Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems

Super Solutions for Interrupted Slumber

• What: Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems book
• When: Three months and up
• Why: Sleep through the night
• Where: Amazon

I consider Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems required reading for all parents-to-be. I don’t think your child needs to have a sleep problem before you read this book. I suspect you will have more success when you do encounter problems if you read it while you can still put two coherent sentences together, instead of waiting until you become sleep deprived and desperate.

Richard Ferber has developed such a name for himself that people now refer to his methods as Ferberizing. Others call it crying it out, but despite the moniker, that isn’t the main point of this sleep reference guide.

It starts out with good guidelines for how much sleep you can expect your child to get in a 24 hour period based on age, where age ranges from newborn to basically an adult. From there, it goes on to explain how sleep cycles work and what influences them biologically.

With the basics down, Ferber then starts breaking it down with various sleep issues: can’t nap during the day, doesn’t sleep at night, wets the bed, snores, can’t stay awake during the day, sleeps fine for a few hours then can’t return to sleep…the list goes on. He covers all the major sleep issues a new parent might encounter, and more importantly, what causes the problem. That gives parents the information they need to fix the issue – with or without crying (both the parent and the child). He offers several solutions for most problems, allowing parents to decide what works for them. Ferber sprinkles stories from different families with a variety of issues throughout the book to lighten the more technical aspects.

I first read this book for work as multiple families used it. I then relied on it myself with all three of my children, but never more than with my third. The information, and the easy divisions of issues among clear chapters, helped me advocate for a sleep study for my child. After completing the study, we came home with an obstructive sleep apnea diagnosis. With that knowledge, I sought medical advice and made changes to his sleeping arrangements that dramatically improved both of our nights, and therefore our lives. I’m not kidding when I say a night and day difference. Re-reading sections of this book gave me the confidence to start asking questions and finding solutions. I can’t imagine where we would be without it.

This sleep bible book should probably be called how to solve adult sleep problems, because that’s really what it boils down to. I want to get a good night’s sleep. I define good as six consecutive hours without being woken up by screaming, crying, banging on the head, or worst of all, silence. I’ve gotten greedy over the years as my three children have gotten older, but I have learned the value of my sleep for the entire family, and this book helped me get there not once but three times over.