Customer Reviews

The Sleep Fairy

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Tonight is a special night and you are warm and snug.
You sipped your final drink and you gave us your nightly hug.
I sit here by your bedside and I hold you in my arms,
as I tell you of the Sleep Fairy and all her special charms."

Many parenting books now suggest rewarding and praising as a way to cast an obedience spell over your children. While children do seem to have minds and motivations all of their own, there are times when authors think up the most creative solutions to everyday conundrums.

In sharp contrast, the most uncreative solutions include ideas like: "Putting your children to bed and letting them cry themselves to sleep." Sounds fun for the children, doesn't it?

This book is much more creative. Janie Peterson is a Child behavior specialist who presents a fascinating solution to the eternal question:

"How do you get your kids to stay in bed once they are there?"

Not only does this book contain a magical formula for getting your children to stay in their own beds, it appeals to your child?s magical inner world. That place where they dream, imagine and wish. Positive rewards work well for other teaching moments and so Janie Peterson imagined they would also work well at bedtime.

Now, if there it a Tooth Fairy, why shouldn't there be a Sleep Fairy?

Years ago, Janie and Roger Peterson discovered a delightful Sleep Fairy who helped them teach their children to stay in bed at night. Since then, they have shared this magical solution with other parents who then learned how to sprinkle a little fairy dust themselves.

So who is the Sleep Fairy? Well, you of course. It is a job that has the rewards of: no whining, no tantrums, no arguing, no crying and no begging.

The Sleep Fairy simply stocks up on a collection of small treats children enjoy. It could be as simple as a bookmark, sticker, ribbon, piece of candy or a tiny toy.

The author suggests that you read this story every night when you first start to put this idea into action. Once your children are staying in bed, the sleep fairy then visits them quite often for two weeks. After this, you phase out the routine and tell your children the Sleep Fairy will only be an occasional visitor.

The story itself has been designed in vivid colors and the text is warm, snuggly and often rhymes. Molly and Katie are the two girls in the story. They get ready for bed and brush their teeth. After Dad reads a bedtime story, Mom tucks the girls into be and Mom and Dad tiptoe out of the room.

"Minutes Later" Molly climbs out of bed and asks for another drink. Then Molly and Katie beg for another story. When Mom and Dad say: "GO BACK TO BED," the two girls unhappily return to sleep.

There had to be a better solution, so the next night Dad reads a magical story. He tells Molly and Katie about the Sleep Fairy and suddenly going to bed and sleeping is much more fun. As Molly and Katie snuggle into bed, they have happy dreams and don't get out of bed.

The next morning both girls find a tiny lovable doll.

Reading "The Sleep Fairy" is a ingenious way to encourage your children to magically remain in bed. This book has been proven to substantially reduce children's bedtime problems and night awakenings.

Destined to become a Classic Bedtime story. Finally parents can enjoy a peaceful night's sleep too!

~The Rebecca Review

We have 11 children. Six daughters. Before we found this book we were troubled every night at bedtime by three of our younger daughters. If our daughters ever stayed in bed it was purely accidental and certainly not routine. These are good children, with good behaviors, with their only weakness being at bedtime.

We used this book and within two nights, the girls were staying in bed. It actually helped to have more than one child, because they had another person to see succeed if they did not.

We were blessed with peaceful evenings alone, and happy children. The girls that would not sleep are now 8 and 6 and they have no problems staying in bed. Our five year old has been staying in bed with this book for at least two years, and our just three year old girl is now reading the book with us or even the older girls and staying in bed as well. This book even works when friends sleep over....they want to be part of the magic too!!

The book does not continue to be read every night. This book is a quick fix that you can gradually subtract once the child is used to the routine and out of the habit of getting out of bed.

We recommend this book to anyone with a child who is hard to put to bed, or just needs some behavior reinforcement for bedtime problems that occur only sometimes. We love this book. It is a God send that saved us from endless nights of stress, that should always be the most pleasant time of day. Days with children should end peaceful and lovingly, and this book would guarantee that result. What better memories to foster with your child than peaceful evenings and a little magic.

I can't believe the results after just ONE time of reading the story to my 3 year old daughter!!! After years of sleeping with mommy, crying, whining and getting out of bed my daughter stayed in her own bed without one "peep" after reading The Sleep Fairy story. And she loves the book. she now can recite it and reads it to me each night, even the poem is memorized, word for word.

Parents must try this book. I've recommended it to my friends with children and it has worked miracles with all. Why didn't someone think of this book sooner? It is my best buy of the year!!

This story was very helpful to us. Our oldest went from going to sleep perfectly to trying everything in the book to stay up. We were out of things to try.

This story is basically about a fairy who delivers a special present if the child goes to bed well, think Santa Claus meets the Tooth Fairy. The story is a little long (only reason I gave it 4 stars), so we edit out some things. We also amended the story so that the present is left beside the bed on the nightstand so we don't risk waking our child putting it under the pillow.

Some things that have worked for us...
-The first gift was a small bag for the Sleep Fairy to leave presents with in the future. If she whispers to the bag, the fairy can hear her.
-We get most of the gifts from the dollar store so we aren't out a ton of $$$. Little things that can be used and gone like bath fizzies, stickers, those shrunken wash clothes, novelty socks, etc.
-A little note written on pretty (inexpensive) paper.
-We sometimes suggest to our child what she wants and/or should ask for...like more princess pull ups when she's low on pull ups, or wouldn't she like a new pajama shirt. That way she's getting things that we needed to get anyway.

