Re-reading The No Cry Sleep Solution

A friend gave me Elizabeth Pantley's The No Cry Sleep Solution when we went through our 4 month sleep regression.  I read it along with Ferber's "Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems", and Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child."  Of the there, Pantley's words and advice were the most relatable, and I liked her gentle parenting approach to a baby's nighttime needs.  Overall, I highly recommend it.

I've written about my opinions on Ferber (liked the theories and research, not so much the CIO methodology), and Weissbluth (hated his close minded one-size-fits-all admonishments), but I realized that I've never blogged about the No Cry Sleep Solution.  Probably because I was actively taking advice from the book, so it felt like it deserved several pages of analysis and thought.

Well, I'm ready now.  If I am to be honest with myself, Cupcake never recovered from the 4 month sleep regression.  She has some good days and some bad days, but the good days are still only 4-5 hours of sleep a night, and on the bad days she needs to nurse every 2 hours (she doesn't have nighttime needs beyond food, it seems).  The bad times are not too terrible, compared to some other stories I've heard, but still, I'm getting worn out.

I want to respond to my child's needs, and if she needs to eat at night, then she shall have milk.  However, I also want to help her self soothe to the best of her abilities.  Nothing wrong with gently directing the child towards more sleep independence, right?

Over the next few weeks/days I plan on going over the book again, and hopefully writing about our experiences with it.  What worked for us, what didn't, and what things don't work because we might just have totally unrealistic expectations.