Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc…

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (original 1987; edition 1987)

by Marc Weissbluth

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843	20	25,733	(3.51)	4
"The perennial favorite for parents who want to get their kids to sleep with ease--now completely revised and expanded! In this fully updated fourth edition, Dr. Marc Weissbluth, one of the country's leading pediatricians, overhauls his groundbreaking approach to solving and preventing your children's sleep problems, from infancy through adolescence. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles. Rewritten and reorganized to deliver information even more efficiently, this valuable sourcebook contains the latest research on the best course of action for sleep problems: prevention and treatment common mistakes parents make to get their children to sleep different sleep needs for different temperaments stopping the crybaby syndrome, nightmares, bedwetting, and more ways to get your baby to fall asleep according to her internal clock--naturally handling nap-resistant kids and when to start sleep-training why both night sleep and day sleep are important obstacles for working moms and children with sleep issues the father's role in comforting children how early sleep troubles can lead to later problems the benefits and drawbacks of allowing kids to sleep in the family bed Rest is vital to your child's health, growth, and development. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child outlines proven strategies that ensure good, healthy sleep for every age. Praise for Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child "I put these principles into practice--with instant results. Dr. Weissbluth is a trusted resource and adviser."--Cindy Crawford"--… (more)

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Member:	rstata
Title:	Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
Authors:	Marc Weissbluth
Info:	Ballantine Books (1987), Edition: 1st, Paperback, 288 pages
Collections:	Your library
Rating:
Tags:	health

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Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth (1987)

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Not a fan of the author's tone. His recommendations come across as absolutes, which I think betrays an overly rigid attitude towards parenting. If someone tries tell me his way is THE WAY and all other ways are crap, I immediately distrust him. Still, I gave it two stars because there are ideas worth trying in here (particularly the idea that you need to start settling your baby within 1-2 hours of wakefulness). I just wish the author had a gentler approach and was more open minded. Parenting a newborn is hard and I don't need to read stuff where the implication is "If you're not doing exactly what I say, you're doing it wrong." (

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LibrarianDest | Jan 3, 2024 |

I think this will be the last book on sleep that I read---mostly because I don't think that there are any left(#overacheiver?). I only read the parts that I felt were related to my current child's age.

In terms of sleeping, this was one of the better ones. It explained more of the science of sleep than others and it gave specific tips and schedules for you.

However,

-Weissbluth's tone is very self-satisfied. It's reminiscent of Babywise(do yourself a favor and google the Wikipedia page on that one) in some ways. He's also a fan of crying it and takes the position of "there aren't any studies that show the harm of crying it out" which is probably true, but are there any that prove a benefit?
-He also seems to step outside of his expertise(why do they always do that?). Telling parents they need therapy doesn't really seem to connect to the sleep problem and fixing sleep will probably do more to fix the relationship, anyway. SAD doesn't really have much to do with sleep either.
-Also... page 396 irritated me(I'm sleep-deprived). Blaming child abuse, infanticide, and obesity on parental mismanagement of sleep is not helpful to over-worked parents who are trying the best that they can.

So, it wasn't a perfect book. But I hope it works. (

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OutOfTheBestBooks | Sep 24, 2021 |

Simple, easy-to-remember advice about managing a child's sleep. The recommended methods haven't worked for my child, who still takes at least 45 minutes to fall asleep most days, but they seem very reasonable. (

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wishanem | May 27, 2021 |

I picked Weissbluth's book up and I couldn't get past the negative tone -- every explanation and diagnosis is about "parental failure to X". I suspect there is useful information here, especially for people at the end of their rope, but it is couched in surprisingly dismissive language. I thought it was universally known to people involved in childrearing and with power over adults that narrating and normalizing positive replacement behaviors you want to see is more effective than focusing attention on misbehavior, but apparently that is less universal than I had thought. Not finishing this one. (

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pammab | Jan 11, 2020 |

Gonna have to call it quits on this one. Dr. Weissbluth's writing is very repetitive, so much so that sometimes it's hard to dig the meaning out of any given passage. I found no information that would help me with my 5-month old's poor sleeping habits, and the many parental anecdotes were all variations on "I tried Dr. Weissbluth's methods and now my child sleeps perfectly!" with no practical advice. I'm currently reading Dr. Ferber's Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems and in comparison the latter is a much more informative and better-written book.

aratiel | Sep 5, 2018 |

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▾Book descriptions

"The perennial favorite for parents who want to get their kids to sleep with ease--now completely revised and expanded! In this fully updated fourth edition, Dr. Marc Weissbluth, one of the country's leading pediatricians, overhauls his groundbreaking approach to solving and preventing your children's sleep problems, from infancy through adolescence. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles. Rewritten and reorganized to deliver information even more efficiently, this valuable sourcebook contains the latest research on the best course of action for sleep problems: prevention and treatment common mistakes parents make to get their children to sleep different sleep needs for different temperaments stopping the crybaby syndrome, nightmares, bedwetting, and more ways to get your baby to fall asleep according to her internal clock--naturally handling nap-resistant kids and when to start sleep-training why both night sleep and day sleep are important obstacles for working moms and children with sleep issues the father's role in comforting children how early sleep troubles can lead to later problems the benefits and drawbacks of allowing kids to sleep in the family bed Rest is vital to your child's health, growth, and development. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child outlines proven strategies that ensure good, healthy sleep for every age. Praise for Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child "I put these principles into practice--with instant results. Dr. Weissbluth is a trusted resource and adviser."--Cindy Crawford"--

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