Rating: 
Summary: Scary
Review: This book scared the hell out of me. I'd rather live with crying then having my baby alone and frightened. Babies cry for a reason. They stop crying when they give up thinking anyone is coming for them. I'm glad someone put Three In a Bed by Deborah Jackson in my hand before I tried this barbarism.
Rating: 
Summary: Another satisfied and highly relieved user
Review: We implemented the program as our daughter turned six months old, and it worked extremely well. The text is informative without being dry, and gives a program that is complete without being rigid. As everyone else who's read the book has noted, it's not about letting the child cry it out. It's about teaching the child that she can rely on herself to get back to sleep.It does help if both parents are equally committed to the program, or else you'll be having some very tense discussions at 3:00 AM -- a friend says "The most important technique, and it's not in the book, is the gentle tackle." Other than that, this was perhaps the most useful baby book we've had.
Rating: 
Summary: Worked for us (and our baby is breastfeed)
Review: Because it was getting dangerous having our 9 month old in bed with us (he was crawling over us at night) we needed to move him into his own bed. We thought it would be simple because we had little problem transitioning our older son, but we were wrong! Since we were having a lot of trouble weining our 9 month old from co-sleeping to his own crib we tried the "no cry method" as described in another book, but it seemed to only make things worse for our son. Ferber does not advocate "cry it out" but rather "cry in moderation" to solve sleep problems. I do admit the first night of practicing this method I felt sick to my stomach listening to our son cry for 1 hour 45 minutes (we started waiting 5 minutes and worked our way up to 15 minute intervals), but it worked! The second night was much better and our son cried no more than 30 minutes and then he had little trouble sleeping on his own from there. This book also addresses other issues such as night terrors (which our 2 year old sometimes has) and how to cut down on night feedings.
I do recommend this book to other's who are breastfeeding.
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Summary: Great Resource. Worked Perfectly.
Review: If my daughter hadn't had a hard time sleeping, I wouldn't have called the Pediatrician for a recommendation, and I wouldn't have found this book. Thank goodness I did! I am planning on having more children and I just think that this book is full of resourceful information on sleep problems ranging from bed-wetting, to sleep association problems. My daughter is three years old and has always used a binky to sleep. Her binky was her magic wand that would cause her to pass out in deep sleep within seconds of placing it in her mouth. The only problem: she couldn't sleep without it. It was so bad that one day we were at her grandparent's home and we forgot her pacifier. It was 1 in the morning before she finally fell asleep (and we had even gone to bed ourselves at 12)! We decided then and there that we couldn't be slaves to her pacifier any more. A week went by and our child - who, with a binky would nap 3 hours a day and sleep 11 hours at night - wouldn't take naps and wouldn't go to sleep until 10 at night and had to have us by her for an hour before she would sleep. It was so frustrating and everyone was tired! We finally got this book and after two nights the problem was almost resolved! The goal is to create correct sleep associations. For three years she associated her pacifier with sleeping. This book teaches you to re-train your child to go to sleep on his or her own so that they don't need the binky, the bottle, the back rubbing, the rocking etc. But it's not about NEVER doing these things for your child. It's truly not cruel. In fact, the program is set up so that you are constantly reassuring the child by making short visits and gradually increasing the time between visits. My daughter eventually just realized that there was no "reward" to me coming into the room (I wouldn't rub her back, lay with her etc.) but I would just say "Honey, it's ok, we're still here" and then I would leave her room again. She learned to go to sleep. Naps were a little harder to retrain, but even then, all I have to do now is sit in a chair in her room and tell her I'll leave if she opens her eyes. Works like a charm and she's asleep in moments. Good luck!
Rating:
Summary: Create an self sufficient child
Review: The Ferber technique does not work for everyone. Start at 6 - 9 months and your success rate is very high. One of every parents goals should be to lessen their child's depandance upon the parents gradually. One of the most important areas to start with is sleep. Successfully doing this method segways into successful discipline. It is O.K. for a child to cry if you have met all their needs. That is the message here, "I AM here if you need me, but you DON'T need me". It is NOT, just cry it out kid.
Rating:
Summary: Great for toddler sleep issues
Review: I was never a fan of the Ferber method when my son was an infant. But now he is a toddler and is out of his crib and in a toddler bed. After 5 nights of so little sleep I decided to see what he had to say for this type of problem. Also, our son has night terrors and I wanted to learn more about this. I am very comfortable with the methods he suggests for getting my toddler to stay in bed. They seem much easier on me than what we were doing before. And our son also seems a lot less stressed and scared with this method. He goes to sleep on his own much better already and we are only 2 nights into it. Next is to get him to stay asleep at night for the whole night again. I believe that with the methods Ferber suggests we will get there soon. I have found that one way may work for one child or parent while it won't for another. If you are not sleeping and need advice I suggest you give this a shot. You can always take pieces of it and adapt it to your own ways. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. All I know is that it is working for us and our toddler is not frightened of going to sleep anymore.
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Summary: Ferber is a Genius
Review: My wife and I could not get our baby to sleep through the night until this book - It worked like a charm in 3 days!
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Summary: Great book, very detailed
Review: Being a "soon to be dad", I thought I would do some reading now to have a level of knowledge on how to solve some of my baby's sleep problems before they happen, and hopefully notice patterns that we could correct before we lost more sleep than we absolutely have to. I would say there are portions of this book that spoke to what I was looking for, but there are many chapters that are specific to certain sleep disorders (sleepwalking, nightmares, bedwetting, etc.). So I read the first three or four chapters and then picked my way through the rest of the book to find the non-specific topics that were worth reading at this point. Overall, Dr. Ferber is an expert on the topic, and if you child is having problems sleeping, the answer is probably in this book. Read, sleep and be merry.
Rating:
Summary: Do it sooner than later
Review: I was so hesitant to try Ferber but now wish I'd done it at 6 mos instead of 9mos. I had to get to a point of complete and total desperation before I'd actually do it and in just a couple days my son's sleep is vastly improved. He was getting up and eating, getting up and inconsolable, not able to nap, it got very bad. He has had to cry for long periods of time, though---50 minutes, then 40 minutes, then 35----so don't assume that it will only take 15 minutes or so. We went into another room, turned on the music and went into his room when our timer went off. Definitely helps not to hear him cry at all. In the end I realized that we were doing him a huge disservice by not teaching him how to sleep and that he's a much happier boy for it. Thank you Ferber.
Rating:
Summary: It Worked For Us - See If It Will Work For You
Review: I am a first-time mother of a precious 5 month old. I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend. I will now recommend it to my friends and family. My baby, JJ, had been mostly sleeping with my husband and I since birth. The arrangement worked well while he was a newborn. I nurse and I found that all of us slept better when JJ shared our bed. However, as he got older I could see it was time for him to have his own bed. I nursed him to sleep, gently laid him in his crib and snuck off for a few hours of sleep before he woke (sometimes every two hours) to nurse for a few minutes before drifting off again. He had slept through the night a few times, so I knew he was capable of it. Within two days of using this method, JJ lays down after our nightime routine (and for naps) and falls asleep on his own with no crying. The first night, I was prepared for the worst, but JJ fell asleep within fifteen minutes and with me going in the room to comfort him only twice. The second night he fussed slightly but had stopped by the time I walked in the kitchen. I feel that this book has gotten a bad reputation. It's not about letting children "cry-it-out." It's about developing healthy routines and allowing children to fall asleep on their own. I wish I had read this book before I had JJ so we could have developed healthy habits from the start.
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