The No-cry Sleep Solution (22 page)

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The No-Cry Sleep Solution

Read through all the ideas and note those you think could help your baby sleep better. Then, just transfer the information to the personal sleep plan, which begins on page 160. This will consolidate all your ideas in one place for easier reference. Prepared with your solutions, you can then begin to follow your personal plan. (Go ahead and start using one or two of the ideas along the way if you’d like. The sooner you get started, the better!)

Part One: Solutions for Newborn Babies—

Birth to Four Months

(If your baby is older than four months you can skip to page 89.) Congratulations on the birth of your new baby. This is a glo-rious time in your life. Whether this is your first baby or your fifth, you will find this a time of recovery, adjustment, sometimes confusion and frustration, but—most wonderfully—of falling in love.

Newborn babies do not have sleep problems, but their parents do. Newborns sleep when they are tired, and wake when they are ready. If their schedule conflicts with yours, it’s not a problem for them; they don’t even know it.

Mother-Speak

“The effects of your ideas are less dramatic if you use them from the beginning—but less dramatic is a good thing when it comes to a baby’s sleep!”

Judith, mother of three-month-old Harry

Review and Choose Sleep Solutions

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You are very lucky to be reading this book
now
. The things that you do during the first few months will set a pattern for the next year or two or more. You can take steps during the next few months that will help your baby sleep better. You can do this in a gentle, loving way that requires no crying, stress, and rigid rules.

Applying some general ideas over the next few months can set the stage for better sleep for the years to follow.

I advise you to read through the section on older babies that follows this one, because you will learn a lot from those ideas; do keep in mind, however, that babies younger than four months old have very different needs than older babies. This section about newborns will help you understand your baby’s developing sleep patterns as they are
now
.

When your baby reaches four months of age, you can begin using those ideas for older babies. However, if you read, understand, and apply the following tips for newborns while your baby is still indeed a newborn, you may not need this book when your baby is four months old. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?

Mother-Speak

“Based on my friends’ experiences, I was expecting a year of sleepless nights ahead of me. I am so happy that my baby is already sleeping six straight hours! My friends call it a miracle!”

Yelena, mother of seven-month-old Samantha

Read, Learn, and Beware of Bad Advice

Absolutely
everyone
has an opinion about how you should raise your baby. Remembering back to when my first child was born, I was amazed at how many people felt compelled to share their advice. One day, when Angela was just a few days old, a friend—

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The No-Cry Sleep Solution

a single, male, childless friend, I must add—came by to visit and see the new baby. She was napping at the time, and we were chatting. Angela awoke with a cry, and I popped up to get her.

He laughed and said, “Oh, you don’t have to
run
to her. When babies cry, they don’t even know where the sound is coming from!” (Where, I wondered, did he learn
that
bit of nonsense?) The danger to a new parent is that these tidbits of misguided advice (no matter how well-intentioned) can truly have a negative impact on our parenting skills and, by extension, our babies’

development, if we are not aware of the facts. The more knowledge you have the less likely that other people will make you doubt your parenting skills.

My mission, and that of the other esteemed and informed parent educators who share the bookshelves with me, is to present the facts as we know them, so you can
choose
your approach from the proactive strength of knowledge and not the reactive weak-ness of ignorance. In other words, if you inform yourself, then you protect yourself and your family from the barrage of “shoulds”

and “woulds” that don’t fit you or your family and that may even have no evidence or supporting facts.