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Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (Paperback)
by Marc Weissbluth, M.D.
| Category:
Baby care, Parenting |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
What a great, common sense way to teach moms to recognize sleep patterns, this book is recommended as a invaluable tool to create sanity and structure in your home. |
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Author: Marc Weissbluth, M.D.
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Revised edition
Pub. in: April, 1999
ISBN: 0449004023
Pages: 345
Measurements: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00714
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0449004029
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- Awards & Credential -
Another popular book with rave reviews, this title ranks #219 in books out of millions on Amazon.com as of February 11, 2007. |
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- MSL Picks -
Part I of the book is the scientific base. It covers all the sleep science that you ever need to know: sleep cycles, sleep timing, naps, etc. It helps you understand the importance of proper sleep and also covers various baby sleep problems and solutions.
Part II of the book is the sleep information and action plan based on child's age: up to 4 months, 5-12 months, 13 months to 3 years, 3 to 6 years, and 7 to 12 years.
At the end of each chapter, it has "Action Plan For Exhausted Parents". It is only a couple of pages long and contains the summary of all the important points of the chapter, and the plan that tells you what to do to solve sleep problems. So if you don't have time to read the whole book, you can just skip to those sections and find what you need to know.
Part III of the book covers special issues such as clinical sleep problems (sleepwalking, night terrors, etc.) and other events that affect sleep (such as new sibling, moving, etc.)
The author cites scientific studies to prove every point that he makes, so you know that it's not just his opinion, but an established scientific fact. The message throughout the book is: you are doing your baby a disservice if you don't teach him the healthy sleep habits. If your child is a poor sleeper and you are hesitant to do anything about it, this book will get you motivated to act now.
Most of the author's practical recommendations come down to the following: proper sleep timing, earlier bedtime and cry-it-out.
The author recommends the "cry-it-out" method called "extinction" - you just close the door and leave your child to cry however long it takes to fall asleep. While I'm sure that this method works, I personally prefer the Ferber method for those who have to resort to "cry-it-out". With the Ferber method, you leave the child to cry for short periods of time and then come back to check on them. The Ferber method worked really well for my daughter, and seemed less mean then "extinction".
Now what happens if "cry-it-out" doesn't work? The book doesn't address this situation, but it happened to me. As I said earlier, we sleep-trained our daughter using the Ferber method when she was 6 months old. It worked in 2 days, and kept working for a year - she slept through the night every night from 6 to 18 months. Then at 18 months she started waking up at night, standing in her crib and screaming. She didn't have health problems like ear infections, so it was purely a sleep issue. Ignoring her didn't help - toddlers are much more persistent than babies - they don't give up very easily. She just stood there and cried for a really long time until I'd come and sit in her room... then she'd fall asleep, I'd leave, and she'd wake up in a few hours and cry again... and it went on for over a month. I finally solved that problem by using the strategies described in another sleep book The Baby Whisperer.
Overall I think this book is a required reading, even if you don't endorse the "cry-it-out" method. Understanding everything about sleep will make you better prepared to correct your child's sleep habits, no matter what sleep-training method you chose. Also, if you read it before your baby is born, knowing all the info about proper sleep timing can help prevent sleep problems in your newborn.
(From quoting Melanie Mendelson, USA)
Target readers:
First-time parents, family of new or will be parents, nursery nurses, doctors, therapists, caregivers, babycare consultants, anyone who plans to have a baby, and gift-givers to new parents.
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A pediatrician with thirty-two years of experience, Marc Weissbluth, M.D., is also a leading researcher on sleep and children. He founded the original Sleep Disorders Center at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital and is a professor of clinical pediatrics at Northwestern University School of Medicine. Dr. Weissbluth discovered that sleep is linked to temperament and that sleeping problems are related to infant colic. His landmark seven-year study on the development and disappearance of naps highlighted the importance of daytime sleep. In addition to his own research, he has written about sleep problems in manuals of pediatrics, lectured extensively to parent groups, and appeared on Oprah. Dr. Weissbluth has four sons, two grandsons, and, thankfully, one granddaughter - and they are all good sleepers. Linda, his wife of more than forty years, has provided both inspiration and original ideas for this book.
