Rating: 
Summary: Best money EVER spent
Review: Forget all the outfits, toys, movies, cd's, and all the other gadgets. This is as close as you can get to an "owners manual" for your baby. This book helps keep you sane during the newborn phase and keeps you aware of how important good sleep is for the baby's developing brain and nervous system. Get it, read it, and follow it!
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Summary: An Eye Opener!
Review: So simple and logical but we were missing it. We thought our daughter was sleeping too much because we could get her to sleep at night. I didn't realize that children needed so much sleep. We were completely missing her "window" because it was so much earlier than I could have ever imagined. This was an excellent book and I have given it to many new parents as a gift.
Rating: 
Summary: A must-read for new parents
Review: My child did not nap more than 20 minutes at a time during her first four months. My sister-in-law recommended this book and it changed our lives. With the book, I understood the science of sleep and learned how to read my daughter's signals. Within a couple of weeks I had a napper - twice a day most days - for about an hour and half each nap. Of course, I had some disagreements with author, but I haven't read a baby book yet where that didn't happen.
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Summary: Read this Book Before your Baby Comes Home
Review: The summer before having our first child, I visited with a relative who had a happy, calm, well-adjusted 6 month old son. His mother attributed it to his healthy sleep schedule, and to the wisdom gleaned from this book. She sent me a copy, and assured me that it would be an invaluable tool. UNFORTUNATELY, I didn't end up actually reading the book until our son was about 4 months old, and we had struggled with what we thought was colic, and a lot of night-waking. The focus of all I had heard and read before giving birth was about how often you needed to feed your baby, nothing about how much babies need sleep and naps. Once we started implementing naps, Jacob was much happier. He had, once or twice, slept through the night without waking or crying, so we knew he could do it. However, we had never left him alone to try to fall back to sleep on his own after he woke up crying. The first time we did, he went down at 7pm, cried at 10:30pm for 30 minutes (we knew he had been fed, clean, and didn't need anything). We had a baby cam, and could see that he was ok, he was just awake. He fell back to sleep after 30 minutes of crying, and woke up with a smile at 7am. This book was a God-send, and is a MUST for any new or expecting mother. You wouldn't leave your baby in a poopie diaper just because he cried when you changed him; that is what's best for him. It's the same with sleep. Babies need LOTS of sleep, and once they learn to fall back to sleep, they, and you, will have a much more pleasant night and morning. I will include this book with any Baby Shower of Baby Present I send.
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Summary: Explains WHY sleep is important for babies
Review: I have all the baby sleeping books - Ferber, Sears, Mindell, Babywise, etc. Babywise is good for scheduling feedings at the beginning, but I had no luck with sleeping with it. After reading Weissbluth's book, it is by far my favorite. It explains in detail how babies' sleep matures, when they are actually ready to sleep through the night (Babywise suggests getting started right away on sleep training, only to have it work at 3-4 months - Wiessbluth suggests starting at 3-4 months and have it take a very short period of time). Not every kid is a 'textbook' case, but Weissbluth's book helps explain the importance of appropriate sleep (important for the BABY, not just so the parents can get good rest), and how to acheive it different ways (family bed, breastfeeding, in the crib, etc.). I highly recommend this book and think it is a must for all new parents!
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Summary: Weissbluth, the Sleep Nazi
Review: This book provides valuable scientific information on sleeping patterns and disorders of infants and children. The chapters which outline appropriate night sleeping and nap schedules at different ages is very useful. Making sure your baby gets plenty of good quality sleep is an important message for parents that the book effectively gets across. That said, I was disappointed to find throughout the book the author advocated letting a child cry for hours on end until he or she learns how to sleep. There was even a personal account written by a woman who adpoted a 9 month old baby from Guatamala who let her baby cry alone in her crib until 3:00 a.m. one of her first nights with this new family! This was a baby who had never slept alone or in crib and who had endured 2 separations in her short life -her biological mother and her foster family. This woman's account of how she "listened to Dr. Weissbluth's advise and now my adopted baby is sleeping through the night" horrified me! And this woman was supposedly one of his star patients! To summarize, the book has some useful information but if you're looking for a gentler way to teach your baby how to sleep or to solve sleep problems, I would suggest reading the book "The No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley or the chapter on sleep in "The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" by Tracey Hogg.
