I recently sent out a plea to my mummy friends asking for their advice on parenting books... Are they worth it? Have they worked for you? What books would you recommend?
I got some wonderful responses that I will be blogging about soon (lots of different opinions and various book recommendations), but one of the best responses was from a Mummy about her recommended baby sleep book. She was also kind enough to write something on the book and I wanted to share it on the blog;
"Around 5 months me and my fellow mummy friends all started to strive for baby's who 'slept through the night' but there seemed to be two approaches, either you sacrifice your sleep for the next however many years, or you do controlled crying. I didn't want to go without sleep for the next 18 years but I'm of the (slightly scoffed at by some) opinion that letting my child scream herself to sleep would be cruel and not something I'm willing to do. So I googled for books that would offer me some help and found this one highly recommended: The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I found the book really easy to read, I could pick it up and put it down around being a Mum and it wasn't hard to follow. It starts off by detailing why sleep is so important for children, how much your baby should be getting at each age and asks you to fill in records of your child's sleep routines over a day; naps, bedtime routine and night time wakes. Then you follow the ideas outlined in the book for ten days and complete the records again. The approaches the book suggests are 'tear free' as you would expect and addresses common sleep issues in children. There are many ideas to suit but the most important one for me was to gently teach your baby how to be less dependent on you, nursing/dummy or bottle to sleep and it has successfully helped me to break (my babies) very strong feed-to-sleep association. I've seen gradual improvement since I started a month ago and each ten days I have repeated the records and used the questions that go with them to guide me on what I need to do better and what is going well. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to try a more nurturing approach to sleep training."
I thought this was a lovely recommendation and was very touched my the loving way she has decided to nurture her babies sleep. In many ways I feel like I am from the same ethos, as I am not a fan of the controlled crying technique (not that it is wrong but that is my personal approach as a parent). My baby does rely on a dummy at times, something I will actively be looking to stop over the next 9 months (I want my son to stop relying on a dummy by the time he is 12 months old). This sounds like the perfect book to help do this in a very natural and helpful way, as well as having many practical ways to encourage babies to navigate their way around sleeping patterns.
Of course, every parent and baby is different and you have to find what works for you. I don't ever feel that there is a right or wrong way to parent, as long as your baby is happy and healthy then you are doing well. I hope that this review helps anyone looking for a good book on sleeping solutions for babies.
And of course, a big thank you to the mummy who wrote the review. :)
I got some wonderful responses that I will be blogging about soon (lots of different opinions and various book recommendations), but one of the best responses was from a Mummy about her recommended baby sleep book. She was also kind enough to write something on the book and I wanted to share it on the blog;
"Around 5 months me and my fellow mummy friends all started to strive for baby's who 'slept through the night' but there seemed to be two approaches, either you sacrifice your sleep for the next however many years, or you do controlled crying. I didn't want to go without sleep for the next 18 years but I'm of the (slightly scoffed at by some) opinion that letting my child scream herself to sleep would be cruel and not something I'm willing to do. So I googled for books that would offer me some help and found this one highly recommended: The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I found the book really easy to read, I could pick it up and put it down around being a Mum and it wasn't hard to follow. It starts off by detailing why sleep is so important for children, how much your baby should be getting at each age and asks you to fill in records of your child's sleep routines over a day; naps, bedtime routine and night time wakes. Then you follow the ideas outlined in the book for ten days and complete the records again. The approaches the book suggests are 'tear free' as you would expect and addresses common sleep issues in children. There are many ideas to suit but the most important one for me was to gently teach your baby how to be less dependent on you, nursing/dummy or bottle to sleep and it has successfully helped me to break (my babies) very strong feed-to-sleep association. I've seen gradual improvement since I started a month ago and each ten days I have repeated the records and used the questions that go with them to guide me on what I need to do better and what is going well. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to try a more nurturing approach to sleep training."
I thought this was a lovely recommendation and was very touched my the loving way she has decided to nurture her babies sleep. In many ways I feel like I am from the same ethos, as I am not a fan of the controlled crying technique (not that it is wrong but that is my personal approach as a parent). My baby does rely on a dummy at times, something I will actively be looking to stop over the next 9 months (I want my son to stop relying on a dummy by the time he is 12 months old). This sounds like the perfect book to help do this in a very natural and helpful way, as well as having many practical ways to encourage babies to navigate their way around sleeping patterns.
Of course, every parent and baby is different and you have to find what works for you. I don't ever feel that there is a right or wrong way to parent, as long as your baby is happy and healthy then you are doing well. I hope that this review helps anyone looking for a good book on sleeping solutions for babies.
And of course, a big thank you to the mummy who wrote the review. :)
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