Good Nights: The Happy Parents' Guide to the Family Bed (and a Peaceful Night's Sleep) [Paperback]

She read some of it while I was visiting and she laughed and underlined and gave me such a hard hug I thought I'd pop. She brought it to her future moms group and showed them the first chapter full of scientific evidence that shows the powerful positive effects of letting your baby sleep next to you. The teacher said she was going to have to get a copy. She said the chapter on safety was "worth the price of admission." Now that's saying something, considering how she is one of those Ferber people. The book isn't preachy, as someone else who wrote a review mentioned, and that and it's sense of humor will probably help it break through alot of barriers with people like my daughter's teacher.

If you're wondering, my children left our bed fairly easily when it was time for another baby to move in. They all loved sleeping in the same room together after that until they became old enough to separate the girls from the boys. It was like a big reward for them to get to sleep in the big kids room. The book Good Nights also has a whole chapter on the process of helping a child move out of your bed, and I think parents will find this very helpful, as I know it can be an issue.

I hope it was alright to mention my personal experiences with this topic in a review. I haven't done reviewing before, but I think that personal experience in my case as a reader of the book is very important to the review.
Thank you.

Some folks have raised a concern over the chapter on helping an older baby/child sleep through the night. This book did include Dr. Jay's "10 nights" plan to get a baby/child over 12 months of age to sleep through the night [for 7 hours]. It is *extremely* well done and the authors make it very clear that they would prefer you just leave the child to his/her own time table and relax about the whole thing. They state clearly that they are only offering this as an alternative for families that are seriously considering 'cry it out' out of desperation and they give a great explanation of why this method is FAR preferable to the Cry It Out stuff.

The plan is VERY gentle - the baby/child is never left alone, parents maintain physical and voice contact with baby [first by nursing, after 3 nights cut out nursing but use holding/cuddling, on 7th night don't pick up but touch and rub back while talking soothingly to child, etc]. I think this plan is very in keeping with what is reasonable for a child over 12 months - and very gentle and Attachment Parenting oriented.

"Good Nights" is VERY clear that family bed, breastfeeding and constant physical contact for babies are extremely beneficial and desirable and "sleep training" of any kind is strongly discouraged for all children but absolutely discouraged for a baby under 1 year of age. The book also recognizes that children have different temperaments and that parents MUST be able to work with their child's temperament and that this plan might not work for all children and should be _immediately_ abandoned if it seems to be having a detrimental effect on a child. This book is absolutely great and extremely AP.

I know several families that have used Dr. Jay's sleep plan with their children and it has worked very, very well for them and for their children. I think it is a very gentle way to encourage less night waking for families who truly are desperate with frequent night waking toddlers. I am extremely reluctant to use any kind of sleep training with my night waking children [I doubt I ever will], but if I did, I would feel good as an AP parent using Dr. Jay's steps.

This book is perfect for any family considering Co-Sleeping and would also be wonderful for any family who is rethinking a decision to solitary sleep and/or "cry it out".

I read the book, and as they say, I laughed and I cried. I felt very affirmed for having slept beside our guys for so long, and I felt relieved; finally there was a book with tons and tons of practical information on how to deal with the not so perfect aspects of co-sleeping. (Love the title of the chapter on solutions to common family bed sleep problems -- "The Sandman Cometh.")

The chapter on helping a child wean from the family bed was a tremendous help to us. It gave us so many ideas for moving Ty to his own space that we were able to transition him to his own ROOM by using a few of the tips. Room, yes room! We got him bunk beds (Dr. Gordon and his co-author say it's the number one successful method family bedders have used!) for his previously unused bedroom. He was very excited and slept in there from the first night! After a week or so he got a little scared after watching a Scooby Doo movie, and wanted to return to our room for one night. By then we'd set up a bed beside ours, and we welcomed him back for what we hoped was only one night. Dr. Gordon says to realize kids will sometimes come back for a night or a part of the night, and to welcome them. I agree. If we'd pushed him out, it would have been like the forbidden fruit. The next night he was back in his room. I followed another tip in the chapter and when he was apprehensive about going to sleep, I promised to do some work in the family room right next door to his room (our BABY was now sleeping through the night most of the time and I could do this! - more on this in a minute) and this was very comforting to him. Next time I checked, it was sleep city in his room. Since then, he hasn't revisited. All he asks is that I lie in bed with him after shutting out the light after booktime, so I can be with him as his eyes adjust!

As far as Zach, we did end up using the 10 Nights method. I couldn't really do that when Ty was in the room, because I knew it would mean some crying. But it really worked for us! By night 8, Zach was snoozing for five hours straight. He is now happily sleeping through the night in our bed. It is SO much easier this way, and everyone is so much better rested. My DH no longer has back aches! This is all like some kind of miracle. (I felt awful, awful, awful the first few nights of 10 nights because Zach was indeed protesting, but I was right there and I think he "got" it that he wasn't going to have to go through this alone. I'm glad I didn't do this when he was younger, because I could actually explain it to him a little and I think that helped.) In addition, the book helped us decide to replace our mattress with a futon because everytime one of us moved, the others moved too and it was bad for sleep. With the futon on our box spring, there's a tremendous improvement! You just don't feel every move of the other bodies.

We worked hard to make all this work. (We paid a tidy sum to the bed store(s) for the bunk beds, the twin bed in our room, and the futon!) But oh, was it worth it! I never regret for a minute doing the family bed. There are so many memories I'll treasure, and so much good has come to us all from it. (I loved the quotes from all the former family bed kids in the last chapter of the book. If you have doubts about how these kids can turn out, read this!) However, I also don't regret for a minute having followed the advice in Dr. Gordon's book. Life is good when you get enough sleep!

I recommend Good Nights to anyone who 1) wants to co-sleep and wants to know all the great benefits or 2) is co-sleeping and wants help with dealing with the everyday problems or the big weaning stuff.