Customer Reviews

The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5

5 star:		(177)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

My 9-month-old daughter had never slept more than 4 hours at a time before we read this book. She would wake up several times a night, sometimes every hour! We tried other methods, but they didn't work. Finally, we decided to try a new method, and after pouring over every book in the parenting section of the bookstore, I decided that this one seemed like the one for me. I liked how the authors were very sensitive to parents who, like myself, were resistant to letting babies cry. We were prepared for the worst, and figured that we would have a terrible week ahead of us, maybe longer. The first night, she fell asleep after 30 minutes and only woke up once during the night. The second night, it took her 17 minutes and she never woke up. Last night (the third night), she fell asleep after 7 minutes and slept for 12 hours straight! We were amazed, and refreshed, since we'd gotten the first full-night of sleep that we've had in 9 months! It also works wonders for naps. We are now like a new family, with a happy, rested baby, and parents who are not exhausted all of the time. By the way, I have never written a review of anything before, so for me to be writing this is a REALLY big deal! Try this if you are a desperate parent, it really does work, and FAST! If it works for our baby, it will work for yours.

*** Note: After posting my review, I noticed that several new reviewers refer to this method as "lazy parenting", and seem to be of the opinion that this method is the worst thing for your baby. This may be true for them, but I just have to respond by saying that my baby is much happier now that we have been doing this method for a week- when I put her down at night, she is smiling, and does not cry at all, but just rolls over and goes to sleep for 12 hours. Before, when she was waking every few hours, she was cranky most of the time. Since she would go through 3-4 bottles a night (which, at 9 months, she definitely did not need!), she would not eat for most of the morning, and her naps were a nightmare! As a result, we had a baby who was overtired and not eating well during the day (and, as a result, getting most of her nutrition from formula instead of food, which she needs at this age). Now, she wakes up cheerful and well-rested (and, I might add, always happy to see us, even though we'd "abandoned" her), eats solid meals during the day, naps regularly, and is much more adjusted. My husband and I also have more energy to spend with her when we get home from work, since we're no longer only getting 4 hours of sleep, which I think is also a huge benefit for her. I was always against the "cry-it-out" method as well, but this really isn't about that, and it gets results very quickly. By the way, I have read Dr. Sears, and tried "The No-Cry Sleep Solution", and neither of them did any good. This will work very well for some people, but not for others, and I think that's OK.

I have literally read what seems to be every "baby sleep" book on the market. I was at my wits end as to how to get my 7 month old (20 lbs) baby to sleep through the night. I knew she could do it, but I didn't know how to do it.

We tried to let her cry it out, since it seemed like everyone I talked to had done it. But after a few days and hours of crying, I knew it wasn't working. And it was hard on everyone. Then came this book. After I read it I knew it was for us.

Our 7 month old woke up 2x per night for 8-9oz of milk each feeding. She never woke up for 1-2oz or just to be cuddled. She ate 1/2 of her daily milk intake between the hours of 9pm and 7am. So, I felt like CIO was starving her. This book helps you to wean your baby off of their feedings. We started with the weaning on the first night, decreasing her normal bottle size by 1 oz. One night she cried (whimpered) for 45 minutes. Then went back to sleep. Another night (the night that the 2nd feeding was dropped to 0 oz), she whined off and on for 3 hours. That was the only hard night that we had, thankfully. She wasn't hungry, but was so used to waking up for food that I think she got mad that things were changing. Each night we decreased her food by 1 oz per bottle. And during the day she miraculously ate a little bit more each day. I couldn't believe it. We tried to "pump her full of food" during the day before, but she wouldn't eat!

Now, 1 week later, we are all sleeping peacefully. For the past 3 nights, she has slept 12 hours without waking up once. She eats ALL of her needed milk during the day. Even writing this, I can't believe that it actually worked. She wakes up happy, eats well, and we are all better rested. I'm so glad that I chose this method.

Now, onto my suggestions and changes to the book:

--It tells you to work on the naps at the same time as the night sleep. That didn't work for us. She was still needed longer naps and the book's schedule didn't work until she was actually sleeping 12 hours at night. Now we are working on a flexible nap schedule.

--Our baby could already put herself to sleep before we started this program. We don't need to rock her or give her a bottle. We put her in the crib with a pacifier, and she lulls herself to sleep. We taught her to do this months ago. If your baby cannot do that, I would suggest teaching them that first (using the method of your choice) and then working on weaning them off of milk. I think it might be too hard to do it at the same time.

--Make sure and track how much your baby is eating during your current routine. Then, continue to track it during this program. The program suggests this, but I found it most important during the final stages of the weaning because I had to make sure she was getting enough milk during the day.


