Customer Reviews

The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night

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3 star:		(71)
2 star:		(65)
1 star:		(69)

 

 

OK, I admit it. I bought all of them. Here's how they compare:

Ferber: Advocates crying to sleep with parent soothing on a time schedule. Put your baby in the crib. Come back to pat and say soothing words at 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. Increase the times every night. Hopefully your baby will stop crying and go to sleep. Lots of scientific discussion about sleep.

Weissbluth: Advocates crying to sleep without parent soothing. Open-ended time - no limit. You are "leaving him alone to forget the expectation to be picked up." Has a section on children over 7 years old.

Mindell: Advocates crying to sleep with parent soothing, on a schedule similar to Ferber but with more frequent checks on the baby.

Pantley: Advocates using gentle techniques to avoid crying. Focus on understanding why baby is waking and fixing problems with routines, new associations, and gradual changes in patterns. Supportive of breastfeeding and co-sleeping as well as crib sleeping and bottle feeding.

As a mom of three, including a very high needs infant and then twins, I know sleep deprivation! As a Childbirth Educator and Doula, I have a fairly extensive knowledge of typical infant sleep cycles and behavior. But as any sleep deprived parent can attest, you can be so overwhelmed, exhausted, and desperate for sleep that you are tempted to try anything and need some support and guidance. The two most common suggestions parents are given are to let the baby "cry it out" or to "just deal with it and know this too will eventually pass", neither of which validates the feelings of these desperate parents or gives them practical ideas for trying to meet both their needs and those of their baby, and often, makes them feel worse either because they can't stand to let their baby cry nor feel they can continue to go on being exhausted and sleep deprived, they want and need help NOW.

This book is that help. I bought the No-Cry Sleep Solution when my twin son and daughter were about 9 months old. I was exclusively breastfeeding them and attachment parenting them and did not want to stop that parenting style, but was desperate for sleep. Elizabeth's book was informative, easy to read, easy to follow, and most importantly comprehensive. She does not advocate for any one method of helping babies and parents to sleep, but rather gives weary, exhausted, and overwhelmed parents useful information about what reasonable expectations for sleep are, emphasizes safety, and then gives them easy to use tools they can use to identify sleep issues and many techniques they can choose from to try to bring more sleep to everyone, regardless of sleep arrangements or feeding style! I especially like her sleep logs and analysis tools. Within a few weeks of reading her book we were all sleeping better and I was less stressed as I was able to understand the reasons behind the waking and address them without tears for me or my babies! And yes, we are now all sleeping all night!
I highly recommend this book if you are looking for ways to gently and lovingly help your baby (and yourself) learn to sleep better!

FINALLY, a book that makes sense to sleep-deprived people! I always thought there were only three options when it came to sleeping with a baby in the house: 1) You just get lucky and have a natural-born sleeper; 2) You can let them cry it out; or 3) You can just deal with the constant night waking.

Thanks to Elizabeth Pantley, I realized there is a gentle, loving way to teach my daughter to sleep without a single tear! After a few nights of following our sleep plan, my daughter started sleeping through the night. This was accomplished without ONE single tear!!!!

Unlike in other books, there is no strict format to follow. You can adapt the ideas to fit your child and at your own pace. No more feeling guilty for not just letting her cry it out and being tired all the time. No more guilt about not following the very rigid programs in some other "sleep books."

Thanks for all the sweet dreams, Elizabeth!

At 3 months, my son was sleeping 7pm-4am, waking up to feed, then back down until 7-8am. Then the holidays hit, and everything fell apart. Suddenly he was waking up no less than 12-15 times between 10pm-6am. After 10 days of getting less than 4 hours of (interrupted) sleep each night, my husband and I determined we needed to take action to help the poor kid get back on track. We bought three books - Ferber, "Healthy Sleep Habits" and this one.

Of course we wanted to follow the no-cry solution. Who wants to put their child (and themselves) through the misery of cry it out? I truly believed that cry it out was the wrong thing to do and was positive this plan would work. My husband and I committed to the program and agreed we'd follow it "as long as it takes."

It took all of our energy to read the book cover-to-cover, put together a sleep log and then lay out our sleep plan. The author instructs you to have "patience" and to celebrate even the smallest improvements. What she doesn't really acknowledge is that, when serious sleep deprivation has you at each others' throats, weeping hysterically at the drop of a hat and feeling resentful towards your poor innocent baby, "patience" is something nearly impossible to come by.

