The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5 Paperback – Illustrated, April 1, 2007

This is a straightfoward guide on how to help your baby sleep at night. I wish I had found it before my son went through his 4 month sleep regression. Before 4 months, he was sleeping well and waking up once, rarely twice, a night to nurse. Then right around four months, he started waking more often - every 1-2 hours. I found putting a pacifier in his mouth helped him back to sleep, and hoped this was just a phase. But 3 weeks later it was getting worse. He was eating almost half his daily milk/formula in the middle of the night, and he was exhausted during the day - rubbing his eyes constantly and not staying up more than 90 minutes at a time. We tried different things until he was 5.5 months old. But now we were really sleep deprived and he was cranky all the time. Clearly something needed to change.The thing is, he has always gone down well to sleep - he just wouldn't stay asleep! You don't need to have your baby be able to fall asleep by himself when put down awake, but for me, I didn't have that problem. I had a baby that wouldn't stay asleep and was eating far too much at night, and less and less during the day. While I didn't want a "cry it out" solution, this method does involve some crying. But as the authors explain, there HAS to be crying involved. Your baby is learning to put himself back to sleep when transitioning from deep to light sleep. And in the current situation, my baby was already crying a lot (albeit for short periods of time). So I expected some crying.My results:First night, when he woke an hour after going to bed, he cried for 30 minutes. That was hard. My husband checked on him at regular intervals and thought that made his crying worse. Not going to lie, it was a long 30 minutes. But he did fall back asleep. Then we woke him up for a small bottle (started the weaning). He woke and cried for less than 10 minutes each twice more that night, and we fed him one other time.Second night, he slept for 2 hours before waking and crying, but was back asleep after 10 minutes. He was woken up for a feeding, and went back to sleep by himself. He had 2 other wakings but went back to sleep within a couple minutes. Then (because I was dropping the second feeding) he woke and fussed, then cried, then fussed, on and off like that for 50 minutes about an hour after he was normally fed.Third night, he woke twice and went right back to sleep. Was woken for a feeding and went back to sleep. Woke for 15 minutes around 3am and went back to sleep after crying a little. Then he fussed for an hour at 5am until I realized he needed a diaper change - went back to sleep after that.All subsequent nights (it's been 2 weeks) have gone smoothly. We still wake him for a snack bottle before we go to bed (he's almost six months now) but he sleeps through the night. He's woken up once or twice around 5a and needed a diaper change, but it's rare that I hear him wake in the middle of the night. And if I do, he makes a couple sounds and then goes right back to sleep. He is just starting to teethe so I expect some other sleepless nights but overall, he has learned to sleep! And we have had success with naps as well - before he was napping inconsistently but now he is pretty good at falling asleep for an hour for each nap in his crib.It's not for everyone, but it worked for us. And I think the crying is, as the authors say, just his way to saying I'm frustrated! I don't know how to fall back asleep! But like learning to crawl and walk and talk, there is going to be frustration along the way. It's better to have a well rested baby - and parents! when tacking those milestones. I also expect this book to help as he gets older, they have some good tips for toddlers. My recommendation is to read this prior to 4 months to avoid developing bad habits in your child. And I like that the authors recommend waiting to sleep train - I don't necessarily agree that he has to or can sleep 11-12 hours without a meal (every baby is different), but we don't mind doing a snack bottle before we go to bed, but their methods are easy to follow and modifications like that fit in well.

This book changed our lives!!!! I breastfeed our child and at 10 months she was still waking 2-3 times a night and I would nurse her back to sleep. I also had to nurse her to sleep for naps and gently place her in her crib. My mom and husband had to rock her to sleep while they were standing. It was very hard on their backs and she would sometimes wake up as soon as she was placed in her crib. After following the advice of this book, she is now sleeping 11 HOURS STRAIGHT, every night. For naps, we just read her a couple of books and put her in her crib and she falls asleep. No fussing, no crying, she just falls asleep happily. She is now 13 months and sometimes while we are reading her a book, she will close the book for us before the story is finished and look at her crib as if saying, "alright, I'm ready for my nap now!" It's truly amazing!!! Because I was still nursing her back to sleep at night, I also had to do the night weaning process but that also worked really well. I've also tried.... the no cry sleep solution and that just made her angry and me even more sleep deprived....the "gentle release" method and that just prolonged everything, again resulting in less sleep for both of us......and the Baby Whisperer "shush/pat" method and again that just resulted in her frustration and our combined lack of sleep. Then a friend recommended this book. I was hesitant at first because I cannot stand to hear her cry and wanted to avoid it at all costs but after 10 months of extreme sleep deprivation (on top of working and trying to run the household) I decided to at least read some of the book and then decide if it was something I could do. They really do know what they are talking about and have a sympathetic and understanding way of relaying their message. The first night was excruciating, I will not lie, and I felt like the worst mommy in the whole world. But the next night her crying was cut in half and another half the following night and then it just all started to fall into place. The naps did take a bit longer as they suggest (maybe closer to 2 weeks before she didn't fuss at all) but as mentioned above; she does great with those too! Sometimes she will even play in her crib for a minute or so before falling asleep and if she wakes before her nap is done or in the middle of the night, she just rolls over and goes back to sleep! I should also say that I have a VERY strong willed little girl and our pediatrician has even commented on it! So it's not that she's a super easy going baby as I probably could have done the other no cry methods had she been more laid back about the whole thing but she wanted it done her way (or how she was used to) and it took some perseverance to break of those habits. Consistency really is key and all caretakers must be on board as the authors suggest. We saw this first hand with my mother who thought she could deter from the plan with disastrous results but once she saw that "the plan" and this method really does work she got on board with it pretty quickly. None of us can believe how she is such a great sleeper now and she's a much happier baby because she's no longer tired all the time from lack of appropriate sleep and I'm a much happier and better mommy because of this book too!! I have much more patience now and actually have energy to play with her and act silly; which she totally deserves. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone and have already recommended it to a few friends and they've had outstanding results as well.