Weaning from the fairy. When we've not put something out from the fairy, our child's believed us that the fairy was too busy or she's bringing something really good the next night. But we have started talking about how the fairy is the one who gets her after nap snack ready (again, something we'd already do anyway). So we are slowly moving towards the fairy is getting too busy to come every night, but will always come to leave her snack.

We have had only 1-2 nights in the last 6 weeks that were rough. I'd also suggest getting "Good Night, Sweet Dreams, I Love You: Now Get Into Bed And Go To Sleep!" by Patrick C. Friman

A must try for all parents who have kids that don't want to go to sleep or want to sleep with their parents. I read it once and my 3 year has slept in her bed since. The story can easily be adapted to your bedtime routines and you can insert your rules for what qualifies for the fairy to visit. Treats do not have to be much, stickers, a dime, or 3 pieces of hard candy made her day. I had my doubts when I first read it, but after its results I keep referring my friend to it!

I purchased this book after reading the reviews and receiving a recommendation from my pediatrician. It is a nice story; however, it doesn't work for all children. My daughter will tell me that she doesn't want the sleep fairy to visit. When she wakes up in the night and we remind her that she has to be in her bed and asleep if she wants the sleep fairy to visit she tells us that the sleep fairy scares her. In addition, she has told us stories such as the sleep fairy hit her, the sleep fairy is mean, etc. We have also had trouble with her repeatedly checking under her pillow to see if the sleep fairy has come resulting in us leaving the sleep fairy gifts under mommy's pillow. Personally I would have to say that we have had as much success with this as we have had just reading Cinderella or Snow White to her.

We purchased this book for our three-year-old after our doctor recommended it. It's now been about 9 months and there are many nights I wish I'd never heard of this book.

The book has beautiful illustrations and I love the fantasy aspect of it. Our princess-obsessed daughter loved it immediately. However, the book is a little long to read EVERY NIGHT (as our daughter wanted). (She also didn't go for just reading the Sleep Fairy poem part of the story -- it was all or nothing with her.)

In the beginning, the concept worked like a charm. Our daughter slept in her bed almost immediately, was excited to get her prize in the morning, etc. We had a few problems because our daughter is a light sleeper and a couple times, caught us bringing in the gifts...we had to modify where the Sleep Fairy left gifts as a result.

My biggest complaint is that there was no tapering off of the Sleep Fairy incorporated into the book. The Sleep Fairy just keeps bringing gifts FOREVER (big gifts, too -- dolls and things along those lines), as long as the girls sleep all night in their beds. I wish it had a more Mary Poppins ending -- an ending where, eventually, the Sleep Fairy comes less and less because she needs to go help other children, etc.

The result -- after about three months, she was sleeping in her bed consistently and it was really time to phase out the Sleep Fairy. (We live in a small house and there were really just getting to be too many trinkets from the Sleep Fairy; the walls were getting papered with stickers and I just couldn't bring myself to give my daughter candy every day.) So we tried incorporating our own Mary Poppins-style ending, but our daughter didn't buy it. (We told her that there were so many children needing help sleeping that the Sleep Fairy probably couldn't come EVERY night any more...the "Sleep Fairy" left a note saying that she would check in on our daughter occasionally and make sure she was sleeping in her bed -- this way, we went to gifts every other day, then once a week, etc.)

At first, she would wrap up old toys herself and tell us that the Sleep Fairy left them for her. The WORST, though, is that now, our not-yet-four-year-old daughter doesn't really believe in ANY magical characters -- she was logical enough to put it together that if the Sleep Fairy could stop bringing presents, then there was probably something a little fishy with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, too. So, just at an age when we should be having LOTS of fun with these fantasy creations, we have a child who is skeptical of it all (and who has reverted to sleeping on the floor of our room as well, now not wanting anything to do with the Sleep Fairy).

I just think the authors could have planned for this in their plotline and helped out parents like us. They just need to develop an exit strategy for good ol' Sleep Fairy...maybe they are Republicans. ;-)

My third child has had trouble going to bed and staying there for most of her 6 years of life! I had tried other books, tips, sticker charts, etc. but nothing ever seemed to work very well. I found the sleep fairy book and tried it. What a dream come true! She has slept great for 6 weeks straight now! She is much happier and so are her parents. I recommend this book to anyone who's child has trouble going to bed or even if they have trouble with getting up at night. This has been such a blessing to my family!

I think the author of this book was brilliant in her approach- be sure to read the suggestions for use of the book from the author in the introductory area. The problem I experienced is that my son is not your average child and even though he loved the gifts from the sleep fairy, he refused to read the book most nights and told me that he didn't want the sleep fairy to come and that he already had plenty of toys and didn't need her to bring him anything else! Now how do you argue with that?

All in all, I think the theories and practices used by the author will get most children sleeping in their own bed. Even though my 4-year-old refused to read the book most nights, since we first read the book (about 3 times total, I think), he has been sleeping in his own bed most of the night and there isn't such a fight to get him to stay in bed. He still sometimes comes into our room around 1 or 2am, but I can live with that.

Definitely recommend this book- it is a really sweet story and will work for most parents!

This book was great, while my son still doesn't sleep through the night every night in his own bed, things are better.