After 4 weeks of working with our sleep plan - following the guidelines 'round-the-clock - our son was still waking up 6-8 times a night and napping poorly during the day. This was an improvement over waking a dozen times a night, but still he had huge dark circles under his eyes, startled easily, cried at nothing. He was miserable. We all were.

Despite the 300 other reviews here that say basically "if you really love your baby, you won't let him cry it out" ... I LOVE MY BABY. And we finally decided to let him cry it out. And now? Now I have a happy, well-rested baby. And we have our sanity back.

This book has some good ideas. I'm sure that if my son were waking up only 2-4 times a night, I would have been able to stick with the plan as long as necessary to make it work. But when my child was waking up every 45-60 minutes all night long, night after night, I finally decided that - for our entire family's sake - we required a more radical, doctor-approved intervention.

My point in writing this review is not to defend my actions. It's to offer a different viewpoint amongst the crowd and to bear witness for other exhausted parents ... if this doesn't work for you, YOU ARE NOT A BAD OR SELFISH PARENT. Choose the method that fits your situation and follow it to the letter. And congratulations for wanting to help your baby get the restorative sleep he or she desperately needs.

I just wanted to report that this book changed my life immediately.
This is a very practical, sensitive book written by a mom who wanted to find a sleep solution that didn't involve varying degrees and timing of crying. I couldn't bare my baby's crying and was getting up 4-5 times a night for 3.5 months. When it occurred to me that I couldn't go back to work like this, desperate, I read web sites and then this book. In 24 hours (yes, one day!) my baby learned to sleep 5-6 hours and then again 2-4 hours. I am dreaming again and have less back pain too.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK for expecting and new parents (and grandparents nagging at you to let the little ones 'cry it out'). Here are a few highlights:

1. keeping babies up later so they get worn out won't lead to longer sleep... it will mean shorter stints since they get tensed up and can't relax well enough to go deep
2. calm down your home at night (sadly and for a little while at least, no more happy baby time for us with visitors and block meetings, baby brigade, etc.)
3. infant babies need 2-3 at least one hour naps per day (my baby slept periodically 30 minutes whenever)
4. babies need very regular schedules (oops, every day was different at our house as I was playing and erranding alot for this break without being at my office)
5. they need absolute darkness to sleep at night (we nixed the night light and noticed our neighbor's porch light came right into the nursery)
6. they don't necessarily need to feed if they awaken and can be patted to sleep (no wonder my kid's in the 90th percentile for weight)

Anyhow, we follow the tricks in the book exactly, all of them but putting a 'lovey' in my bra (good grief), and the method immediately worked for us. Of course it won't work for everyone and all babies are unique. But, if you're going crazy like I was, I recommend it.

This is a very helpful book which includes some of the more useful information included in Wiesbluth and Ferber. I believe her approach can work for most parents with time and patience, though some babies may require months of committed effort.

Let me preface the rest of this review by stating up front that I personally don't think it's permanently harmful if there are some tears shed (by either Moms or babies :-) in the process of helping babies learn how to sleep through the night... That said, even though that's my perspective I loved Elizabeth Pantley's inclusive, compassionate, unjudgemental tone.

I really wish this book had been available when my first daughter was a baby. By the time she was 7 months old and still waking up every hour, I was nearly incapacitated with sleep deprivation. My husband was that one who said that things had to change and that we needed to cry it out. I begged for a few weeks to do some research and ended up reading several sleep books including both Weisbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child and Ferber's book. I thought both books were very well written and contained some excellent information about babies and sleep. Given what I had learned from these books, I put together my own sleep program that was similar to much of Pantleys except that I let my daughter do some crying when she was first put down to sleep for the night. It took about two weeks but she dropped to 2 wakings a night and started being able to nap on her own. But the best was that either my husband or I could put her to bed with a brief routine and she'd drift off to sleep with a smile on her face and wake up the same way. All in all I considered it a success, except that I just hated that two week period when she would cry when she was put down.

So when I had my second daughter I was determined to use what I had learned the first time around to avoid some of the bad habits I had practiced with my oldest and get her to sleep with no crying. Things were much better, she was a great napper, but I was still having trouble getting her to sleep without having a nipple in her mouth, and she was getting up every two hours at night. So I bought Elizabeth's Pantley's book.