If your baby takes full meals during the night, TRY THIS BOOK! It was the only book that I read that addressed the issue of full meals at night and I'm grateful to the author's! Also - no matter which method you choose, do what you feel is best for your baby. I started thinking that 'whatever the books says, I have to do'. All babies are different and what works for some, might not for others. Change the program to fit your baby. Good luck!

***Update 7/2010 -- Over a year after I wrote this initial review, I still stand by it. We reverted back to night feeding a couple of times, but restarted the process from the book and went right back to sleeping well. She has been a sick baby and sometimes milk in the middle of the night was all she needed to soothe her. After she was better, if she still woke for milk, we weaned her off it. There was no crying this time - it was just a matter of shifting her milk intake to the daytime. Now at 21 months, she hasn't eaten in the middle of the night in a long, long time. I don't know when that would have stopped had we not used this book!

As a first time Mom, with a baby that has had tummy issues since birth, her Dad and I have been very protective and we never let her cry more than a few short minutes. After all, comforting and soothing your baby is our #1 responsibility as parents. She never slept well and we moved a bed into her room and took turns sleeping in her room every night so we could tend to her when she woke, which was about every 3-4 hours.

Now that she is 7-months old and 20 pounds, and her tummy problems are almost resolved, we realized that we needed to get some help so we could all function better. After researching for weeks, we choose this book and read it cover to cover. It made sense and offered solid support. We made sure she was in good health, and not teething and gave it a try.

I was hoping for some relief but I honestly was not expecting it to work. I committed to trying it for 5 days and if it didn't work, I was just going to deal with it. I won't lie. The first night was awful! She fussed and cried for 1 hr, and then screamed her head off for 58 min after that. I was a nervous wreak the next day and called my Dr. to ask if I was scarring her by letting her cry. He said no, and that it was important for her to learn to sooth herself. The 2nd night, she cried for only 40 min. The 3rd night she cried for about 20 min but slept 11 hours!!!! I had to wake her the next morning when we had to get going. She's been sleeping for 11 hours, on her own, for a week now!

This book is a treasure. We have a totally different baby now! One that is happy, rested, and feels safe and secure in her crib, on her own. I recommend this to anyone who is struggling. Follow it exactly as explained, try to look beyond those first difficult nights, and give it a chance.

I bought this book and started reading it right away, because I was exhausted from not sleeping at night, and not getting any rest during the day. At night, my almost 5 month old son was waking up twice to eat (for about 20 min for each feeding at 1 am and 4 am), and then starting at about 6 am was waking up every 40 min till 9 am (our bed time is 10 pm - 9 am). I had to insert the lost pacifier back in to his mouth, and hold my hand on his tummy till he fell asleep. I refused to pick him up and rock him to sleep because I could barely stand on my week feet. Sometimes he would wake up as many as 8-10 times during one night, which meant no rest for me at all, and definitely not enough for him. Then the whole day he was irritable, fussy, tired, cranky, you name it! When it came to naps, I had to rock him to sleep, and he would sleep for about 30 min, and then wake up crying and sleepy, but could not fall back to sleep. That made him ever more tired, fussy, cranky, and irritable. I was exhausted, and had a very unhappy, miserable baby on my hands! I was looking for a solution and did a lot of research on internet about different sleep training methods. For each method there were as many positive as there were negative feedbacks from parents. While some praised it, others hated it.
I got this book because of its high rating, 100% positive feedback, and the parent's award. I was so desperate for some quick results that I went straight to the solution chapter to see what "magic thing" I had to do in order to get out of this really bad situation as soon as possible. The more I read, the more understood, reassured and supported I felt by the authors. I could not wait to finish the book completely in order to get full information before starting this method, so I begun to put to practice what I have read little by little as I was reading it. I immediately started seeing some results!!! My son was weaned over the next 3 nights!!! He started sleeping longer during the night, and naps! I did not have to rock him to sleep any longer! He started to fall asleep on his own not even always needing his pacifier! Early morning waking has been better as well. He takes his naps almost at the same time every day now, which makes it easier for him to fall asleep. It also helps to plan a day accordingly, and not to get him too tired. He is a much happier baby during the day! Now he has the mood and the energy to play and explore. I have been a much happier mother too! More rested, I am simply a better mother for my little guy!!!

I have read many other sleep books but have found none that guide you through exactly what you need to do to teach your baby how to sleep through the night and nap well during the day. This book saved us, it gave us a plan for how to improve our baby's sleep habits. At 7 months our sweet baby girl was still getting up 2-3 times a night and not napping during the day except for when I held her. I didn't know what I was going to do, needless to say, we were a miserable bunch. After just a little over a week of using the techniques in this book she started sleeping 11-12 hours a night and napping 2 times a day!! Even now there are rough days and nights, especially with teething and learning how to move around, but sleepeasy also addresses these situations and gives you the tools to learn how to deal with these issues. A great reference even after you've done the initial sleep work. Seriously this book is invaluable.

