Books #22 and #23: Baby Sleep Book Knockdown!

These are totally only interesting to parents of newborns who are really lacking in sleep--but obviously, that's the intended audience for them anyways. As we've been getting used to having a newborn and remembering what all of that entails, I've been trying to remember what we did with Dane and what works with getting your baby to sleep enough--and enough sleep for us along with that. I read both of these books and wanted to remember what I thought about them so I know what to look at next time around. And these two books recommend kind of different things, so it was interesting reading them so close together. First off, I HATE Babywise. I wish I'd remembered how obnoxious it is before I read it, because even though I disagree with it, it still adds to my stress by making me think that I'm doing something wrong. Babywise suggests that you should start sleep training your baby when they are ONE WEEK OLD--that you should put them down and make them learn how to go to sleep on their own from the very beginning. And it tells you that if you don't do this, you will NEVER EVER get your kid to learn how to sleep and you will hate your life forever. It doesn't tell you that NO one-week-old baby is going to go to sleep on their own and you will just hate your life and be extra stressed from the very beginning, causing unnecessary stress from the very beginning of your parenting. I really regret reading it because even just when Graham was two weeks old it made me start feeling panicky that I wasn't already working with him to learn how to sleep on his own--which I know is ridiculous. I don't need that extra stress.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child has a different approach. The book is very poorly organized, which makes it annoying to read (I want to go in there and be Weissbluth's editor), but amidst all the chaos in the book there is some really good information that is really helpful to new parents. The thing I like about this book is that he emphasizes that it's very important that your baby get enough sleep, and that it's your responsibility as a parent to help that happen, but that there are any number of different ways to accomplish that, not just ONE right way. He presents tons of research to back up his claims and explains the natural sleep cycles of infants and children to help you get them to nap and sleep easier at night and during the day, and he talks a lot about helpful tactics to soothing and calming crying babies (which is really important at this stage!). And he doesn't make you feel guilty about not getting your baby on a schedule right away--the main thing about this age that he emphasizes is that babies can only stay awake for 1-2 hours (and sometimes not even that) in between naps during the day, so try to let them get back to sleep quickly after that. This book has been very helpful to me and I think about it 25 times a day when I am wondering if Graham is tired or what I could do to help him--it's got some great tips and things that I am always remembering and thinking about.