As I said earlier, I wish it had been around with my first daughter. I think she culled some of the best information about sleep from some of the other books and I loved her organized approach to finding out what works best for your child. I really wanted to get to the point that we had with our eldest where we could just put her in bed and she would drift off peacefully on her own.

I faithfully followed the program for a month and I was seeing some progress. However the progress was very slow I found it challenging to work the program with a toddler who was already feeling somewhat abandoned. She has a phased approach to getting a child to sleep on their own where you comfort the baby until they are almost asleep, put them in bed, if they get upset comfort some more and repeat the cycle until they are asleep. At least with my daughter, it was taking a huge amount of time to get her down for naps and bed. Time that my toddler had to be quiet in order to not get the baby worked up. I think I could have stuck it out if I hadn't had a toddler who also needed me, but after a month I threw in the towel. I went back to letting her cry to learn how to get to sleep. The difference between this time and three years ago though was that this time it only took a fairly easy three nights. I think the difference was probably due to the month I had been working the Pantley method.

In conclusion, there's great information in here for everyone. If you have the time and patience, I believe the program can work. But I found it difficult to work the whole program while simultaneously tending to a toddler.

Happy sleeping everyone! I wish all of you sleep deprived mommies and daddies who might be reading this sweet dreams and know that whatever you decide to do, take care of yourself, things do get better.

I am the mother of 4 children, including 21 month old twins. Before I started using the No Cry Sleep Solution methods, one or both of my babies was awake every hour all night long. I practice AP (Attachment Parenting) as much as I can, but I could not be an loving, understanding parent to any of my 4 children on the amount of sleep that I was getting. In addition, my babies were often fussy and were obviously overtired. Pantley's methods were perfect for an AP parent like me who wanted to continue to co-sleep with and breastfeed my babies, but who also desperately needed more sleep. I developed a sleep plan based on some of the ideas in the No Cry Sleep Solution, and slowly but surely both babies began to sleep longer stretches, until they eventually started sleeping through the night. I still get fabulous early morning sleep/cuddles with the babies, and I can be a much more effective and loving parent during the day! We are all happier now. You can read more about the test mommies on Pantley's No Cry web-site...

I just read the critical review of The No Cry Sleep Solution written by kelly-lcce and I wanted to discuss the points that she brought up from the perspective of an AP parent who has actually used the methods in the book.

1. She says that Pantley's recommendation to use a "lovey" is wrong because it means parents are trying to force their children into an attachment to an object instead of a person. But Pantley clearly states in the book that a lovey doesn't take your place, instead it helps the baby feel safe when you can't be with him (no parent can be with their child 24 hours a day). One of my twins uses a lovey (none of the others did/do), and we have wonderfully close relationship.

2. kelly-lcce states that "none of the benefits of co-sleeping were covered at all" and that there is very little on helping a baby/child co-sleep soundly. This is simply not true. Pantley herself co-slept with each of her 4 children and she even recommends a book on Attachment Parenting to help parents understand this choice. And there is an entire section on helping co-sleeping babies to sleep better (p. 130-136). I have co-slept with all of my four children (and still do when they need me, or I need them!), and I felt that Pantley's book was very supportive of parents who make this choice.

3. kelly-lcce says there is no value judgment on breast vs. bottle, and that Pantley should have said that the advantages of breastmilk outweigh the disadvantages. It is true that Pantley does not "judge" those who bottlefeed (by choice or necessity) - I think that is one of the strongest selling points of this book - the author is accepting of numerous different choices that parents and babies make. However it is also very clear that Pantley breastfed all four of her children well into their toddler years - this fact speaks clearly of her thoughts on the subject.

4. kelly-lcce says that Pantley's use of the concept of "flexible schedule" is very similar to that presented in BabyWise. I just looked up "flexible" in the index of the book and immediately found several paragraphs on how important it is to listen to baby's cues. Pantley's goal is to help parents "Follow a Flexible Yet Precitable Daytime Routine" (again the subject heading of a section). There is even a quote from me in the book about how, with my twins, I have a vague structure to my day, but I pay close attention to the each baby's unique cues to tell me when they are tired (p. 108).

