the bars of his crib crying and if he fell asleep, it was curled in the corner with his face against the bars... and we'd be off to a bad start from the moment he woke in the morning.
I started to give up.
Plain and simple. I couldn't do it. My husband and I had not slept in the same bed for more than a month at this point since we "alternated" whose turn it would be to listen to our son cry or try to sooth him in his crib.
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