Customer Reviews

Good Night, Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child Go to Sleep, Stay Asleep, and Wake Up Happy

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Sleep Lady is the reason our daughter is finally sleeping through the night, after a long struggle with up to 12 night wakings every night. We attended a phone class taught by Kim West and then later bought her book.

The most valuable part of this book is the Sleep Lady Shuffle. My husband and I tried using Ferber's method first, and my daughter cried until she just collapsed from sheer exhaustion. When I went in to check on her, finally asleep, I could tell she had slumped over from sitting up - with tears still drying on her face. This is not the picture of a child who has learned the art of self-soothing. We gave it up, and it took some time before I could shake the guilt. We tried the No-Cry Sleep Solution next for almost two weeks and did not see any improvement. I think that for us, the method was too difficult to implement. Our daughter would cry as soon as she left our arms... putting us into a pick-up-put-down dance for hours at a time, and after seeing no results over a few weeks, we quit.

The Sleep Lady Shuffle is something "in-between" these two methods. It's phased and gentle. It does involve some crying, but mom or dad is right there in the room to comfort and reassure baby... and although it took some time, our daughter did fall asleep peacefully and on her own. Over the nights it took less and less time for her to do this. We had some setbacks along the way - sickness and travel - and when those were over, we could just implement the Shuffle again in about half the time it took originally... we got our nights back, and we feel that our daughter is eating better and acting happier because she's getting more quality sleep.

You don't really need the book to implement the Shuffle. We found the book valuable because we could use it for inspiration to continue being consistent, and to help shape our daily and nighttime routines. I also felt the anecdotes gave me confidence to work with Kim's suggestions for our own family's needs. For example, instead of cutting out night-nursing completely, I continued nursing my daughter once per night for a few months, and we were fairly successful at keeping her to this one night waking until the time was right to night-wean her.

All that said - I feel the book and method work very well for a young toddler, since we used it with success when our daughter was close to a year old. I have not used the sections on newborns or older children. As with any book, read it, take what you want and believe in, and throw away what doesn't apply to you. Her advice on breastfeeding, for example, didn't sit completely right with me, but I feel that I know enough now that I could tailor her suggestions for the needs of my particular baby.

If I were co-sleeping and did not plan on moving my baby to a crib, I don't think this is a book I would choose - her only examples of shaping the sleep of co-sleeping babies involved moving them to a crib.

This book is very well suited for people who, like my husband and I, tried to let their baby cry and could not handle the tears... and who find that avoiding crying at all costs is causing sleep-deprivation on everyone's part. It is sensible and gentle. It works! My family owes the Sleep Lady big time! We could not be more happy with the progress our sleep patterns have made.

My wife and are were committed against the "Cry it out" philosophy. I'm sure it works fine, but we simply didn't feel like that was the way to teach our son to fall asleep. We'd spent plenty of time trying to make the "baby whisperer" work -- but the pick-up, put-down mechanism recommended just seemed to agitate both us and our son and leave him exhausted and hoarse and us frustrated.

This book has a very simple philosophy that's easy to follow and that generated results for us after we returned from an overseas trip to see the grandparents back in the US. Within a few days he was able to put himself to sleep and within the 2-3 week timeframe we could plonk him down in his crib and reliably leave him to put himself asleep without us in the room. Now, during the night, he still will fuss on occasion -- but most of the time he's able to sort it out himself and get back to sleep (this from a dedicated 2-3 times a night waker).

While no baby book will work for everyone, these one helped us achieve sanity in our lives. Our son is a radically different (and better!) sleeper for this purchase.