5. kelly-lcce says that holding a sleeping baby is one of her favorite things of being a parent, and that Pantley's book strongly discourages this. Pantley says "There is nothing- absolutely nothing - as endearing and wonderful as a newborn baby falling asleep in your arms or at your breast" (p. 70). She says that in a perfect world where mothers had no other responsibilities, it would be ideal for babies to always fall asleep in their mother's arms. But since our world is not perfect, it is a good idea to gently and slowly help baby learn to go to sleep in his bed. Pantley says that like her, you may choose sometimes (or often) to let baby sleep in your arms and, "when you don't put him down...hold him with your heart, too, and relish every gurgle, every flutter, every sighing breath. Trust me when I say, "you will miss this (p.72-73)." She's right!

6. kelly-lcce didn't like the section on getting a baby to go to sleep in the crib without mom or dad, because it seemed like Ferber sleep training to her, "just minus the crying". Well isn't that the point? To acheive better sleep for baby and parents gently, without crying? This particular section is obviously not meant for co-sleeping families who disapprove of cribs, but in typical Pantley fasion, is accepting of the variety of choices that good parents make.

7. kelly-lcce felt like the first half of the book where the author discusses the needs of babies is disregarded in the second "solution" half of the book, and that this is just a sleep training book. I'm not quite sure in what ways Kelly-Icce thinks that babies' needs are being disregarded, because the most important strain throughout the book is that parents need to be in tune with their baby's needs, AS WELL AS their own needs. This book is not meant for parents who are happy with their sleep situation as it exists. In the beginning of the book Pantley asks the reader to consider whether or not her baby's sleep habits are actually problematic and disruptive of family life, or if it is simply the "sleep-through-the-night" expectations that were troublesome. Clearly kelly-lcce did not respond well to this book because she feels her chidren's sleep habits are not disruptive of her family life. For others, like me with my night-waking twins and two other young children, the No Cry Sleep Solution was the perfect way to fine-tune my needs with those of my babies, making us all much happier.

Finally, a book that really can help the sleep-deprived parents out there teach their babies to sleep better without leaving them alone to cry themselvs to sleep. There is a better way! This book is a detailed, informaive text on normal sleep and baby sleep patterns. It is non-judgemental regarding breast/bottle feeding and other decisions that parents may make. It offers detailed information on developing a customized sleep plan for your own family and each individual baby.

We had tried letting our daughter "cry it out" before with terrible results. Not only didn't it work, but she got so stressed out by it that she suddenly refused to nurse anymore. Needless to say, we were never going to do that to her (or any other child of ours) again. This book offers an alternative. No longer must we choose between sleep-deprivation and "crying it out." Elizabeth's approach is based on a gradual relearning of "sleep-associations" so that your baby will learn to get herself back to sleep without your help, but emphasizes that the baby can learn at her own pace!

For all those desperate parents out there, please give this book a try. You will be sleeping before you know it!

A refreshing alternative to the "quick fix" and damaging cry-it-out approaches that have been so popular of late. This is the first book I've read (and believe me, I've read a shelfload in the effort to get some shuteye) that works *with* a baby's natural and necessary tendencies instead of against them. Pantley offers real-life solutions, with real-life feedback from real-life moms. She acknowledges the uniqueness of all babies as well as the patterns that are typical to most, and offers a menu of possible things to try. This is the book for the informed parent who wants to know *why* her baby is having trouble sleeping, wants to know how to help her without damaging the parental/child bond, knows there are no ultra-fast magic methods -- and won't fall for the checkout-lane "get your baby to sleep in five easy (cruel and heart-wrenching) steps." This is important stuff and can't be dealt with in 50 pages...so it's well worth your time to read the parts of the book that are relevant to your situation. Highly recommended...by a (now) well rested family!

If I would have written this review after my first 10 days following the plan it would have been very different. This program is not a quick-fix solution to sleep. But I don't think there is such a thing. Even my friends who do the crying route take a long time to get to all-night sleep. It took 30 days for me, but my baby went from waking up every hour to breastfeed to sleeping 10 hours all night long. I am proud of myself for not giving in to the advice to let him cry to sleep. He's a happy sleeper now, and so am I. I like the format of this book. It's easy to read and follow - a big plus when you are so sleep deprived that you can hardly read a label let alone a book! Some of the other sleep books are very complicated and require too much thought. This one has a menu of ideas that are clearly explained. You can choose as many as apply to you. I am extremely happy with our results from this book. I suggest you look it over and read the excerpts to get a feel for it. I felt connected to the author, her writing style makes it seem like she really cares about you and your baby. And the solutions are practical and they really work.