The Baby Sleep Solution - Book Review

 

A huge plus of The Baby Sleep Solution can be seen just by glancing at it. It is short, and short is a tired parents' dream. Sure, it skips over all the science behind the sleep and doesn't go much into problem solving techniques, but many people are
OK with this, especially when they are trying to go from no sleep to some sleep.

Suzy Giordano not only has 5 children of her own, but she has been helping babies, from singletons to quadruplets, learn to sleep for years. Her book provides a step by step approach for children 18 months and under that is easy to follow. She works on spreading out feeds and moving them to the day while focusing on teaching babies to go to sleep and stay asleep on their own. She uses a method called the "limited crying solution" which she considers a realistic middle ground between cry it out and no cry methods. All in all, she says it'll take about 1-2 weeks to have your child sleeping through the night (what she considers 12 hours).

Some people claim that it is impossible and not healthy to have a healthy child sleep 12 hours by 12 weeks. But if you look at the reviews and talk to people who have done this approach, you will find out it is very possible(Giordano reports 100% success with babies she has personally helped) and Giordano claims it to be perfectly safe (she reports no health problems with any of the babies who have followed her plan). You will hear opposing views on its safety depending on who you talk to (pediatricians included) so you will have to decide for yourself as well as always monitor your baby's health. The negative reports of this book are often from people who read the book and didn't like what it had to say or those who didn't read the book but are against sleep training at this age (or at any age). Some people do try the methods and they completely fail for various reasons, but they seem to be more the minority. Most people seem to have good if not great success with her methods, particularly if they are bottle-feeding. Breastfeeding makes things a bit more complicated.

If you don't want to push to have your child sleep 12 hours by 12 weeks, you can just do as many hours as you feel comfortable. That is the nice thing about any sleep advice, you do what you feel comfortable wit You can do the same thing with the daily feeds that she suggests doing 4 hours apart. Some people  have just as much success feeding more frequently. The thing is, once you start changing things up a bit from what is suggested, you may get different results.

Because it does skip over the science behind sleep and has few troubleshooting tips (i.e "what should I do if..."), I don't think it would be a bad idea to get another book at some point that goes over these issues. Which book you get will depend upon what methods you like, but if you are wanting just information on how sleep works, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems or Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, are great ones to get. If you want more troubleshooting information about sleep, you can check out the index on this blog or get a book like The Baby Whisperer.

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