This is a useful book for parents wanting information on babies and sleep. However, I am weary of seeing books on babies and sleep that do not acknowledge that the success of "sleep training" all depends on your baby's temperament. My first child is what Dr. Sears calls "high needs," a label I rejected for a long time and finally came around to, as it's almost a profile of our first child. If you read Kim West's tips with a high needs (or "colicky") child in mind, you will think you are incompetent or insane -- especially naieve, new mothers -- as it simply will NOT work (such as, 'nurse your one-month old in the middle of the night, and then she should go right back to sleep' -- in the crib, no less! This is almost laughable for a baby with a temper such as my first, who thought the crib was fashioned by Satan and only got real sleep if co-sleeping. West does allow for co-sleeping, but my point is that you get the sense she almost assumes all babies are calm-tempered). I now have a second child, still a newborn, who has an entirely different and very easy-going, peaceful temperament, and I can apply West's sleep training rules quite easily and now am using the book as a *general* guideline (notice I emphasize the word "general," as babies don't come with manuals, nor should they). But never once does West acknowledge that some more, um, spirited-tempered babies, shall I say, simply do not bend to these sleep training guidelines. And new mothers need to know this! I am reeeeeeeeeeally tired of reading books that do NOT acknowledge this!

It does have some valuable information, though, for those more calm-tempered babies, and it has valuable information for when your child is older. It's worth the purchase, all in all.

We were commited co-sleepers. But at 4 months we ended up with a baby that woke every 2 hours to nurse. We moved her to her own bed without any trouble and she still woke to nurse every 2 hours. After an international vacation to visit Grandma and Grandpa we ended up with a 6 month old, back in our bed, waking up every HOUR to nurse. As Kim says, Co-sleeping is not magic!

I was returning to work and had only three weeks to figure out some way to get some sleep. This book gave me a method that, although involves crying, didn't feel like I was abandoning my baby.

I felt very guilty at first, thinking I was sacrificing my baby's well-being for my own. But realized that she wasn't sleeping either. I kept telling myself that if this plan worked it actually meant better sleep for EVERYONE, not just me. At an attachment parenting website it said, "A well-rested mother doesn't mind nursing a few times a night." But the whole point was I was not well-rested BECAUSE I was nursing at night!

Before I started this book we stopped night-time nursing thinking our baby would then sleep. We wanted to give our baby one last chance to sort this out. It wasn't as hard as we thought but she didn't sleep better. Now we were rocking her every 2 hours.

So we used Kim's plan. We stopped paci use the first night and our baby was mad! I could see that she wasn't hurt or upset. She was mad! She cried for about 45 minutes. She woke up 4 times that night and each time got less and less.

I tried to use a paci the next day just for naps and she wouldn't take it. So bye bye paci!

Each night got easier. We never moved outside the room because she started sleeping so much better, so fast. Most nights she sleeps 8 or 9 hours uninterrupted. Often she goes the full 10 or 11 without waking. This was enough for us so we haven't pushed it.

This book is well-organized and gives you clear plans for handling your baby's sleep issues. This is a much more humane system than Ferber or other's that just leave your baby to cry alone.

While I admire Dr. Sears and other attachment parenting advocates, few of them give you methods that actually get your ba
by to sleep longer without your constant intervention. I tried nursing, rocking, and patting. I could get my baby to sleep with all of those methods but NEVER to sleep longer than 2 or 3 hours. As soon as she realized she wasn't going to get out of bed in the middle of the night, the wake-ups decreased dramatically.

And to address those who say this only works for mellow babies. My baby is NOT a mellow baby. She is not what Dr. Sears would called "high-need" but she is definitely high-energy!

UPDATE: After about eight weeks of great sleep, my baby got her first teeth, her first major cold, learned to crawl and to stand up all in the same month. Needless to say, this disrupted her sleep. We ended up rocking her to sleep again. After a month of poor sleep, we did the whole sleep lady shuffle and it worked from the first night! I was dumbstruck.

My only major criticism of Kim's overall plan is that she should include a whole chapter of what to do when your baby wakes up weeks or a month after you have completed the shuffle. She makes it sound like once you do this your baby will never wake and of course that is not the case.

