Review by ELAINE HO
BABY & TODDLER SLEEP SOLUTIONS FOR DUMMIES
By Arthur Lavin, MD and Susan Glaser, MA
Publisher: Wiley Publishing
As a new and first-time parent, the thing I am most desperate to learn is how to make baby sleep through the night. While the book states that babies are physiologically able to do this at four months of age, not all parents are so lucky and most need help to make that magical night happen.
The book starts off on a scientific note, giving you an understanding of how sleep works. It explains things like the four stages of sleep, REM (Restless Eye Movement) sleep and the immature sleep cycles of infants which play a part in their constant waking at night. It also delves into the impact of a child’s personality, that is, an active child is more likely to need more winding down techniques at night compared to a mellow child.
Simple sleep strategies are provided for various stages of a child’s life, starting from birth to 6 months, then for 6 to 12 months, 12 to 18 months, 18 months to 2 years and finally the toddler years of 2 to 3.
Each stage also addresses non-sleep related concerns. For example, sleep strategies in the first 6 months include safety measures to prevent SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), while those for 18 months and above include weaning them off the bedtime bottle.
A large section of the book is dedicated to sleep decisions that involve the entire family. That is, whether to co-sleep, what to do when a new baby enters the picture and disrupts your older child’s sleep and even sleep tips when leaving baby or toddler with other caregivers, like daycare.
It also takes into account special circumstances, such as sleep for premature babies, if your child is sick, or if the family is going through major life changes like a big move, divorce or even death.
The authors ambitiously attempt to cover as many sleep-related topics as they can within 249 pages. However, given the breadth of issues and concerns involved in infant and toddler sleep, it’s not surprising they only touch briefly on each one.
Given the title of the book, I had expected and hoped for more details in the sleep techniques, like whether I should pat my baby to sleep; for how many minutes; do I leave him in the crib to cry it out; if yes, for how many minutes, hours and days, etc.
However, the solutions at each stage are non-committal and provided in broad strokes because this topic is so complicated and subjective. Every child, family and environment is different, so there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, and to go into detail for every solution would easily double, or dare I say, triple the page count.
As a result, the authors often direct the reader to yet another Dummies book for further details. For example, the reader is advised to give baby a massage before sleep, but then is referred to Baby Massage For Dummies for the actual massage techniques.
Also, the book doesn’t go to the solutions straight away, much to the despair of the sleep-deprived parent reading it. One has to sift through a lot of background information, which while is important to understand the variables that affect a good night’s sleep, isn’t useful to someone like me who just wants detailed steps on putting my baby to sleep – now!
I’ve tried many of the techniques suggested, but because of the lack of detail on how they should be executed, I’m not sure if I’m doing it wrong or if my 7-month-old baby is just an anomaly that wasn’t covered in the research. My eyes remain as bleary as the day he was born, as he continues to wake me two to three times a night.
All in all, this is a good starter book for parents-to-be who want an overview of potential sleep hurdles they will experience. Just so you have an idea of what could be causing your baby’s sleep disruption.
However, once the cause is determined, the actual implementation of a solution may require you to supplement this book with others, add a hefty dose of trial-and-error, stir in a large dollop of advice from grandparents or friends who’ve managed to do it right, and finally, top it off with a ton of hoping for the best.