There are two schools of thought for encouraging babies to sleep through the night: the hotly debated Ferber technique of letting the baby “cry it out”, or the grin-and-bear-it solution of getting up from dusk to dawn as often as necessary. If you don’t believe in letting your baby cry it out, but desperately want to sleep, there is now a third option, presented in Elizabeth Pantley’s sanity-saving audiobook The No-Cry Sleep Solution.
Pantley’s successful solution has been tested and proven effective by scores of mothers and their babies from across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Based on her research, Pantley’s guide provides you with effective strategies to overcoming nap-time and nighttime problems. The No-Cry Sleep Solution offers clearly explained, step-by-step ideas that steer your little ones toward a good night’s sleep – all with no crying.
My husband found this book and bought it. I'd also seen it but wasn't impressed with reviews. Anyway, I started reading through it and became greatly encouraged by the authors assessments and advice regarding sleep around my baby's age (10 months at the time). I felt validated in my bed sharing philosophy and also felt like it helped to normalize what we were going through. A lot of websites that want you to buy (literally) into sleep training will pathologize your child's sleep when it isn't pathological! Sure enough, after employing some gentle sleep recommendations from this book, and trusting our mama/papa instincts, we saw results. For us, it was key to cut the night nursing as it was getting out of hand (3-4 times a night at 10 months!). I mean, I wanted to be one of these breastfeeding all night and day mamas but I couldn't function at my new job on the sleep I was getting. Anyway if you need some encouragement and some gentle suggestions then this book is for you. After reading I felt like I knew what to do the whole time and I was now able to listen to those instincts more effectively.
Come baby number two and he was not such a good sleeper. He was constantly awake at night and I have to be honest, I did a little cry it out, and I feel eternally resentful to myself for it. I was exhausted, but in the end, I have a baby who is clingy and not as confident. I have gone back to the gentle Pantley method realizing my mistake and at 10 months he is almost sleeping from 8pm-5am all on his own without any encouragement from me.
I advocate this book, because it has one of my main beliefs in sleep. Babies are born blank slates, they will learn whatever we teach them to go to sleep and stay asleep. Give them a paci, they will need it, nurse them to sleep, they won't know how to go to bed on their own, rock them to sleep, they'll need the motion. Because of this book I know to start from the beginning with my squishy newborns to put them in bed, with something soft and lovey, full tummies, clean diapers and watch them drift to sleep, and that is what happens. 2 kids now and they can put themselves to bed by 3-4 months without much help from me.
This is a book that every parent should own!
An incredible book from an incredible author who gets how sleep training should be! Its an easy read with a wonderfully positive outlook on successfully sleep for your young baby! Highly recommend this book for all mothers who want to gently ease their children into the fantastic world of sleep.
Night one
Asleep in his crib at 10:50
Awake from
12:35-12:45
1:38-1:49
2:20-4:20
4:55-I quit keeping track here, I was too tired to fathom the concept of numbers! :) If I remember correctly, he was up and down until about 6:30, then finally slept until about 9
Night 15
Asleep in his crib at 9:30
Awake from
10:58-11:05
5:30-5:45 (he wasn't asleep when I laid him down, but I was tired. I heard him playing in his crib for about half an hour, when I checked on him at 6:30 he was back asleep)
Up for the day at 9
After the first week he was consistently going to sleep by 9:30, and his sleep stretched from 45 minutes at a time to about 2 hours. After 2 weeks, we were down to about 4 wakings a night, no more long stretches of wanting to "play" in the middle of the night, and I could usually get him back to sleep in a matter of minutes. Its been almost 3 weeks now, and for the last couple of nights I have been able to lay him down as he starts to doze and he falls asleep on his own. He also falls asleep on his own in his crib for naps. If he does wake up during the night (other than to nurse) I don't even have to take him out of his bed to get him back to sleep, I can just help him re-position and give him his "lovey" and he is back asleep in a matter of minutes. We are between 2-3 wakings per night, occasionally 4, but even this is SO MUCH BETTER than where we were! He also takes regular, predictable naps during the day now. And he NEVER EVER EVER had to cry!
She is very open to all kinds of parenting; nursing, bottle fed, crib-sleeping, and co-sleeping. She gives TONS of advice, and encourages you to use what will work for YOU since all babies are so different! We only made minor changes and saw huge results. Now that I am not so sleep-deprived I plan to read it again and add a few more changes to hopefully eliminate the extra wakings we are seeing sometimes, and hopefully get him down to one feeding a night instead of two.
My baby is STUBBORN, strong willed, and very vocal. I was skeptical that I would see results with this, but I am so happy I tried it! It does take some persistence and a little time, but it's well worth it.
