Jennifer Waldburger

Bottom line: this is a Cry It Out (CIO) method, even though they try to sell it as a gentle approach. If you're not comfortable with letting your child cry themselves to sleep, this isn't the book for you.

I think the biggest advantage of a book like this is that it offers advice to parents who may not have any peers to help them out, or who haven't had a experience with babies before. It gives you a framework which can be extremely helpful if you have no idea that most babies nap at least twice a day, and sleep roughly twelve hours at night.

That being said, this book told us we should reintroduce naps for our toddler. We had thought she was ready to give them up, but have found that she's much more cheerful and sleeps better at night now that she's napping in the afternoon again. It was very helpful for nap times.

It didn't work for us for bed time. She fell asleep eventually, but I personally am not comfortable with my baby screaming her head off for an hour every night for weeks on end, especially when there are other methods out there that are more gentle. I was at my wit's end though and was willing to give CIO a try, followed the instructions to the letter, and got a traumatized baby out of the deal, who would start crying as soon as we started to even mention bed time. After a couple of weeks, it wasn't getting better, so we switched our method to a more gentle approach and that's worked great ever since.

I think some babies are more suited to this method than others, just as some parents will be more comfortable with this method than others. If it doesn't work for you and your baby, try something else. I'd even suggest trying a more gentle approach to start with and using this as a last resort. Why start with the stick when the carrot could work just fine?… (plus d'informations)