Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, 5th Edition: A New Step-by-Step Guide for a Good Night’s Sleep

Helped me SO much! Flexible and educational.
Life-changing. I’m so glad my pediatrician recommended this book for helping my child sleep. I learned SO much about sleep, and I felt so empowered and educated afterward, which is honestly the most important part of helping your kids sleep better. My favorite part, though, and why I recommend it to everyone is because it is so FLEXIBLE. Marc Weissbluth is a pediatrician and teaches that there isn’t just 1 right way to help your kid sleep. He educates, and as the parent, you can choose what you feel comfortable with to “sleep train” your child. I say “sleep train” because it wasn’t rigid like so many sleep training programs are, and you can start at any age, all the way up to 7 years old! He gives accounts of such a variety of scenarios and different life circumstances that you’ll find specific tips to help your kid sleep no matter how big your apartment, how many kids you have or how many siblings your new baby has, as well and how to help you and your partner work together.To those who didn’t love the book, here are my thoughts:I can totally see where so many people are coming from when they say the author seems degrading and you will feel guilty after reading jt! I felt a bit overwhelmed when I first started reading it, but I wanted to share some tips that helped me learn from the book. Take my suggestions with a grain of salt, but I found SO many solutions to the sleep problems we were facing with our new baby and I hope others can too!A) At the beginning, the author says that you will have more success with the book if you DO skip around! I didn’t read it all the way through. I skimmed through it and read the parts that related to MY specific struggles. Then later, I’d go back and read new parts I had skipped because I was now facing THOSE challenges.B) There is a “summary” of each chapter within the chapter and is a section titled “for sleep deprived parents” (or something like that) and it has little notes about the most important parts of the chapter. This is usually where I’d start because if I saw something that caught my eye, I’d go back into the chapter and read about THAT particular part.C) The only reason I got to read so much of the book this way was because we were on vacation, and I had LOTS of help with family members watching my new baby, so I had time to read. It would’ve been really hard to find what I needed if I hadn’t had time by myself! I know not everyone has that privilege, but it could help you find what you need if you get that personal time!D) As for the tone of the author, I am a pretty sensitive person and take things pretty personally sometimes, but for some reason, I didn’t feel that way when I read this book. I think it’s probably because my pediatrician is a very no-nonsense kinda person and has a pretty straightforward way of putting things, so I was already used to that when I read the book. I, too, struggled sometimes feeling like I would be a “bad mom” if I didn’t let my world revolve around my baby’s sleep, and I was probably a bit strict at first as I followed the Author’s guidelines (and probably drove my extended family crazy by always prioritizing early bedtime and naps, haha). However, my husband and mom have helped me realize that these are just suggestions from a professional who has studied sleep, and I can be as flexible as needed for my family! The thing is, the more you stick with it, the more the benefits DO come. He has a lot of great points that I think hit on a lot of truths, even if I don’t like the truth because I know I fall short. But I’ve had to train myself to think more along the lines of “I’m doing my best, and that is good enough!” No one will be perfect at these suggestions. When we have vacations or family time, my baby gets less sleep, and we have lots of these “exceptions” to good sleep habits, way more than what the Author recommends. But when I’ve followed the advice in the book, it has helped us “bounce back” from vacations that mess up sleep, and it really does work!I have found such success with these tips and loved being educated about sleep, so I’m sorry this was a bit long and again, take it with a grain of salt. It wasn’t like a strict regimen like lots of other sleep training programs out there that only work if you start immediately and never skip a day. This book gives so many options and tells you the pros and cons of all of them. Hopefully, this helps some people who didn’t have a great experience with the Book if you ever want to try again!

Great book to help you finally get some sleep!
This book is a reliable, helpful book for getting babies and young children to sleep. I used it for my three children after it was recommended by a friend with triplets. I figured if it worked for her with three, then it should for me with one at a time!I found it very helpful and just sent it to a friend for her 4 month old.

Extremely important, but hard to read
Most sleep books on the market are utter BS, pushing ridiculous and sometimes unsafe practices. Unlike those pointless books, this one was written by the leading expert in child sleep (the original pediatric sleep doctor, he helped write the chapter on sleep in the AAP’s book on parenting).The key, Dr Weissbluth says, backed by decades of his and others’ research, is making sure baby gets to bed at just the right time her brain wants to sleep, and to ensure that baby has the skills from very early on to calm themselves down and fall asleep without a caregiver around (“self soothing”). You have to learn and watch closely for just the right signs of drowsiness to know when’s the right time. Naps are extremely important too – baby shouldn’t skip them. No, it’s not about when baby ate or whether they had formula or exactly how much time they are carried around by mom every day or digestive issues – that’s all bunk. So is common advice to use swings (bad for sleep quality and unsafe) or snake oil about 12 hours by 12 weeks (all babies are genetically different and you can’t expect such fabulous and uncommon results for them all) or alarmist nonsense about how letting your baby cry will hurt them (there’s no evidence for that, William Sears).This book is a must read because it’s got the evidence-backed tools (such as the Ferber graduated extinction method and even more effective variants) that parents need to give their children healthy sleep habits, which is so important for your child’s development. The author also respects the fact that both parents and babies are all different, and genetic and cultural diversity has to be taken into account. It’s not just one set of instructions for all, but many options that recognize different tradeoffs. Moreover, Weissbluth is not just some academic lecturing, but a humane clinician with decades of experience at his own pediatric practice.Unfortunately, even after a major rewrite for the 5th edition, the book is still quite a chore to read. From chapter organization to section headers to missing cross-references to simple wording, this is a hard read. Such an important book should have gotten some serious editorial love before publishing.

This long awaited 5th Edition Healthy sleep habits, Happy child, is here. This book is my Children’s-Sleep-Bible.I hold great respect for this author as the ongoing research has challenged some of my own practise, I’ve reflected through trial and error and this authors sleep science is TOPS!I continue to recommend this book as the go-to for all matters Sleep related.This latest edition has an additional chapter with a ton of good information and is very well researched.Occasionally I hear an uninformed association made between this author and a sleep technique. With such an assumption, the essence of this book is totally missed.We all practise different parenting styles and I love how we are able to adapt sleep science education to our own values , wishes and parenting practises to achieve secure, happy and well rested children.For a well researched book with all things child sleep related and a ton of practical advice, years of anecdotal, wisdom and scientific sleep related research shared, this latest edition is a must-read.

This book works

This book is a very important read for caregivers of babies and young children. Dr. Weissbluth does a fanatstic job at combining clinical expertise and research evidence. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to offer their child the “gift” of a good nights sleep and who also wants to understand the science behind it. You cannot go wrong with this book on your shelf as a helpful resource for years to come !