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:		(66)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I really think my son might be the worst sleeper in the world. From day one he's been an intense, super-alert little guy and never liked to sleep. I think I have read literally every book on child/baby sleep and this one is my favorite. Here's why:

I originally decided to go with the No Cry Sleep Solution method since it seemed to be the most gentle. Unfortunately it and the other "no cry" methods were not a fit for my baby's personality. After more than a year of using these methods he was sleeping worse than ever. Then one day I stumbled upon Kim West's Good Night, Sleep Tight in a state of utter exhaustion and desperation -- my son was 18 months old and still not sleeping through the night. Even though it wasn't a "no cry" method, it was much more gentle than the harsh Ferber or Babywise methods, so I decided to give it a shot. And it worked.

West's method appealed to me because it was firm enough to be effective with my spirited son, yet she understands the importance of making changes gradually. (I never once left him to cry in his room alone). Following her recommendations did involve some crying, and the first three days were tough, but it didn't seem traumatic for my son since I was right there with him the whole time. It seemed more like he was frustrated at the routine change than anything else.

Also, unlike most other sleep books, she is respectful of parents' needs to make their own decisions and occasionally go against her recommendations. Most of the other authors tell you flatly what you need to do and offer no alternatives. West makes recommendations, but also includes suggestions for how to work it if you're just not comfortable implementing her recommendation.

I had to modify her ideas a bit to make the process go more slowly for my intense, hyper-alert child, but I found this to be a great balance between being gentle and being effective. And, I'm thrilled to report, that after following her method for about two months my son started going to bed happily (his crib is now one of his favorite places) and has slept through the night ever since. It's like a whole new life! He's happy, I'm happy, and I'm no longer cranky from exhaustion all the time.

I have used the methods in this book for both of my children and it is very effective. Both our children are good sleepers, I feel in part because of the sleep lady and her suggestions. Knowing we wanted to avoid the "cry-it-out" approach, we initially tried the "Baby Whisperer" (Tracey Hogg) and "The No Cry Sleep Solution" (Elizabeth Pantley). Those are also very good books but the "Sleep Lady" was more detailed than "Baby Whisperer" and the technique works a little quicker than "No Cry" (sleep lady shuffle involves some crying, you're just right there to comfort). The "No Cry" technique can take about 8 weeks to take full effect and the "Sleep Lady" is about 3 weeks if you are consistent.

I do agree with previous comments that the Sleep Lady doesn't seem to take into consideration different family situations and baby's temperament, which is why I only gave it 4 stars. Also, if you would like to co-sleep with your baby, use the "No Cry Sleep Solution" book because her suggestions involve getting a good night sleep with baby in bed and also provides safety tips. The Sleep Lady is somewhat condescending about breastfeeding and seems to view it only as a means of delivering nutrition. Elizabeth Pantley is more sensitive about the breastfeeding relationship between mother and baby.

At 4 months my son started waking every couple of hours. I read a review of this book in magazine and, after one night of getting up every HALF HOUR, I bought it. I never used the "shuffle" part of it- my presence in the room was too distracting for him. But, there are so many variations included in the book so it can be adapted to your situation. The limit of 15 minutes of crying/fussing was helpful, and the "OK" to go and get him if he is really wailing regardless of the time frame reassured me that I wasn't "ferberizing".

The sample schedules given for feedings, naps, snacks, meals, and bedtime were very helpful. Those, combined with the "sleep window" clues, have allowed my son to get the rest he needs. It isn't regimenting your child, it is clueing the parent in to your childs natural sleep schedule that each age group inherently follows (the book is age specific to 5 yrs old.)

My son now giggles when we walk into his room for naptime... he loves his crib! And, at bedtime, we lay him down at 8pm and he doesn't make a peep until 7:30 am. I couldn't have done it without The Sleep Lady! I have bought this book for a couple of new moms and recommend it to everyone.

I highly recommend this book to any parent who is either having trouble with their baby/toddler/preschoolers sleep habits or just wants to make sure their infant does not develop bad sleeping habits.

I was first introduced to Kim West through an article that appeared in a parenting magazine about her methods of sleep training. We used the article to "undo" some bad habits that our 17 month old had gotten into. He woke many, many times a night and was usually not happy to sleep unless he was being held. Co-sleeping did not help. By using this method, he was falling asleep on his own and sleeping through the night within 2 weeks. There were only tears the first night. After that, it was all about settling down on his own and getting to sleep.

