Customer Reviews

Silent Nights: Overcoming Sleep Problems in Babies and Children

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book will change your life if you are not sleeping thanks to a waking child. The advice is simple and straightforward, and works if followed with consistency. Our baby was still getting us up 3-4 times per night at 6 months. After only 2 nights of using Brian's methods, she started sleeping through. Now at one year, she sleeps 13 hours per night and 3 hours during the day, and life is wonderful !

Dr. Symon is basically a proponent of letting babies "cry it out." If you believe in the cry it out philosophy, then this book is just common sense. If you don't believe in crying it out, then you're not going to like what he has to say anyway.

My mom sent me this book when I had my second baby, because she wanted to help us all get more sleep. I was skeptical of a book that advocated "crying it out" with a newborn (note that even Richard Ferber, noted CIO guru, specifically says NOT to use CIO until baby is AT LEAST 4 months old). I started reading Silent Nights today, starting with the chapters on feeding... and was horrified.

"Dr" Symon's advice for breastfeeding is HORRID. He claims that babies should only want to feed every 3-4 hours (total of 5-6 feeds in 24hrs), to start solids at 8-12weeks, to give "top up" feeds with formula after breastfeeding in the afternoons and evenings, and to expect babies to sleep 6 hrs by 6 weeks, 8 hrs by 8 wks, etc. This is all VERY VERY BAD ADVICE and will likely lead to low milk supply and a baby who is not thriving. (Newborns need to feed 8-12 times in 24hrs, if not more often; AAP and WHO both recommend not starting solids until 6 months of age, and supplementing with formula will likely hurt your supply unless you pump to make up for that lost feeding-- also, just bc a baby takes a bottle doesn't mean they're hungry, sometimes they're just satisfying a need to suck).

Please, please, please, if you are breastfeeding and reading this book, completely skip the feeding chapters and instead pick up a copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (La Leche League International Book) as your breastfeeding resource.

Lastly-- This book is 200 pages with large-ish print. $34.95 seems like a rip-off. If you want to do a CIO approach, you may be better off looking up Ferber's or Weissbluth's books.

This book gives clear and detailed instructions to parents on how to train their babies to not cry during the night from as young as 6 weeks old. It advocates a typical behavioural modification approach which frames contact with parents as a "reward" for the baby (to be given or withheld in order to encourage or discourage certain behaviours) rather than a baby's fundamental need and right. In a nutshell, it advises parents to ignore their baby's cries, so that s/he will stop crying & go to sleep.

It's emphasis is on parents "gaining control" of baby's sleep patterns, rather than listening and responding to baby's needs. While this approach may be successful in getting babies not to cry out when they wake, it completely ignores the reality of babies' needs for comfort and contact, their inability to understand the abandonment they experience when they call out & noone comes, and the psychological damage this can cause. Brian Symon is uninformed and cavalier in his treatment of babies' emotional needs. This is dangerous advice to follow.

He also gives some questionable information about breastfeeding which could easily undermine the confidence of mothers in their ability to fully breastfeed their babies.

If you are thinking of buying this book, at least balance your reading with having a look at other books which take a different approach - eg. books by William Sears.

Let it be this one. I have had 3 children in the last 5 years, and this book was the best, and most useful book that I ever read by far. Reviewers who say that this book is about letting babies cry have totally missed the point that the author is making. In fact the research that has been done shows that by following the advice of the book babies will not only sleep more, but cry LESS. I read this book before my first was born, and followed it very closely. The result is that my 3 babies slept through the night at 9 1/2, 8 and 16 weeks and also had excellent daytime naps with no fuss at all. The sleep habits that his book teaches will set them up for their whole childhood, and save your family a great deal of stress and sleep deprivation. Every time that travel or change has messed up my children's sleeping we have followed the book and once again had 3 children sleeping through the night for 10-12 hours again. This has included more than 5 episodes of international travel and time zone changes.
This book is not about making babies cry, it is about helping parents to understand that the most important thing for your baby is having a parent who can cope with life. It is about being kind to your baby by setting up good sleep habits for life.

On the recommendation of a friend, I read this book while I was pregnant with my triplets. In the early months after they were born when I was too tired to think, it was fabulous to have a guide about what we were doing and why - and some hope that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. My triplets were premature but slept through the night (6 hours plus) by 4 months of age - and I started to feel human again and enjoy being a mum. The book uses aspects of behavioural psychology (eg: not encouraging playing during night feeds), but the emphasis is on training the parents. Babies benefit from having parents who are not sleep-deprived and from getting enough sleep themselves.

I borrowed this book from the library on the recommendation of a friend. I was getting nowhere with my son and his sleeping. This book certainly saved my sanity and assured both me and my husband that it was okay to let the little guy cry. If you're not a fan of leaving them to cry then you will hate this but we'd tried everything else and it didn't work. This book got us on track within 3 days. I have since brought the book and recommended it to various other friends with children with sleep problems and they have all had success. I've gone thru' mine with a highlighter and keep it hand for points of reference. Covers everything from sleep associatioin tools (dummy, blanket mum, dad) and why you shouldn't let them fall asleep in your arms. Easy to read, I read the revelant bits to me in a day and found myself nodding in agreement and reading passages aloud to my hubby. Worth it's weight in gold.

This book is great. Easy to read, common sense, and it works. I used it for teaching both my kids to sleep and they both slept through (8-10 hours) from about 8 weeks. Whenever they had relapses I returned to the book and they would be sleeping well again in a day or two.

I have recommended it to about 14 other families in the past 4 years and it has worked for all of them. It helps you to understand how kids sleep, why they sometimes don't, and how to teach them this important skill. Buy it, try it (really try it, don't just dabble). It really does work. Well-rested kids are happy and healthy kids and have happy parents. Do your kids and yourself a favour and BUY THIS WONDERFUL BOOK!

a 9 week old sleeping through the night? Not likely. They have small stomachs and still need to eat frequently. I read a book that said that even 9 month olds still need to sometimes eat in the nighttime. Why is our society so eager to push independence in infants? They are only babies for a short while. Why do we want to rush that? Babies will sleep when they are ready to sleep. The only "Sleep problems" created our by these books that make parents feel that if their 3 week old is not sleeping 10 hours that they have created a monster! Babies were not designed to sleep all night. They need to eat!
Even Adults can't always make it all night without a drink of water! Why the heck should we deny infants this?

A practical, sensible book that provides real understanding of what makes baby sleep. Ours had been waking every hour overnight, and we were at breaking point. 5 nights after reading this book, our baby (9 weeks old) slept through, and he hasn't looked back since! Neither have his parents!