Your Sleepless Baby: The Rescue Guide Kindle Edition

Rowena's book completely changed my baby & our lives. When I found Rowena's website (babycareadvice.com), I was desperate to figure out why my daughter's sleep degraded from somewhat normal to downright awful. My daughter (Tatum) was on zantac for reflux & would only take short naps in the car. Nights were horrendous. Through Rowena's website, I figured out Tatum did not have reflux & the advice I'd received from my lactation consultant about nursing to sleep was flawed. I instantly took Tatum off the meds & contacted Rowena for a consultation. After reading her book & receiving support via phone & email, Tatum has gone from sleeping about 6 hours to 15 hours daily!The book is incredible for its breadth - every time I have a question, I read the book & somehow my very specific issue is discussed & practical tips are offered. It's well-organized & easy to read. I refer to it daily as I am still working on a perfect nap/night sleep balance.I had read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," "Good Night, Sleep Tight," & "The No Cry Sleep Solution," and BY FAR, "Your Sleepless Baby" is way more helpful, straightforward & gives advice not included in those other popular sleep books.The book is amazing, and if you need more guidance, Rowena's consults through her website are completely worth more than their reasonable costs. It's like having a good friend who knows everything baby (better info than my pediatrician). I can't recommend this book & Rowena's expertise enough.

This book was a lifesaver. I found it when I was at a really tough point with our 5 week old, he was extremely over-tired but we didn't even realise because we were putting all of his crying down to the reflux he was suffering from. I got the kindle version and read it on the laptop for speed as I needed something more immediate that waiting for the hard copy. I read it through the night and after a 4am feed that first night I was able to get him straight to sleep without waking his dad (he usually went to sleep with his dad in the spare room as he would never sleep in his crib for me until that night - his dad would walk him on his shoulder until he fell asleep). It is crazy to think that we didn't realise that he just needed to be put down and let to fall asleep himself! He now sleeps every night and only wakes for feeds or when his reflux is bad, but doesn't rely on us to get him to sleep at night. The main thing I learnt from this book is about positive and negative sleep associations. Knowing about these will be useful for the first few years of our little boy's life as he grows and goes from phase to another. Also, should we have any more children, it will be brilliant to have this book before they are born. Thank you Rowena!

I'm a first-time mum to a three-month-old baby and haven't had more than three hours consecutive sleep since she's been born. Before reading this book, I was uncomfortable about letting my baby cry for even a few minutes when self-settling, but this book has convinced me about why it's actually helpful. It advocates 'responsive settling' and challenges a lot of the criticisms I've heard of self settling (for eg that it erodes a child's trust). I now plan to change my baby's sleep associations so she learns that it's okay to go to sleep in her cot without my assistance. I'll update this review to let you know how I go.Even if you're already using a responsive settling approach or similar, I'd still recommend the book as it's the best I've read about explaining tired signs, overtiredness, sleep associations as well as the many and varied settling options that parents have to choose from.I also appreciate the author's non-emotive style. She uses her own experience as a child health nurse and credible research to back up her arguments, and encourages parents to make their own decisions. Other books I've read on this topic have been full of emotional language which added to my guilt as a mother, so this book was a breath of fresh air.

This is an actual guide with very concrete and detailed steps. For each step, a rationale is provided. The guide radiates years of experience working with families since it describes the many different behaviors babies may show when trying to teach them how to fall asleep independently. We recognized our baby in one of her many descriptions followed by 'what to do about it'. We are first-time parents and we have been frustrated with books describing 'procedures' in vague terms. Rowena's book is unlike any other we have seen. A true rescue guide.

We actually found out about Rowena when our 3 month old baby was struggling with colic/reflux/feeding aversion (and would only fall asleep in our arms, and mostly sleep for less than 1 hour each time). We had contacted her about these issues and whilst Rowena assisted us in that matter she stressed the importance of good sleep training too. I bought her book as a result and found it immensely helpful. Rowena does not so much propose any striking new theories or approaches to sleep training, but rather assimilates and organises many approaches in such a way that you can easily tell what is suitable for yourselves. So, rather than having a single one-size-fits all approach pushed at you by some self-professed guru, you can do what you feel comfortable with.I selected the 'Hands on settling 1' approach to training our daughter (essentially actively soothing the baby whilst they lie in the cot), although my wife believed that it would be ineffective and supported a less active approach.... and as a result my wife bet me a not insubstantial amount of money that 'Hands on settling 1' would not work. I won the bet, easily. Our daughter slept with 10 minutes on the first attempt with limited crying and just got better. There were the odd bad days but essentially she quickly learnt to self-soothe and has become a delightful, happy, and well-rested 5 month old, who has recently started sleeping for 11-12 hours overnight.The book also has useful information on feeding and daily routines which i've also found helpful and i still refer to it from time to time.I highly recommend this book.

This book contains some useful information - for me it was especially beneficial to understand how the baby can become overtired and now I am trying to make sure my 6-week-old is getting plenty of sleep during the day. We haven't experienced colic/purple crying!I took off a couple of stars as I really didn't like how the book is written. It presents average sleep/nap durations and frequencies and then offers routines based on these averages, not considering how wide the range of normal actually is and how each baby is different. If the baby isn't average, it's talked about as problematic. The author did point out that baby sleep is really only a problem if parents aren't coping well, but what's missing is more reassurance that broken sleep (and feeding to sleep!) is developmentally normal. Actually, sleeping through the night, i.e. for eight hours, isn't normal even for adults, but it's what fits around our work schedules.I was also getting distracted with the many grammar and stylistic mistakes in the writing - the book could really use some editing!

I enjoyed this book to sleep train my baby (currently on 3rd training day). It is a very good book, well described with many options BUT i would have liked to see more details on the actual sleep training. It is often mentioned "encourage to gp back to sleep if baby wakes too early" but no actuals advices on how to do that. Apart from that, i do recommend this book which covers very important topics linked to sleeping, such as eating. Also, i really likes the routines for feed and sleep based on baby's age. Overly, i would recommend this book.

We bought this after we had our lives transformed when we consulted with the author about our sons bottle aversion but that is another story... At 7 months our son never had the chance to self settle and we were expecting the worst, however, responsive settling proved effective and not as bad as we thought it would be making the transition (though if we let the little man get over tired things are rough!). The book lays out different methods, pros and cons and gives information on babies sleep in general.

This book has literally saved my life. My 5 month old baby had to be rocked for ages to only sleep in my arms for 30mins at a time. After doing some responsive settling for 5 days my baby now sleeps 12 hours at night plus 3 regular naps. The book gives you a better understanding about sleeping in general and if you are consistent the strategies cannot fail you.

This is my favourite baby book. It helped me to understand what is going on with my baby. Perfect!❤