Book Review: Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep

We never really had a problem with Sam sleeping. Granted he did wake up about 1 -2 times a night, but he is a baby afterall. I knew we'd have to move him into nursery and I'd like to get him sleeping well established and understood.

I checked out Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep. I loved Happiest Baby on the Block, so I thought I'd see what he has to say about sleep.

This book was great! I learned a lot. About baby sleep cycles, how long typical babies sleep, what to do to start getting your baby to sleep longer and how to get them to fall and stay asleep better and understand the reasoning. The second half of the book focuses on when they are a toddler, which I will get again and read before then, but now there's no point.

The book focuses one 3 main things to help your baby sleep better:

- Routine

- White Noise

- Wake and Sleep technique

Routine: We actually have a decent routine with Sam and he's pretty tired consistently at around 7:30 - 8. If he's not hungry before 8, I'll read him a book, then we go upstairs and I breast feed and give him a bottle in our room with no lights on (it's still a bit light out) and turn on the white noise machine. He usually falls asleep pretty quickly.

White Noise: Silly of us not to have used this any sooner! Sam sleeps so much more soundly. He barely fidgets when I put him down in the pack and play. Rob and I feel we sleep better too! It works great with his naps too. Also, when we do move him into the nursery, he'll be used to falling asleep with it on.

Wake and Sleep: Ok, this one is a little tricky, but it's something we gotta do. When they falls asleep in your arms and you place them in down, you are to wake them up a bit. Not like full on awake, just get their eyes to open. At that point they are tired enough to get themselves back to sleep. It works most of the time, which is great! And if he really wakes up, I simply hold him and offer him a paci.

A couple other things I've used from the book is giving him no bottle at night. I just breast feed him, which is nowhere near a full bottle, but it's been enough. We just give him extra during the evening. I tried the dream feed one night, feeding him before he wakes up, but I didn't find he slept any longer. The point is to ween him off of needing to eat at night. I think him being 4 months helps as well, he's no long a newborn.

And so how does Sam sleep now since I've read the book? Much better! He's only been waking up once. Although last night and Saturday he did wake up a couple of times, but he falls back asleep much quicker. He naps better too on the weekend. Like we put him to nap, not wait for him to fall asleep. This was the first weekend he's taken all his naps upstairs, sweet. So a typical night is bedtime at 8, asleep by 8:30ish, waking up around 12, breastfeed and back asleep within an hour and then up for the day at around 5:30 - 6.

So yeah.