Good Night, Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady’s Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child Go to Sleep , Stay Asleep, And Wake Up Happy: This book, in conjunction with No-Cry Sleep Solution (see below for review), solved our sleepless nights. I knew that I’d not be able to let my baby cry alone, so I was intrigued when I learned of a sleep system that would not involve crying! We used her techniques. Although we had some sleepless nights at the start of this program, our baby now sleeps 12 hours! She wakes up happy and energetic and there’s no more fussing or whining at night because she’s exhausted. One of my friends told me that (after doing this program) her daughter was a whole new child, because she was finally getting the sleep she needed.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night: Again and again, I hear from desperate parents who can’t get their children to sleep through the night. Author Elizabeth Pantley offers a gentle way to help your child sleep longer. The most useful part was selecting and establishing a routine. Once we choose a routine and stuck to it, our daughter transformed into knowing that night is for sleeping. We’ve been using these techniques for several months and sometimes the baby is snoring even before we can put her in bed. One possible drawback is how well the “Pantley Pull Off” technique works. Often, mothers nurse their baby to sleep. Pantley suggests that when a baby goes to sleep nursing, they will want to nurse during their brief awakenings at night. If they can’t nurse because they mother isn’t there, they will then wake up. Pantley suggests allowing the baby to get right to the edge of sleep and then remove the breast so that the baby sleeps on her own. I’ve heard rave (and a few mediocre) reviews of Pantley Pull Off, which is just one small part of her otherwise great (and proven) sleep program.

The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer The author shares his technique of using 5 special techniques to soothe and calm your baby to sleep. When our baby cried and we couldn’t figure out what to do (her diaper was dry, she’d just eaten) we’d turn to these gentle and soothing techniques, and they worked like a charm! These techniques restored calm to our baby — and to us!

You can also read about how I got my baby to sleep through the night.

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So…. We started a “sleep program” called the No-Cry Sleep Solution (NCSS). That helped us establish a routine (nursing, 3 books, warm bath, brush teeth, into dark room to get new diaper and pajamas and off to bed).

This Is the Success We Had:

1. Reduced time it took to get baby to sleep by 1-1.5 hours.

2. Reduced length of nightwakings from 20-30 min to 5-6 min per for an increase in total time slept.

3. Increased actual hours slept by 2 hours.

4. Increased length of longest stretch of sleep by 1-1.5 hours in the first few weeks.

5. We both have fun during the routine.

What Didn’t Change

1. Number of nightwakings stayed the same for a long time (even though they were much shorter in duration).

What I Needed to Do More That I Didn’t Do at First

1. Move up the bedtime by 30 minutes.

After charting and doing NCSS for about 2 weeks, we stagnated.

We didn’t understand how to progress with NCSS, so we decided to move from NCSS to Good Night, Sleep Tight by Kim West. Although some crying is involved, we were there to offer support, comfort and encouragement. That was something I could live with.

One of us would sit by the crib while she fell asleep. Every few nights, we moved a little bit further away. The first night, DH offered The Nugget support. If she got really upset, she was held, patted or spoken to soothingly. It took about 35 minutes to settle her down — MUCH better than the 1-2 hours it took with nursing, and let’s not even discuss the gymnastics involved when I would nurse her in bed.

My turn at the first nightwaking…I had my doubts that she could possibly go to sleep without nursing. About 10 minutes later, she was back asleep. When she did go to sleep without nursing, I exited the bedroom with my mouth hanging open. In shock.

While I miss my little nursling in my bed, I know that a well-rested mommmy is a happy mommy. Happy and well-rested mommies play ball, play rocketship on the front lawn, talk long walks in the fresh air and will push the baby swing at the park for an hour. Well rested mommies also have the energy to make a lot of yummy and nutritious foods so that babies do not get sick. There’s a lot to be said for a well rested mommy.

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I could not remember the other day if I’d invited a friend for dinner via email or if I’d merely thought of writing her to ask. Someone asked me what I do for a living, and it took me longer than it normally would have to answer. I took homemade soup and bread to a new mama’s house. When I went to leave, she thanked me for it. I’d forgotten all about having brought her the soup until she mentioned it. I don’t mind the slower mind function; it’s part biological function and I’m not going to change years of evolution in my lifetime. What’s difficult is to exist and live in the world around me, a world that has the expectation that I’m a well-rested individual who can think the way she used to think.

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