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From Publisher
One of the country's leading researchers updates his revolutionary approach to solving - and preventing - your children's sleep problems
Here Dr. Marc Weissbluth, a distinguished pediatrician and father of four, offers his groundbreaking program to ensure the best sleep for your child. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles. This valuable sourcebook contains brand new research that:
- Pinpoints the way daytime sleep differs from night sleep and why both are important to your child
- Helps you cope with and stop the crybaby syndrome, nightmares, bedwetting, and more
- Analyzes ways to get your baby to fall asleep according to his internal clock - naturally
- Reveals the common mistakes parents make to get their children to sleep - including the inclination to rock and feed
- Explores the different sleep cycle needs for different temperaments - from quiet babies to hyperactive toddlers
- Emphasizes the significance of a nap schedule
Rest is vital to your child's health growth and development. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child outlines proven strategies that ensure good, healthy sleep for every age. Advises parents dealing with teenagers and their unique sleep problems
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Infants and children who are still of tender age [may be] attacked by... wakefulness at night. - Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a.d. 130
Sleeplessness in children and worrying about sleeplessness have been around for a long time.
Healthy sleep appears to come so easily and naturally to newborn babies. Effortlessly, they fall asleep and stay asleep. Their sleep patterns, however, shift and evolve as the brain matures during the first few weeks and months. Such changes may result in "day/night confusion" - long sleep periods during the day and long wakeful periods at night. This is bothersome, but it is only a problem of timing. The young infant still does not have any difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. After several weeks of age, though, parents can shape natural sleep rhythms and patterns into sleep habits.
It comes as a surprise to many parents that healthy sleep habits do not develop automatically. In fact, parents can and do help or hinder the development of healthy sleep habits. Of course, children will spontaneously fall asleep when totally exhausted - "crashing" is a biological necessity! But this is unhealthy, because extreme fatigue (often identified by "wired" behavior immediately preceding the crash) interferes with normal social interactions and even learning. You should not assume that it is “natural” for all children to get peevish, irritable, or cranky at the end of the day. Well-rested children do not behave this way.
Before electricity, radio, television, computers, or commuting long distances to work, children went to sleep earlier than children do today. Our current popular late bedtimes may be no more "natural" than the outdated "natural" belief that fatter babies are healthier babies. Commonly held or popular beliefs about what is natural, normal, or healthy are not always true. In addition, when you think of child rearing, it may appear "natural" for you to consider parenting practices performed in traditional cultures. That is, breast-feed frequently day and night and sleep with your baby, wear your baby in a sling or soft carrier, always be close to your baby, and always respond to your baby. This is not always practical for some families, and even for those families who choose this "natural" style, their baby’s extreme fussiness/crying/not sleeping or "unnatural" factors can interfere.
Dr. Christian Guilleminault, who along with Dr. William C. Dement was the founding editor of the world’s leading journal of sleep research, taught me to consider five fundamental principles of understanding sleep:
1. The sleeping brain is not a resting brain.
2. The sleeping brain functions in a different manner than the waking brain.
3. The activity and work of the sleeping brain are purposeful.
4. The process of falling asleep is learned.
5. Providing the growing brain with sufficient sleep is necessary for developing the ability to concentrate and an easier temperament.
Sleep is the power source that keeps your mind alert and calm. Every night and at every nap, sleep recharges the brain’s battery. Sleeping well increases brainpower just as lifting weights builds stronger muscles, because sleeping well increases your attention span and allows you to be physically relaxed and mentally alert at the same time. Then you are at your personal best.
As you will discover as you read this book, when children
"NATURAL" VERSUS "UNNATURAL"
"Natural"
All babies have spells of fussing and crying.
These spells distress all parents.
All parents want to soothe their baby.
The more the baby fusses or cries, the less she sleeps.
The less the baby sleeps, the less the parents sleep.
The less the parents sleep, the harder it is for them to soothe their baby.
Relatives and friends want to help soothe the baby and are expected to assist parents.