Before we got this book our son never wanted to be put down. He took all of his naps and "slept" at night on top of or right next to my husband or me. He slept for 45-60 minutes at a time, waking up to feed multiple times during naps and at night. For six months I didn't sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a time and I was exhausted. We tried the No Cry Sleep Solution because I was dead set against letting my son cry, it didn't work for us. He would only fall asleep if we bounced him or nursed him and sometimes both. He would scream in the stroller, carseat, swing, it didn't matter, nothing was as good as being held by us. He had never slept in his room, in fact we rarely even went in there. He was a fussy baby who was unpredictable. My husband and I were miserable, and so was our baby.

While looking for a solution, any solution, I found this book. I was skeptical because it is a cry it out method but I read it anyway thinking they might have some good tips I could use. It's written in a very caring way and it helped me become ok with trying this type of method. I decided to give it a week and if it wasn't working I would just go back to what we were doing and try something else. We spent a week getting acquainted with the methods and sleeping on the floor of my son's room to get him used to the new space. Then it began. He cried for 53 minutes the first night and the next. He only woke up twice during the night and we did the check-ins until he stopped crying. That first week sometimes he didn't even get a morning nap because he cried through the whole hour. I wanted to cry myself but I knew how important it was to remain consistent and not give him mixed messages. And it worked!!!

By the second week he was crying less than 10 minutes at nap time and actually sleeping more than 45 minutes at a time. At night he was crying less than 20 minutes and SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! I night weaned him at this time as well using the methods in the book. Both of us were able to comfortably give up the constant night nursing easily and painlessly. I kept the dream feed for a week until HE decided he didn't want it anymore, he'd rather sleep! I couldn't believe it!!

We have now been using the methods for about six weeks. My son no longer cries at nap time or bedtime. Sometimes he lays there and talks to himself, I love it! He's almost eight months old and he seems like a new baby. He is well rested and happy. He's on a schedule and is so much easier to parent. Because he is able to soothe himself to sleep he is much happier in his car seat and stroller as well. This book is fantastic, I just wish I had gotten it sooner!!! If you are exhausted and desperate, give it a try. It could change your life, just like it changed ours!

This book helped us so much that I feel compelled to write my first review. The most impressive thing to me is that when I emailed the author (at [...]) with a question about a recommendation in the book, she emailed me a complete and personal response within 24 hours! My husband is so thrilled that he said we should send the authors an extra $10!

For months I had asked our doctor, researched on the internet and read several other books to help my 8 1/2 month old son give up night feedings AND sleep through the night. I very strongly didn't want my child to cry for hours or go hungry. However, I also didn't want him to form long term habits that would be hard to break later, as I had already observed his sleep habits getting worse as he learned to sit, crawl, stand and etc in the crib. Although I very much wanted the "No Cry Sleep Solution" to work for me, the techniques in that book just made my child significantly worse every night. Rest assured, that even with this book, I NEVER had to let my child cry much. On the only bad night we had, he cried for about 20 minutes off and on.

This book is well organized and well written. You can read the essential sections to get started very quickly. I was very wary about waking a sleeping baby one hour before his "usual" wake up time in order to wean night feedings. But, I made a commitment to try their approach, so I did it exactly as prescribed in the book. Wow, within three nights he gave up BOTH night feedings without going hungry or crying or waking for a pacifier. Within the next two nights he started sleeping for around 11 hours. We only had one night that was somewhat difficult, which I attribute somewhat to the daylight savings time change on the first night of no night feedings.

I was having a hard time getting my baby to sleep through the night and had very specific concerns. This book gave me a very easy, supportive, step by step guide to helping me get my baby to sleep. And it had a lot of specifics for many different sleep issues. I followed their suggestions and within 3 nights, my baby was conisistently sleeping 7 hours - the longest she had in 7 months!

The book boils it down to very basic, easy to follow steps and gave me the confidence to help my baby sleep!

I purchased this book 2 weeks ago .. After planning my bedtime routine and waiting for a good night to begin when I would be available for consecutive evenings, I put my plan into motion. After only a few days my 11 month old daughter soothes herself to sleep after being put down awake and sleeps soundly through the night for 11 hours. Before, bedtime was a dreaded time where she would fall asleep in my arms, but awake screaming once I put her down in her crib. She would also wake up like clock work at midnight looking for help back to sleep. This book has given us our evenings and sleep back! An easy read with a REAL plan that parents can use for teaching their kids how to sleep.

Our 5 month old baby would only sleep 2-3 hours at a time in his swing. Thanks to this book he is now sleeping 12 hours a night in his crib. He slept through the night on the 3rd night. It is truly amazing.