Sleep, the thing most parents want more of. I have learned so much about sleep since having kids. David and I often ask each other what we did with our time before kids and wonder how we were ever tired. Let’s just say daylight savings time means something different now that we have kids.
When Spencer was younger, we spent a lot of time holding him and walking around the kitchen island trying to put him to sleep. It often involved putting him down and having him wake up or him sleeping and then waking up at the end of one sleep cycle without being able to fall back to sleep on his own. As much as I LOVE holding my kids, I didn’t want to continue this for years (and have to put all of our kids to sleep this way).
Around this time, I had been talking to my sister-in-law about Spencer’s sleep and she recommended a book that she found helpful. We also ha a friend who is a sleep consultant who answered so many questions that we had. I found myself wanting to learn about the nature of sleep and the development of normal sleep patterns and body rhythms so that I could understand it for myself. I didn’t understand why I should be doing certain things (e.g. putting my child down to sleep while they are still awake) and what constituted good sleep habits.
The book is called Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Dr. Richard Ferber. I read this book from front to back so fast as I found it so fascinating. There are so many reasons why I would recommend this book to parents (with kids of all ages) but I’ll only name a few.
Age: This book does touch on the topic of infant sleep but it goes farther than that. It addresses kids at various ages and how much sleep they should be getting at different points in life.
Problem: The book addresses many sleep issues that children (and teens) can face and provides a few different solutions to sleep issues. For example, when trying to train your infant to sleep on his/her own without having to feed him/her to sleep, the book explains how to do it if you’re nursing or bottle-feeding. I found this helpful as I’ve been in both situations.
Balanced approach: I wasn’t comfortable with leaving my child in a room to cry for hours until he/she fell asleep. The sleep training schedule provided in the book is suggested as a guideline but the author states to do what you feel comfortable with. I found that this put me at ease (especially when sleep training my first child) as I could use the schedule as a reference point and didn’t have to follow it to a tee.
Multiple Solutions: We all know that no two kids are alike. I appreciate that this book often offers more than one solution to an issue so that you can choose what best suits your child in a particular situation.
Reliability: This book is written by an expert (Dr. Richard Ferber) in the field of children’s sleep problem and the (safe and sound) solutions provided are based on the latest research.
“Go-to” Reference: I find myself going back and reviewing certain sections of the book. My two kids are not the same, but I have been able to use the information in the book to address different issues that have come up.
Here’s to many more nights of great sleep for both parents and kids.
The book can be found here
