Sleeping Through the Night, Revised Edition: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep

This book was a life saver for me when my three children were small. I am now buying it for my sister and her first baby. The book offers practical advice without judgement. If you can stick to it for 4 days you will revolutionize your sleep habits, even when you exclusively breast feed like I did. Have hope! My children have been good sleepers for years now, even with a family history of light sleeping. You will not go wrong with this book.

We started with "The Baby Book" by Dr. Sears, then tried, "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" and then "The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer." We were really at our wits' end. The major issue wasn't actually that our baby wasn't sleeping through, but that she was having a really hard time napping and she was crying like crazy every bedtime. We were trying not to let her cry but she was totally inconsolable, screaming right in our arms! We would be driving her in desperation to get her to go to sleep and sometimes she would still scream. It was heartbreaking.

Finally I got really desperate for a solution to my poor baby's anguish and looked online to see whether anyone in the sleep world was actually a PSYCHOLOGIST who specialized in sleep. Lo and behold, Jodi Mindell. She is truly an expert. Long story short, my baby now LOVES her crib. If we forget to put her down when it's time, she looks at us and says "Nigh night." She has no more negative associations with sleeping and she's a GREAT sleeper. 12-hour nights, plus usually 2 90-minute naps during the day at 13 months old. It took about 3 nights for bedtime to work (the longest she cried during that time was 20 minutes, which was already less than she cried when we'd tried to hold her or rock her to sleep!) and about 2 weeks or so for naptimes to get in gear.

The three hallmarks of Mindell's method are:
1. Reliable scheduling. For about a month our naptimes and bedtimes (and waking times) were literally to-the-minute. It worked. It actually even worked for me. I'm pregnant and I was able to set my own internal clock to take an afternoon nap when my baby does!

2. Routine, routine, routine. Bedtime and naptimes in our house now have an exact routine that is the same every single day. Same items, same order. Same books! I think this was the key for our daughter. She really relies on her routines.

3. Going to sleep on their own. Now, this doesn't mean you can't go in the room, or that you can't comfort your child if they need you. But you can't help them sleep. No rocking, nursing, feeding, driving, patting, etc. We went in and checked every 5 minutes and if she was really scared and not just fighting sleep we would pick her up, calm her down and put her back. Now she grabs her binky, says "nigh nigh" and lays down! Mindell also offers an alternative where you get to this gradually. So you could stay in the room for a while and get farther away or whatever if you don't want to do any crying at all.

I will also add that our baby, who we and everyone else thought was just a "fussy baby," turns out to be the happiest person in the world. We thought she had tummy problems, teething problems, all kinds of things. Well, now she's smiling, giggling and babbling 95% of the time. Sleep is a miracle cure!

This book was recommended to us by the pediatric sleep specialist at Oregon Health Sciences University when we took our 2 year old who has never slept through the night after our overnight sleep study. I had done a lot of reading but had not purchased a book because there are so many out there that may or may not have any credibility. It is a straight forward book, that gives concrete examples and realistic expectations. There is nothing "gimmicky" or earth shattering about the information. Just science-based information. So if you're looking for the 2-night fix, this isn't it, because those only work on the child that fits that mold. It recognizes that not all children respond to "cry it out" (which is refreshing) and gives options.

I bought and read other sleep training books and found this to be the most helpful by far. The others I read were: No Cry Sleep Solution, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, No Cry Nap Solution, Babywise, Jo Frost's Confident Baby Care, and Happiest Baby on the Block. I took bits and pieces from each book but this book was easy to read (using steps) and to the point. Get this book and put your doubts to rest.

I bought this book 5 1/2 years ago when my first son was four months old. To this day, it comes to mind as the one most important resource I had. I was exhausted at the time, still breast feeding him every 2 hours around the clock. I had thought he would naturally start sleeping longer when he was ready. Wrong. In my zombie, mush mind state, I read the information about how much sleep a baby needs at what age and began getting him on a sleep schedule using the very specific, yet flexible, guidelines in the book. He was like a new child!, much more content. I began to be able to function and have time to do things like eat and go to the bathroom, and I didn't feel guilty about how I was raising him after reading the sleep information and seeing the changes in my son. It might sound obvious that I needed to do something, but it's hard to think straight when you're sleep deprived and hungry. I felt this book was a good middle ground between the two extreme philosophies of a completely child centered and a completely parent centered parenting approach to sleep. I still refer to sections in the book on occasion that deal with sleep issues in older children and adults. Wonderful, thank you Jodi Mindell.