Sleep Solutions

June 3, 2013
Parents looking for a flexible approach to dealing with the sleep problems of their toddlers or babies should look elsewhere: this rigid, repetitive volume leaves many questions unanswered. Waddilove (The Baby Book), a mother, grandmother, and childcare consultant, is firmly in the Ferber school, which encourages parents to allow an infant to cry it out for as long as 10 minutes, rather than comforting the child at the first sign of distress. She recognizes that this method will be hard for parents, but as she counsels, “If you find it too distressing to listen to baby shout, go somewhere where you can’t hear him, or turn the radio on and try counting to 200.” This suggestion would prevent a parent from hearing if the cries changed in any way to indicate additional distress, an issue Waddilove ignores. She’s also firmly against cosleeping, a position that Ferber himself has revised. Worried about a child’s night terrors? Never fear—the child “may not remember anything about it the next day,” Waddilove writes. Of course, if he or she does, don’t look for help here. In addition, readers who are already parents may find the hour-by-hour sleep-and-feeding plans unrealistic.