The No-Cry Sleep Solution - Elizabeth Pantley

Title: The No-Cry Sleep Solution

Author: Elizabeth Pantley

Year: 2002

Country: USA

Pages: 276

Rating: 3.45 out of 5

As the title implies, Elizabeth Pantley's book introduces a method of helping your baby get to sleep, and stay asleep, without CIO (crying it out). I picked it up for two main reasons: Maya often didn't fall asleep until 9-10pm at night, and she would only take naps on my lap or in her baby carrier. This was our situation two months ago, when she was four months old.

I can't profess to know if her method would help stop night wakings, because for us, that is not a problem. Maya still wakes 2-3 times a night, but goes right back to sleep (usually) after a quick eating session. She's a tiny baby, so I don't want to cut out the night feeds yet, and since we co-sleep it really hasn't bothered me. 

Although fairly common sense, Pantley's advice on setting up a bedtime routine was probably the most important change we made that helped Maya fall asleep. It's hard...the computer was in the same room that she sleeps, but I made a firm 'lights off, no computer' rule after 7pm. Combining this with a daily nighttime routine of bath, book, nurse, sleep...and we noticed immediate improvement. Now, Maya is almost always asleep by 8pm, and my hubby and I have a good 1-2 hours of free time at night! Furthermore, she typically wakes up for the day around 7.30am - almost 12 hours of sleep! 

Our other problem is nights. I applied the book's ideas for nighttime sleep to her daytime nap with somewhat mixed results. I sort of got Maya to sleep in the crib, but not very well (this was after two weeks of using her method) Instead, I now put her down for naps in the family bed, the same place she sleeps at night. I might go back to the book after we move and start to transition Maya to sleeping in the crib at night, but I'm not too sure how effective it will be, and I may be looking for some ideas elsewhere.

It's a good place to start, especially for any parent who does not want to use a crying-it-out method. But, I'm not entirely convinced her methods work.