When baby #2 came along, she seemed to be a better sleeper. Then teething started and that desire to be held at night kicked in again. She would sometimes co-sleep, but it wasn't working well enough for us to all be well rested. By this time I heard that Kim West wrote a book and decided to buy it. We started the method when our daughter was 8 months old and it has worked wonders. Although she still wakes up for feedings in the night (she is very small and needs those meals!) she is sleeping much better, falling asleep on her own and not needing to be rocked or bounced to sleep.

For those of you not familiar with the method, I would describe it as follows: it is a cross between Ferber's "crying it out" and Elizabeth Pantley's "no cry sleep solution. For us, crying it out was not an option. Abandoning our kids while they cried in agony was not going to happen. Pantley's method, on the other hand, seemed exhausting as you have to work very hard to make sure your child does not cry at all. Very hard to do when you are already exhausted and sleep deprived. Kim West has found a happy medium in what she calls the "sleep shuffle". Basically, the baby/child is allowed to cry, but in your presence. You are right there next to them reassuring with verbal and physical means. You know your baby/child is in no harm and they know you are there for comfort. Day by day you slowly work your way further away from the crib/bed until you are out the door. West also provides practical information on how much sleep a child should get and how to overcome many different obstacles. Her method is described for each age group between birth and 5 years old. This is a great book and a very effective method! Our house owes Kim West thanks for getting us our sleep back!

I co-slept with my baby from birth through age 26 months. She slept in our family bed every night, and nursed as well until I weaned her at 22 months.

When I was expecting my next baby, I wondered if it was possible to transition her to her own bed in her own room without trauma. I had read The No Cry Sleep Solution and had managed to night wean her.... but the task of getting her to sleep alone (even just for naps) seemed impossible.

I was wrong. With the "Sleep Lady Shuffle," my child miraculously went from only sleeping with me (even for naps) to sleeping in her own room with minimal tears.

After three weeks of using the "Sleep Lady Shuffle," my daughter goes to sleep alone for both naps and at night in under five minutes (no "crying it out" involved!) and sleeps through the night for 11 hours. If she wakes once or twice (she sometimes does), she puts herself back to sleep after I remind her it's still night time and to go back to sleep.

This was a child who ONLY slept with me next to her in the family bed, and I was lucky to get 45 minutes of napping daily. Now she sleeps a solid two hours during her afternoon nap and we ALL get to sleep all night.

I don't imagine this book will work for everyone every time, and I DID find myself frustrated at the author's generally negative view of co-sleeping, but I am very pleased with our results using her method.

I would not change the two years of co-sleeping, and we plan to do it again with the next baby. But after two years of the family bed, we are very happy to have a method that works to get a toddler sleeping on her own with no "cry-it-out" and minimal fussing and crying.

Overall, a good book with a simple, clear plan.

My son is 7 months old and has had sleep problems from the begining. He had severe colic and still has a nasty case of reflux. He has never been able to just go to sleep. I had to rock him, bounce him, walk him... you name it and I did it. After finally getting him to sleep, he would wake up an hour later and then several more times through out the night. I never had these problems with my older two children and I was lost, exhausted and miserable.
I came across this book on a website and started looking into it. All reviews seemed good and I figured it was worth a try. I dove into it as soon as I got it and went straight to the chapters that pertained to my son. It was easy to find the sections I needed and the information was very reassuring. The way it is written gives you confidence and hope.
I am now 3 days into the program and my son fell asleep without me touching him for the first time last night. On top of that, he slept clear through until 6am! After 7 months of night waking, I still woke up every hour or so and was amazed not to hear him fussing. Im still working on naps, but just sleeping for an 8 hour stretch makes this book worthwhile.

I believe this book gives the most specifc information especially for very young infants. I was interested in starting good sleep habits with my 4 week old and this was the only book that had any info about babies this young. That is exactly what Kim West teaches - good habits. I was not interested in waiting until my baby was 3 mo old with somewhat sleep habits and trying to reteach him.

I have read Sleeping Thrugh the Night (Mindell) as well as Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (Weissbluth) and Babywise. They all have good info with Weissbluth's book being the most comprehensive however somewhat disorganized. The first half of the book is all about sleep and then he gets into suggestions. Mindell's book is too general for me and Baby Wise was not comprehensive enough for me a first time mom. If I had to choose 2 - buy Good Night Sleep Tight and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child - they will tell you what you need to know.

My son is 7 week old and regularly sleeps 6-8 hours at night and naps well most days. I am able to lay him down awake and he puts himself to sleep with minimal and sometimes no fussing. These books gave me the tools to help him learn how to fall asleep.

I have read everything, from Ferber to the No-Cry Sleep Solution. My baby was 9 months old and I thought I was going to die from exhaustion before I found this book. At last, advice for those of us who aren't willing to let our baby cry alone in a dark room for an hour - but who are committed to getting our babies to sleep through the night before they start pre-school!