There are so many reasons why this book works:
1. It is easy to read (very important for sleep-deprived parents).
2. It is easy to implement. Yes, it requires record-keeping and charting. No, it is not an overnight fix. But the work it takes it so minimal when you remember that the end goal is a healthy night's sleep for everyone. I was already awake with my son every 45 minutes all night long, and it wasn't any harder for me to jot down a couple notes each time I got up with him.
3. I learned A LOT about my baby. I thought the record-keeping was fantastic because it showed me trends in my baby's behavior that I never noticed. For example, I realized that his sleep was especially terrible on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I went to a 4:30 PM yoga class and had him in the gym's nursery for that hour-long class. The commotion and stimulation was too much for him that late in the day. I changed my schedule, and now I go to class at a different time. That is just one of the eye-openers I had after doing the record-keeping. I know what he needs now in ways that I didn't before.
4. I never felt like I was "training" my son with gimmicks or manipulation. I felt like I was teaching him how to sleep in ways that correspond with his individual needs. The methods Pantley suggests in this book are very natural, loving, and common-sense. Best of all, she gives clear and detailed examples of how to actually implement them successfully--and how to tailor different strategies to work with your particular baby. For example, my son loves to nurse to sleep, and I love nursing him. I didn't want to give that up in order to help him sleep through the night. I didn't have to. We still nurse to sleep at the beginning of the night and if he's hungry, but he doesn't NEED it to fall asleep any longer.
I am so grateful for this book. It's an important addition to any family's library. Books like this--books that provide resources to help children grow up to have strong emotional attachments, empathy, and trust; and to also feel loved--are so important. I now plan to give it as a baby shower gift to every new mom I know!
Day 1 on the plan went better than any of our previous days, but I did spend 5+ hours trying to get my son asleep that day. I was determined to give the plan an honest try so I stuck with it. By Day 3 or 4 he was doing so much better - regularly taking naps, falling asleep quickly, and little-to-no fussing. By Day 5 he was a regular sleeping pro: he took 3 naps a day, fell asleep on his own within 20 minutes of putting him in his crib, has had a few 10+ hour stretches of solid sleep, and has occasionally put himself back to sleep when rousing during a nap. He is like a different baby. If you are as sleep deprived as I was, this probably sounds too good to be true...I know I wouldn't have thought this was possible when I started. Even if your situation is different from mine I encourage you to check out the book, as it is packed with good ideas and has suggested solutions for a variety of problems. I'm sure I'll go back to this book periodically as my son changes. Next stop, teething :-(
Favorite things about this book:
1. Really well written. I've read quite a few new parenting books, and this one is straightforward, clear, and has a really friendly tone.
2. Pantley doesn't try to force a particular method on you. She presents options and lets you pick the methods that sound best for you. Isn't that how all parenting books should be? Child-rearing methods certainly are not one-size-fits-all
3. Her methods work, without putting a ton of stress on the parents or baby. Why make your child cry it out when he doesn't have to? I'm not vehemently opposed to my son crying - life isn't perfect - but I also don't want to upset him when there is a better way. I tried "gentler" variations on the cry-it-out-method, and they just didn't work for my son. Even after days of trying he was still hysterical at night and would spend hours crying, so upset it was almost impossible to sooth him. I wish I had read this book earlier!
As for "The No-Cry Sleep Solution", it has already made our home happier in less than 30 days.
My beautiful daughter was born a fantastic sleeper. Then when she was 5 months old we moved and because of the move I cut my job down to 1 day a week to stay home with her. She loved having me home, but the changes were too much! She started fighting us every time she needed to go to sleep. I would spend an hour or more before every nap and bedtime desperately trying to get her to sleep. I would rock her, walk her, nurse her, sing to her, everything, and she would cry and fuss and refuse to go to sleep until she dropped from exhaustion and then she wouldn't sleep for long. Even worse, on the one day I worked, she refused to sleep for my husband at all. One day I left her napping at 9am to go to work, she was awake 20 minutes later and didn't fall asleep again until 4:30pm, (I got home at 5:15.).
After a couple weeks of hoping she would settle back down and me running on no sleep, I started scouring the internet for sleep training advice. I read up on all the methods and decided that "No-Cry" was the one I wanted to try. I read it cover to cover in one night. In some ways I was even more confused after reading it because I wasn't sure what would work for my daughter, but I started working the process anyway. That does bring me to my one caveat on the book. It has a lot of different options and techniques and it can be hard to find the ones that relate to your child. The options are there because Pantley recognizes that every child is different, but it still feels like a lot when you are sleep deprived. Pantley also says straight up that it will take a while to get full results. Babies are not machines that we can flip switches on, but Pantley does have a few band-aids that will get you a little more sleep quickly if you need it.
