The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers: Gentle Ways to Stop Bedtime Battles and Improve Your Childs Sleep [Paperback]

My youngest son has never been a fantastic sleeper, I had always put a bad night down to something. We had a routine and he was going down to sleep great ( great for naps too) although the quality and amount of night time sleep wasnt great and at 19/20months - something just changed and made it all worse, he wouldnt go down at all for bedtime or naps. 5am and 5.30am wake ups were also just to early. My toddler was a different little boy, crying all day, clingy and the the fact both my husband and I were completely exhausted due to the lack of sleep. I had tried all logical ideas but I think I was so tired I was looking for a quick fix, an instant solution.

This book firstly lets you know you are not on your own and what is going on is normal ( as I had never had any sleep issues with my eldest, I was completely thrown with my youngest). She also tells you there are no quick fixes and to give ideas and routines time. I began to look at my routines and realised when we begin to log our routine they could be tightened up a little. We started to see a changed after about a week and then something else would happen, you know children they dont stay the same for to long and like to keep you on your toes. Therefore I was able to use this book as a reference if other issues cropped up.

I have had the book 4 weeks now and I would say my 22 month old son is now showing clear signs that he needs to go to bed, is sleeping longer, and his quality of sleep is less disturbed. We found his mattress was too firm ( although we bought him a thick pad to go over it when he was 10 months). We currently have an ikea bunkbed mattress on the floor and he is sleeping much better and 80% of nights are 11hrs solid with a 1.5-2.5hr nap( use to be 7-9hrs) and I feel they are getting better too. My husband and and I are rested and can now cope with a "bad night" now and again.

My friend also bought this book after I told her what I had tried, she made a could of little changes and actually had instant results, again she watched for the signs of her childs bed time and stuck to the routine.

A great buy, and would recommend it!!!

We bought this book to only find out from Pantley that our child is normal and that we are normal. There are no "solutions" per se and we find this book utterly useless. Most parents would be able to find her ideas of slowly weaning off children of your presence during night times anywhere and Pantley isn't the only one who has included this piece of wisdom in their book. Her ideas seem recycled, are mostly common sense and you could probably find more useful information elsewhere. I give it a 2 only because it's somewhat useful if you're a very anxious parent or you just need some reassurance.

Our 15 month old son has had difficulty sleeping since infancy. He suffered from acid reflux, regular runny noses and ear infections for several months as a baby and this had an impact on his ability to sleep well. He would scream when laid down in his cot and although he would quieten when lifted, he would then fight sleep for hours until he was so overtired, it was even more difficult for him to settle down to sleep. Although his health problems are behind him, the legacy of his sleep problems remain. We tried so many different ways of settling him to sleep and have him sleep through the night, including staying with him and the crying it out approach. Neither of them provided any particular level of success. Our older son, who has always slept well was our benchmark and when nothing we tried seemed to work with our younger son, we became confused, disillusioned, anxious and felt guilty about the way we were approaching our son's sleeptimes. Then I read Elizabeth Pantley's book and everything is beginning to turn around.

I liked it firstly because I had never seen a book focusing specifically on toddlers and pre-schoolers before and I was keen not to try and make suggestions made in other baby sleep books 'fit' around our toddler son. From its first pages, Elizabeth's advice is practical, gentle, loving and designed to suit a variety of family circumstances. She does not advocate a one size fits all approach, rather giving several suggestions to each particular sleep issue, which you can choose from based on your own particular family situation. Nor does she suggest that her advice will offer a quick fix solution to your child's sleep difficulties. Persistence and patience are required, however, if like us, you have persisted with other methods which haven't worked, these gentle, more loving solutions are much easier to follow and will hopefully meet your child's needs and make you feel a lot better about yourself as a parent!

Her sleep logs can be printed and completed to give you a baseline on which to base your sleep plan. She gives 'Eight sleep tips for every child', before offering solutions for the widest variety of invidual sleep difficulties. I read the book from cover to cover but you could just as easily dip in and out of chapters depending on what particular issues you are facing. Perhaps most importantly for us, Elizabeth's advice has allowed us to really listen to our son and as a result to meet his sleep needs far better than we were before. Despite the fact that we believed we had a consistent bedtime routine, which we had always followed for our older child, a few changes based on Elizabeth's advice have made bedtime a less stressful, more gentle, loving, fun and special time for us all as a family. Our son is settling to sleep quicker and without tears and is sleeping longer through the night. If you have a toddler or pre-schooler who has difficulty with sleep and as a result, so do you, then I recommend that you read this book!