Very well-organized, easy to follow, caring, practical.

My daughter was always a pretty good sleeper (naps in crib/swing, first half of the night in her own crib, second half co-sleeping), but around 5 months-old she started waking up every hour, and I was at a total loss as to what to do about it. I had been reading the Sears' Baby Book and was wary of sleep training and cry-it-out, but when we were loaned this book I was so exasperated I was ready to give The Sleep Lady Shuffle a try.

I started reading it after putting the baby down for the first time one night, and by the time she woke for the first time I had read enough to know that I was perpetuating her problem with my rush to nurse her at the first cry.

The biggest change that the Sleep Lady Shuffle brought about for us was the cessation of using nursing as the automatic go-to. But because my daughter would not take no for an answer from me, which West grants is frequently the case with nursing babies, this meant that my husband took point at night and was the "shuffler" while I stayed out of view.

This was as tough on my husband and me to get used to as it was on our daughter. My husband was used to uninterrupted sleep all night, since I, the nursing Mommy, had always been on the night shift. He was grumpy about having to deal with a fussing baby. And I was a wreck having to listen to my baby cry (and my husband grouse) without being able to DO anything about it. Plus, having read Sears, I was seriously doubting the worth of the program altogether and worrying that I was traumatizing my baby needlessly.

Nevertheless, West makes it clear that you have to give your baby time to adjust, about 2 - 3 weeks, and I was committed to giving it a full try before reverting to the Sears way. I'm happy to say that within 3 weeks our daughter was going to sleep on her own and the frequent night wakings ended. Because I am committed to nursing, I would nurse her before she went to bed (something West is actually opposed to generally), and then I would pick her up for a dream feed right before I went to bed. That way I knew that I wasn't starving my baby by not nursing her throughout the night. Eventually I stopped the dream feed, and now, at nearly 12 months, my daughter is sleeping 11 - 12 hours a night and taking two 1.5 - 2 hour naps during the day. She goes to sleep on her own, and when she wakes she plays and talks to herself happily in the crib until we get her.

One important point that West discusses that I found very valuable is early rising. She makes it clear that you have to be as consistent with get-up times as you are with bedtimes, and advises that you treat an early morning waking the same as you would a night waking.

All in all this book has been great. I appreciate West's flexible approach and understanding that every baby is different. At the same time, she is very firm about the absolute NEED for babies and small children to get enough quality sleep, which I think is definitely true and has been borne out by my experience.

I have recommended this book to many friends, and will buy a copy for myself now that baby #2 is on his way. I want to get him off to the right start!


UPDATE: My daughter is now 22 months old, and my son is 7 1/2 months old and I'm still referring to this book all the time. I use the present tense because my son has been more of a challenge than my daughter, and my laissez-faire attitude toward nursing before bed, in direct contravention to Ms. West's advice, was undoing everything else. In desperation my husband and I thought, is our son just not going to ever sleep as Ms. West says he should? So I reread the chapter on his age for the fiftieth time and took special note when she said that kids who can't resettle after waking probably are eating too close to bedtime. So as a last ditch effort, I started feeding my son when he woke, and not before bed. The improvement was immediate and remarkable. He started going to sleep faster and staying asleep longer. He also resettles within a few minutes instead of an hour and a half. This is only 5 days in, but I'd say the trend is clear. Obviously, I should have done this months ago. I had tried but never stuck with it because my son is so easily distracted when he first wakes up that nursing is more difficult, but I'd say spending that extra time nursing is worth it to have better sleep for everyone!

My child was two before my husband and I accepted that we weren't going to be able to successfully get her to sleep without help. We'd implemented both Ferber and The No Cry Sleep Solution and both worked for awhile, but she kept adjusting her wake-up patterns and we were desperate. Our pediatrician recommended The Sleep Lady, but before I called her I wanted a sense of her system, which the book gave me. It is a clear, informative volume on the science of sleep and why your baby wakes up, how you inadvertently reinforce those wakings and what you need to do to change it. If you are lucky and don't have a very resistant child, her system could change your life in ten days. If you are less lucky (and we were much less) it could take months, but we did see improvement right away. The approach is humane (you physically stay in the room with your child in the most difficult, cry-heavy phase, talking to them and telling them you are there) and it works, but be warned: it is not a three-day fix like Ferber promises. My sleep log shows three full months before the night wakings stopped completely -- and we still get them from time to time. Oh, and for those wondering if paying for the phone consult is worth it, it is. Kim West is truly a professional, and adds a lot of value relevant to your situation. But buy the book too, because you'll need to refer to it (I still do).