The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night: Foreword by William Sears, M.D. (Paperback)

I let my first baby cry it out 4 years ago - it took 5 weeks and she would cry for hours at a time, and I cried too. And then we had to do it over again after teething or a cold or a vacation. I still regret it, but back then I didn't think I had any other choice. But now there was no way I would go through that torture again, so I suffered through 15 months of sleeplessness instead.

A friend gave me The No Cry Sleep Solution 4 weeks ago and we have made incredible progress! My baby falls asleep so much easier and wakes up only once. He takes a 2-hour nap, too.

I love that this book doesn't assume that all babies - or all parents - are alike. It gives a tremendous variety of ideas to choose from. It covers every possible aspect of baby sleep - from routines, to habits, to the sleep environment, to creating sleep-cues, to reading your baby's sleepy signals.

The chapter on Basic Sleep Facts taught me all I needed to know about my baby's sleep problems, without being overly long or technical. I like that the reader creates a personal sleep plan from the many ideas in the book, and I like that the author doesn't dictate one right way. You can be a co-sleeper or a crib-sleeper, a breastfeeder or a bottle feeder, use a pacifier or not - she respects all your choices and gives you ideas to work within the range of your own comfort zone.

The tone is compassionate and caring, like reading a letter from a kind and wise friend. I plan to give this book as a shower gift and new baby gift every chance I get. No one should suffer through sleepless nights OR crying it out - this book is the absolute answer to gentle baby sleep -- and better mommy and daddy sleep, too. (There's even a chapter on how adults can get better sleep too.)

If your baby is keeping you up at night this is the smartest [money] you could ever spend. ZZZZZZZZ

This book was not as helpful as I had hoped, and was not as AP oriented as I would have liked. My major concerns are these:

1. The author gives very strong encouragement to introduce a "lovey" to get baby attached to, so baby can be comforted by lovey instead of mom. She even goes so far as to recommend putting the lovey *between* mom and baby when nursing, cuddling etc. [very symbolic IMO!] This really bugs me... I feel so strongly that our babies should be learning to attach to people, not things. I am truly, deeply uncomfortable with the idea of trying to force my child to become attached to an object so that he will be comforted by that object instead of me.

2. While not anti-family bed, she does basically say in the second half of the book that if you are co-sleeping you will have more nightwaking. She has a whole section on "transitioning your baby to a crib" and comparatively little on helping a baby/child cosleep and sleep soundly. She also says something to the effect that you can cosleep as long as you want, but that you should be prepared to endure more night waking if you do cosleep. None of the benefits of cosleeping were covered at all. I really kind of felt like cosleeping was being blamed as a cause of night waking and I don't really think that's true - I've seen too much anecdotal evidence of my cosleeping friends who have children who sleep 10 or 12 hours straight right there beside them.

3. Similarly, breastfeeding is sort of pointed to as a cause of night waking. Yes, a breastfed baby does wake more often to eat. But this book places _no_ value judgement on breast or bottle feeding - never once does she even note "though breastfed babies wake more often to eat, many mothers feel that the benefits of breastmilk over formula outweigh this factor by a huge measure" or anything like that. A new mom reading this book could *easily* think "well, I should just switch to a bottle and then I'll get some sleep!". I'm so uncomfortable with that. [And there are plenty of breastfed babies that DO sleep through the night after they are through the newborn stage].

4. There is very strong encouragement to put baby on a schedule. She emphasizes a "flexible schedule". I really hate to point this out, but I've read _Babywise_ several times ["know thy enemy"] and Ezzo's language is almost identical - he emphasizes what he calls a "flexible schedule". In fact, several things in this book echoed Babywise to my brain, which may account for my discomfort [justified or not justified!]. Not that I'm totally against a schedule, but as an AP parent I really think it is more useful to watch baby's cues...

5. There is strong discouragement from holding a sleeping baby. Pantley says this is undoubtedly a cause of nightwaking and should only be done very rarely if at all [for "special moments", but not as a routine]. I have enjoyed holding both my children as they slept for naps - its one of my favorite things - and if I have to give that up to get them to sleep at night, then I guess I just won't be sleeping until they are off to college or whatever. In my mind, this book absolutely & strongly contradicts the AP tradition of carrying baby in a soft carrier much of the time.

6. I also didn't like the whole section on training your baby to go back to sleep in the crib without you. It outlines a bunch of steps that begins with "pick him up", later you stop picking up and just place a hand on his back, then you just speak to him, then you speak to him from outside the door but don't go in, etc. This sounds much like Ferber sleep training to me, just minus the crying [and taking longer to acheive the same goal].

7. I felt like the author gave a lot of lip service to the "needs" of babies and how and why they wake, etc in the first half of the book [I was truly impressed in fact]. But then she totally disregards those things in the second half of her book under her "solutions" chapters. She says she is giving ideas to "encourage" baby to sleep [which I liked], but in truth, I really feel that this is just another "sleep training" book, albiet a MUCH nicer alternative to the "cry it out" methods.

Some of her other ideas are very helpful, though we are doing almost everything else she lists already, to no avail.

This book gives a very good explanation of why it is not a good idea to let babies "Cry It Out". I think it would be extremely helpful to families that are struggling with that decision.

This review is not meant as a criticism of *anyone* who uses this method - different things work for different families. I know that many families have had great luck with this program and are very happy with it. But for AP families, I think it is only fair to warn that this might not neccessarily be the answer it is hyped up to be.