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Summary: A godsend!
Review: I bought this book when I was pregnant after watching the hoops my sister had to jump through to get both of her children to sleep when they were babies. Our son is 11 months old and we have been faithfully practicing Dr. Weissbluth's techniques for about 5-6 months. We have our bedtime routine so our son knows that "night-night" is coming and now he can put himself to sleep in his crib, his port-a-crib, even my cousin's crib. Sometimes he takes a while to wind down (which is interesting to watch on a video monitoring system) but there is little or no crying involved. He plays and talks to his stuffed giraffe and then just slowly goes to sleep. The title says it all, our son has healthy sleep habits and everyone comments on what a happy child he is!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly Barbaric
Review: I can see that many readers find Mr. Weissbluth's advice helpful, and you may too. Just a word of caution. This man actually suggests letting your four month old cry themselves to sleep for 3 to 4 hours if need be. Yes, we all need our sleep, but at what cost? The Ferber method, essentially what Mr. Weissbluth is advocating here, is always going to be the shortest and most direct way to teach your child to sleep, but if you, like I, have no stomach for putting your child to sleep by exhausting them through crying for four hours, then this is not the book for you.
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Summary: A must-read for every parent
Review: Buy this book if your expecting a baby or if you have a newborn. If you have an older baby, buy this book as well. It's better to start early, but starting late is better than not at all. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child instructs parents how to help their childen learn to sleep. As important, it explains why healthy sleep habits, from the very beginning, are so crucial to a child's wellbeing. Babies and children who never learn to fall asleep unassisted (i.e., requiring rocking, holding, or co-sleeping) can develop sleep problems that will last their entire lives. Chronic sleep deprivation can take many forms and parents usually don't recognize the behavior as deprivation. A crying newborn may be tired, a child thought to have ADHD may be chronicly sleep deprived, etc. This book also instructs parents on how to develop healthy nap schedules and daily rountines. It's overall message is that parents need to respect their child's need for sleep. Granted, you must first decide whether you will follow a "cry it out" method or not. This approach is entirely opposite that of Dr. Sears' belief of attachment parenting, so I don't understand why Amazon offers both together. For instance, Dr. Sears believes that parents should co-sleep with their children until the children ask for a bed of their own! Certainly this doesn't create independence. I began following Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child very closely when my son was six weeks old. We started working slowly on his naps and lengthening his nighttime sleeping. I followed all of the suggestions -- an infant up to four months old can't handle being awake for more than two hours, focus on motion-less sleep, put down to sleep sleepy but awake after minutes of soothing, etc. When he was just under four months old, my son began sleeping from 8 pm until 6:30 or 7 am, with three defined daytime naps. This is entirely thanks to this book. We let him "cry it out", knowing that it is in his best interest to develop the ability to sooth himself and fall asleep unassisted. Of course it's difficult to hear your baby cry, but this book will thoroughly explain why it's so important. And it works! My son cried for four hours, on and off, the first night, and about 15 minutes the second night. I recommend following this book as early as possible, even before your baby is born, to learn the importance of healthy sleep habits. The later you being, the longer it will take. A friend of ours used this method at 8 months, when her baby was still having 12, 4, and 8 am feedings. Another friend didn't let her baby cry it out until 14 months. I can't even imagine doing the nighttime feedings and rocking to sleep for over a year! So start early, pass the book on to friends, and best of luck!
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Summary: Has worked well
Review: A friend recommended this book to my wife and me. My wife read it, followed its guidelines, and we are a happy, well-rested family! Our twins are now almost 8 months old and have no major sleep problems. They have slept 12 hours a night for several months now. This book in conjunction with Tracy Hogg's "Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" have been the two most useful books we've used in parenting our infant twins since their birth, in terms of practical, action- and attitude-oriented guidelines. We have happy and pleasant babies who rarely get cranky. Bliss!
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