That being said, we are not even one month down the road and it is like night and day. She is not back to her amazing sleeping habits of before, but she is vastly improved. She will now fall asleep for naps in about 10 to 20 minutes with almost no fussing, and she usually sleeps for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours at a time. It takes her about 30 minutes to fall asleep at night, but then she sleeps for 4 plus hours before waking for her first feeding and then eats every 2 to 3 hours after that and sleeps for about 10 hours total.
However, the best part came just a couple days ago. I was running a fever and feeling awful, so my husband offered to try and put her down for her nap on his own. I told him if she wouldn't go down for him, I would come help. It wasn't necessary. 10 minutes later, he was back downstairs and she was out like a light. He was so proud of himself and so proud of her.
Elizabeth Pantley is a mom and this book definitely feels like it was written by a mom. She knows that the most important of parenting is loving your children and figuring out what works best for their individual needs. I highly recommend this book.
My baby had reflux and a very, very bad sleep. I have therefore read a lot of books on baby's sleep, including in particular Weissbluss and, oh boy did that guy make me feel guilty about my daughter not sleeping any longer than 20 min for naps and 1h stretches at night, and wanting to stay awake 3-4 hours before going to nap again ! I felt she would be retarded for life ! Happily, with E Pantley's book, I knew that I was not alone with a baby that I needed to attend to 6 to 8 times every night and who could not take a true, repairing nap, but that I did not have to resort to Weissbluss recommendations.
I read Pantley's book when she was about 1.5 mo. I implemented some sleep plans and some changes, and although it did not change much at first, once she was ready to sleep (when reflux started to decrease and once she was able to roll over and put herself on her tummy), the improvements were spectacular and fast. Everything was in place for "it" to happen.
My daughter was 4.5mo when she started to sleep long (1 hour +) naps and 2-3 hours stretches at night, 7mo when she started to "sleep through the night" in the medical definition (ie, one stretch of 5+ hours at night), and 8 mo when she actually slept a whole night (8pm-8am). During all this time, it meant that I was attending to her 6 to 8 times every night in the worst moment (and at this time I was sleeping with her because it would otherwise have been too exhausting for me, knowing that I was going to work in the morning...). But now she's a happy, rested baby who sleeps a whole night in her own bed, makes 2-3hours long naps, and she never had to cry.
Now, she's still not falling asleep on her own. But that's the next step and Pantley has very helpful suggestions for this. And I have to say - I love to hold my baby and nurse and rock her to sleep, so I'm not too in a hurry to see this one go away.
So yes, you have to be patient. I suppose that if you are checking on this book, it's because you have a difficult sleeper, too. If you believe babies don't have to be "trained" and that they will sleep when they are ready ; if you believe in methods that are more about baby's feelings and natural rythm, and not about baby's behavior ; if not letting your baby cry is what you want to do, and you are truly committed, this book will support you in every way. It's not a miracle solution. It's a good friend along a road with a lot of bumps in it !
Believe it or not, my son has just turned eight weeks and, about 2 weeks ago, was driving me crazy because he was waking up all through the night. I am due to return to work in a couple weeks and was beginning to dread that event because I didn't want to return to office looking like a zombie due to the lack of sleep.
This book allowed me to see that, in most cases, it was me that had a problem and not the baby. After reading the chapter on "Basic Sleep Facts", I realised that, in most cases, he clearly was not getting enough sleep during the day because I always had some errand to run and we would be on the road for hours sometimes. I had to slow down and let the child get some rest!!
The bedtime routine worked well also. Dimming the lights, playing soft music, dressing him in my sleepsuit, etc. were some of the techniques that I used and now, at 7:40pm sharp, my son is fast asleep and Mummy can now take a shower, get a snack, and watch some TV in peace and quiet.
For the past 3 days since I've SERIOUSLY decided to use the techniques in the book, the baby is now sleeping until 12:30AM, wakes up, gets a feeding, and then sleeps until 5:30AM!!!
I am now a firm believer that routine and structure in a child's life definitely work! Yes, keeping the sleep logs do require effort but the time that you take to do it right will pay off in the long run with a full night's sleep! Don't give up!
This comment was written on April 29, 2010:
I am writing this addition to say that my son is now sleeping even better than before! He started daycare on March 01, 2010 and about two weeks later, he would go to bed at 6:30pm until 5:30am, with 1 wakeup episode that only required my comforting and no feeding :) As a matter of fact, I HAD to put him to bed at 6:30pm, if not, he would cry terribly because he was so sleepy. He started sleeping with 0 wakeups from April 01, 2010 and I too started to sleep like a champ.
Recently though, he discovered how to roll over and started doing it during the night. I was going bonkers! Back to Elizabeth's book I went and read the section on how to manage developmental milestones. So, when he rolled over, I just helped him to settle back down with some gentle pats on the back and back to sleep we went! I LOVE THIS BOOK!!