Breast-feeding and sleeping with your baby are powerful ways to soothe your baby.
"Unnatural"
Urban stimulation (noises, voices, delivery trucks, shopping trips, errands) may interfere with baby’s sleeping.
Day care (not being able to put your child to sleep when just starting to become tired or too much stimulation) may interfere with baby’s sleeping.
Social isolation forcing only the mother to be wholly responsible to take care of soothing and sleeping may cause intense stress for the mother.
Busy modern lifestyles means that parents have many things to do and little time to do them; sometimes they have to take their baby with them even at sleep times.
Mothers have to work outside the house, miss playing with their baby, and keep their baby up too late at night.
Fathers or mothers have a long commute and return home from work late, want to play with their baby, and keep their baby up too late at night.
Grandparents interfere with sleep routines.
learn to sleep well, they also learn to maintain optimal wakefulness. The notion of optimal wakefulness, also called optimal alertness, is important, because we tend to think simplistically of being either awake or asleep. Just as our twenty-four-hour cycle consists of more than just the two states called daytime and nighttime, there are gradations - which we call dawn and dusk - in sleep and wakefulness.
In sleep, the levels vary from deep sleep to partial arousals; in wakefulness, the levels vary from being wide awake to being groggy.
The importance of optimal wakefulness cannot be overemphasized. If your child does not get all the sleep he needs, he may seem either drowsy or hyperalert. If either state lasts for a long time, the results are the same: a child with a difficult mood and hard-to-control behavior, certainly not one who is ready and able to enjoy himself or get the most out of the myriad of learning experiences placed before him.
With our busy lifestyles, how can we keep track of nap schedules and regular bedtime hours? Is it really true that I can harm my baby by giving him love at night when he cries out for me? How can I be sure that sleep is really that important? Am I a bad parent if my child cries? If he cries at night, isn’t he feeling insecure? These are questions many parents ask me. Parents will often mention that articles or books they have read seem to support different ideas, and so they conclude by saying that since this whole issue is "so controversial," they would rather let matters stay as they are. If you think your child is not sleeping well and if you disagree with the suggestions in this book, then ask yourself how long you should wait for improvement to occur. Three months? Three years? If you are following the opinion of a professional who says you must spend more time with your child at night to make him feel more "secure," ask that professional, "When will I know we are on the right track?" Don't wait forever. Consider what Dr. Charles E. Sundell, the physician in charge of the Children's Department in the Prince of Wales General Hospital in England, wrote in 1922: "Success in the treatment of sleeplessness in infants is a good standard by which to estimate the patience and skill of the practitioner." He also wrote: "A sleepless baby is a reproach to his guardian, and convicts them of some failure in their guardianship." So don’t think that worrying about sleeplessness is just a contemporary issue.
The truth is, modern research regarding sleep/wake states only confirms what careful practitioners such as Dr. Sundell observed over eighty years ago. He wrote:
The temptation to postpone the time for a baby's sleep, so that he may be admired by some relative or friend who is late in arriving, or so that his nurse may finish some work on which she may be engaged, must be strongly resisted. A sleepy child who is kept awake exhausts his nervous energy very quickly in peevish restlessness, and when preparations are at last made for his sleep he may be too weary to settle down...
Regularity of habits is one of the sheet-anchors by which the baroque of an infant's health is secured. The reestablishment of a regular routine, after even a short break, frequently calls for patient perseverance on the part of the nurse, but though the child may protest vigorously for several nights, absolute firmness seldom fails to procure the desired result.
Each baby is unique. They're like little snowflakes. Babies are born with individual traits that affect the amount of physical activity, the duration of sleep, and the length of periods of crying they will sustain. But babies also differ in more subtle ways. Some are easier to "read"; they seem to have predictable schedules for feeding and sleeping. These babies also tend to cry less and sleep more. Regular babies are more self-soothing; they fall asleep easier, and when they awaken at night they are more able to return to sleep unassisted. But don't blame yourself if you have an irregular baby who cries a lot and is less self-soothing. It’s only luck, although social customs may affect how you feel about it... |
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| View all 11 comments |
Susan Seling (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-11 00:00>
This book works. I have two children, and started using Weissbluth's techniques when my oldest (now 3) was about 5 months old. Within three nights she was sleeping through the night, from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM. My son is now 5 months old, and he has been sleeping solidly for 12 hours a night since he was 3 months old, thanks to Weissbluth's techniques. I personally know of a dozen children who sleep 12 hours a night, plus naps, after implementing Weissbluth's recommendations.
