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THE THERAPIST PSYCHOLOGIST BOOK STORE
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Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child By Marc Weissbluth ( Ballantine Books )
Release Date: 2003-04-12
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $16.00
Price: $10.88
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Product Description
One of the country's leading researchers updates his revolutionary approach to solving--and preventing--your children's sleep problems
Here Dr. Marc Weissbluth, a distinguished pediatrician and father of four, offers his groundbreaking program to ensure the best sleep for your child. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles. This valuable sourcebook contains brand new research that
- Pinpoints the way daytime sleep differs from night sleep and why both are important to your child
- Helps you cope with and stop the crybaby syndrome, nightmares, bedwetting, and more
- Analyzes ways to get your baby to fall asleep according to his internal clock--naturally
- Reveals the common mistakes parents make to get their children to sleep--including the inclination to rock and feed
- Explores the different sleep cycle needs for different temperaments--from quiet babies to hyperactive toddlers
- Emphasizes the significance of a nap schedule
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Rest is vital to your child's health growth and development. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child outlines proven strategies that ensure good, healthy sleep for every age. Advises parents dealing with teenagers and their unique sleep problems
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 Confusing and hard to follow if you don't have enough time
This book offers some good facts about baby sleeping, but as a new parent with limited time, I wish I could have a firm plan that I can try it out. I found this book difficult to follow and confusing for the most part. I wish I had enough time to sit down and read it all and then digest it for another month, and then make out a plan for my baby. In this book, there is no plan or whatsoever, just basic facts and endless warnings. This is not a step by step program to me, this is a pediatrician's notebook on baby sleep. If you do some research or have to take part in a test on baby sleep, this is the right book.
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Take it with a grain of salt - it's a guide, not an instruction manual.
These kind of books invariably attract passionate reviews from both ends of the spectrum. Attatchment parenters and readers of Sears and Pantley (I have both authors, more than one book from each in my bookshelf) or those who read Gina Ford (I have hers too) and let them 'cry it out' (oh the shame). Generally crying it out or controlled crying are only resorted to if you start reading any of the books, no matter whose side you're on, too late to learn how to instill good sleep habits to start with.
Many of us are attachment parenters who have found that their child needs a little more routine and a lot of help with their sleep than having a strict attachment parenting style can offer. Sometimes hard decisions need to be made for the wellbeing of the whole household not just the child. Yes, parenting is an all-day and all-night job, however if both baby and you are exhausted and cranky then maybe you need some help.
I found that Dr W (I am typing this with baby no 3 napping in my arms) 'appears' to support co-sleeping but on reading the book feel he perhaps doesn't; but this doesn't bother me as I got a lot out of the book anyway. I have 3 children who have been 'guided' by this book, the oldest being 3.5 years the youngest being 3 months (and she still sleeps with me, yes in my bed, at night) and they all sleep (bar one feed from my youngest) from 6/6:30pm to 6:30/7am sometimes even 7:30 if all the stars are in alignment ;).
So take the reviews with a grain of salt, and read the book for what it is - a guide, not an instruction manual on the 'correct' style of parenting. You'll get a lot out of it.
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 Best baby book ever
I am a pediatrician who just had my first child. I did not know about this book until friends suggested it when my child was about 3months old and wouldn't nap well in his crib. I found the book to be extremely helpful and useful. It totally changed our lives, and we have an extremely good sleeper now. Our child loves his crib and was sleeping through the night with good daytime naps by 4 months. We have since given this book as gifts to all our friends having babies, and everyone says the book it is great. It is a must have for new parents. Very easy to read as well.
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Helpful Content, Sometimes Irritating Presentation
As my daughter passed the three-month mark, her fall-asleep-nursing, nap-in-the-carrier/stroller/lap sleep habits fell apart. She was just so interested in the world that she began to resist sleep, especially during the day. On the recommendation of a friend, I consulted this book. The most helpful thing about Dr. Weissbluth's book is that it explains the biology of children's developing sleep needs and abilities. He is very clear about what the sleep goal -- timing, duration, etc. -- should be for each stage of development, but not too dogmatic or judgmental about what method we the parents use to get to the goal. With the information I learned, I was able to figure out a training method that worked for us. (It involved some crying, but never for extended periods of time.)
The content is so useful that I decided to return the library copy I had been using and buy my own. The presentation, however, sometimes annoys me. The organization is perplexing at times. Dr. Weissbluth occasionally lapses into a tone of, "Gee willikers, I sure know more about this than almost anyone else." The many real-life stories that are included are intended, I'm sure, to illustrate how varied families' experiences are, but since they all follow the same plot, which goes, "We were exhausted and miserable, we followed the good doctor's advice, now everything is hunky-dory," it starts to sound like a cult.
My recommendation, then, is to read it for the information, which is tremendously valuable, but don't rely on it to make you feel reassured and comforted!
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It worked for us
I'm a dedicated follower of this book's principles. I'm also a fan of Dr. Weissbluth's style and approach, which seem sensible and moderate to me. His methods and advice worked very well for our family and we continue to consult the book as different situations arise (a baby's sleep keeps changing as he/she gets older!).
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Addiction