I found my way to Kim West's book through the discussion boards at Mothering.com. In other words, my husband and I were STRONGLY opposed to any cry-it-out method. However, when my son was six months old, his sleep habits became untenable--it took me an hour to put him down at night and hours throughout the night to attend to his frequent wakings (6 or so per night). We shared a family bed, which we loved until the nighttime parenting became, well, unbearable. When I started to become angry with my baby, I knew we needed to do something. I should mention that we resolutely tried the approach detailed in The No Cry Sleep Solution, a lovely book, but useless for us as far as our son's sleep habits went.

As I said, I heard about this book through MDC & immediately ordered it. Truthfully, on the one hand I found it disappointing--I found her attitude rather condescending & simplistic; however, her method intrigued me. Because her method involves crying, I put the book aside for a while. Then, some weeks later, a friend lent us Dilys Daws' Through the Night. PLEASE READ DILYS DAWS' BOOK! Daws' book is not about how to get your child to sleep--it's about understanding the larger family dynamic that may result in sleep problems for an infant or young child. I mention it because it was Daws' book that helped me re-evaluate my fear of allowing my child to cry, not to mention my marital relationship. It was the Daws book that led me to reconsider Kim West's approach.

We chose to move our baby into a crib in our room. West would not approve--she strongly advocates moving the baby into his/her own room. We received the great advice from our pediatrician that "anything is possible," --something sleep-deprived parents easily forget in the face of pages of books telling us what we MUST do (good advice to keep in mind with West's book, too.)

That said, we basically followed West's method--moving further away from the crib every three nights. Every baby is different, but our son has responded so positively to this method, I am AMAZED. Yes, he now sleeps through the night. Yes, he cried a bit the first couple of nights while I or my husband sat beside him, spoke comforting words, held him (briefly), & patted him. He was tired, annoyed, frustrated, but he was definitely not scared. Occasionally he awakens in the middle of night, but we're right there & tell him, SHHH, go to sleep & after a minute he does. By the way, we used this method when he was 7 1/2 months old--younger than we would have liked, but as I said, our situation was no longer manageable.

I agree with the other reviewers that West's advice regarding breastfeeding is a bit simplistic & seemingly ignorant of how the bf relationship works. Ditto the family bed--I think you can use this same method with a family bed and a little imagination. Check out Jay Gordon's nightweaning plan as a good partner to West's method. If you are dedicated to AP practices, but are truly no longer able to function & enjoy your child, West's basic approach is a good method to use. But I must repeat my recommendation that you find & read Dilys Daws's Through the Night, too.

I thought for sure that my 18 month old daughter would be the ultimate test for the sleep lady's strategy. She slept in our bed and we had dedided that it was time to put her in her own room. She would scream at the top of her lungs at the very sight of her crib. I thought there was no way any book was going to help me get her to sleep in her own room, but it was my last resort. My DR had said to put her in her bed, shut the door and let her cry...that didnt work, it only hurt us to hear her crying knowing that if we brought her to bed with us she would stop. After reading the book she slept in her bed all night..I couldnt believe it...She still wakes up at night 1 time, but besides that she naps in her bed and sleeps in her bed at night without a single tear and I have only been doing the sleep lady's techniques for 1 week.

I have to say that I never write reviews of things on amazon, but I felt compelled to after reading and using Kim West's book. Our daughter was 14 months when we stumbled upon this book at our bookstore. She slept well the first three months and then moved to our bed after she stopped sleeping so well. For several months we slept fine in the same bed, but as she got a little older she began waking up a great deal, nursing many times, and sometimes staying awake for hours at a time. We did try the Ferber method- with no success and many tears from our daughter and my husband and myself. It didn't feel right for us as parents. We tried Kim West's techniques after reading her book and to our surprise and relief, there were very few tears. She now goes to her crib sleepy, but awake and sleeps around 12 to 13 hours each night. She also naps each day, which did not happen before. I know this book and this method won't work for everyone and I certainly don't agree with every single word she says in the book, but the idea is good- teach your child to know that you are there for them, even if they can't see you and that you will keep checking on them and go to them if they do need you. So...if you are searching for a new direction for sleep, I would recommend it.