This book DOES recommend letting your kids "Cry it out", crying themselves to sleep. Every parent I know who has used his techniques has children that sleep well, and the entire family is happier, as a result. Every parent I know that does not allow their kids to learn how to self-soothe (which is what happens when they realize that you aren't coming in to feed them again, or rock them, or pop a pacifier in their mouths), have children who are waking up 2-3 times a night, throughout their early childhoods (we're talking 3, 4 and 5 year-olds not sleeping through the night).
It is worth three or four nights of sitting outside your child's door, listening to them cry, to enjoy months and years of solid sleep for your entire family. Learning to disengage from the world and fall asleep is a skill that needs to be learned, and Weissbluth gives parents the ammunition they need to overcome their natural emotions (wanting to soothe their children the moment they start to cry), and realize they are teaching their children an important life-skill.
My son cried for 45 minutes the first night, 20 minutes the second night, and 2 minutes the third. He does not cry when I put him in bed now, unless he is overtired. My daughter always cried for 5 minutes or so, but then would sleep solidly through the night.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Buy it. Read it. Use it. And enjoy a good night's sleep (except for nights that involve teething and sickness...sleep just doesn't happen on most of those evenings!) |
R. Brown (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-11 00:00>
I believe this is the most comprehensive and practical sleep book out there for parents - and I've read just about all of them! If you buy it you will not regret it. I especially like it becuase it acknowledges that babies/children are different in personality and mature at various rates and provides many ideas for solving problems. For example, the author provides various approaches to early sleep - you can rock your infant to sleep or you may decide to begin by putting your baby down awake depending upon the child and family situation. However, healthy sleep habits are the same for nearly everyone and this book provides you with a road map for where you want to be and plans for how to get there. It is amazing to me that people who never read this book and have naturally good sleepers will find their infants following this pattern on their own. For the other 75% or more of us it is helpful to have this book to guide our babies into healthy patterns - or as close as we can to healthy! |
Jason Grutter (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-11 00:00>
Of all the parenting books available, this one takes top billing on our bookcase. And trust me, we've read and continue to reference many. With its singular focus and well documented conclusions, this book quickly became known around our house as the "Sleep Bible." I have purchased this book as a gift on multiple occasions and never hesitate to recommend it to parents who are struggling to gain some semblance of healthy sleep habits for their children. I truly feel we would all be better off if more parents were able to achieve the healthy sleep paterns in their children that this book has helped us to attain. And those who prefer to think of the method as draconian or unnecessarilly and prohibitively cruel, ask yourself how cruel it is to deprive a child of the benefits of healthy sleep in order to asuage the temporary discomfort YOU feel in allowing your child to learn to put his/herself to sleep. |
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-11 00:00>
Dr. Weisbluth's book was lent to me by a friend just as my daughter was turning 5 1/2 months old. She had changed from a great sleeper to miserable and I couldn't figure out why. I had said from the beginning that I would never let my child "cry it out" and I resisted when people mentioned this book because I was concerned that I would have to do just that. But, after reading his book cover to cover I learned Dr. Weisbluth's book doesn't focus on letting your child cry. He explains when and why you should put your child down to sleep and addresses the emotions parents feel if their child does cry for any length of time. After reading this book I discovered my daughter was overtired and once I started following the nap guidelines her bedtime went from crying and screaming to quietly laying down ech night. Do not let people scare you with the "crying it out" part - as I said Dr. Weissbluth's book addresses much more and I'm so happy that we decided to try his techniques. If you are having a difficult time with naptime or bedtime I highly recommend this book! |
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