I have never written a review of a book before but I honestly feel so greatfull to Kim West for helping me tackle my 4 month olds sleep problems. After 4 months of rocking/bouncing my swaddled little baby to sleep only to have him wake up through the night 3-4 times and require more bouncing/rocking I knew I needed a better plan. I picked Ms West's book from the many available in my local bookstore because she incluced age specific interventions and seemed to advocate a more gentle approach. My problem was that I couldn't put Owen down to sleep without him already being asleep in my arms. And often when I did have him asleep he'd wake the moment I set him down. I couldn't stand the crying and I just figured that he was not able to put himself to sleep. I thought it would get better as he got closer to 4 months but in fact it got worse. He woke more often at night and took longer to get back asleep feeding or no feeding. Ms West gave me the confidence I needed to bite the bullet and place him down fed, changed, and sleepy and let him struggle to sooth himself. Yes, struggle. It took 1 1/2 hours at 2am on the first night. If I hadn't had her book to support me I would have given up after 5 minutes. But that would have also been giving up on Owen. I took her advice and saw myself as his sleep coach, supporting him and aiding him, but not doing it for him. He needed to learn that skill himself. Boy was it hard. But Ms West says that if you stay in the room and support your child with soft pats and shhhh shhhh sounds it is more gentle than just leaving them to cry it out on their own. I know I would never have lasted letting him cry if I had not been there to witness him making progress in self soothing. After the first night it has only gotten better. The next night he settled himself down at 7pm and it only took about 10min. His one feed at night was quick and he fell asleep on his own even after a diaper change without a single wimper. Last night he again fell asleep with minimal fussing and slept from 7pm to 5am. What a change. If you have an infant with sleep problems do not wait to get this book. The sooner the better for you and your baby.

I strongly recommend this book for any parent. It has been invaluable to us: for several months, our second child woke up 8 - 12 times every night, often taking up to one hour to get back to sleep. It was only by reading this book that I discovered that my daughter had silent reflux -- my pediatrician never diagnosed it and just thought I was exaggerating! After using the Sleep Lady's approach for 3 nights, our baby began sleeping through the night.
Her method really works, and this book has an honored place in our home library. Well-organized and concise, I found the age-by-age format and trouble-shooting sections most beneficial. I've read several books on this topic, but this one is by far the most helpful. The author is available for personal consultations as well.
I plan to give this book to everyone I know who will be having a baby. I can think of no better gift to a new parent than the gift of a good night's sleep and no better gift to a child than the ability to maximize one's inborn sleep potential.

Finally a book that combines attachment parenting with realistic sleep routines! To get my 16 month old girl to fall asleep on her own (and stay asleep) we did the Sleep Lady Shuffle based on her pamphlet and what I had read about her sleep shaping in Parenting Magazine.

It took about two weeks to get to the point where I could put my daughter into her crib and say good night without any screaming, but even after the second night of the shuffle, she slept through! (She was waking up every two hours a couple of days before) There is occasional backsliding, usually after travel or illness, but after reading her book I see from all the case stories that this is normal. Most of all I learned that it is up to me to teach my daughter how to fall asleep and stay asleep and this book shows all kinds of parents how to do that in the most gentle and effective way.

The best thing about this book is that it is not preachy. The tone is kind, understanding of reality, and takes into account both the child's individual personality and the parents' (ie. my child screamed bloody murder for hours with the Ferber method and my husband can't stand to let her cry for a second) I also tryed the No-Cry Sleep Solution and that wasn't tenable.

This book also made me feel like a good Mom and took away lots of the guilty feelings that so many magazines, television programs and other help books tend to instill. It goes beyond the sleep thing. Its the perfect new mom gift! I gave the pamphlet to all the new mom's in my life and now I will give the book to all of them too!