Rating: 
Summary: So uplifting and reassuring
Review: I don't know when I've read a book that has been so helpful to any situation in my life. While it's based on real research from many venues, it's also a very humorous book. It's realistic, it's not preachy, it's fun to read. I'm tired of parenting books where everything is frilly and sweet. This one reminds me of The Girlfriends Guides, only with scads of scientific research backing it up.
Rating:
Summary: It's about time
Review: I knew that if I waited long enough there'd be a great book on the family bed. Good Nights is the book I would have loved to have had when my kids were still in the family bed! (The other family bed book at the time was helpful, but this is a Godsend!) I just bought it for a friend who has a six month old in bed with her and it was very exciting to see all the scientific research the authors revealed as well as all the excellent tips. Loved the writing and the illustrations were very cute too. I hope more babies will end up in a safe family bed because of this book. When done right, there's nothing as wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: All Parents & Parents-to-be Should Give This Book a Try!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this informative, yet quick-reading book. The authors present some very well-researched as well as anecdotal evidence to support the family bed. Especially prescious were quotes from children who "graduated" from the family bed. The authors are quick to point out, though, that the family bed does not a good parent make! It is a parenting choice that can only be decided by the parents, themselves. No one should criticize parents for choosing/not choosing a family bed.
As people who thought sleeping with babies was dangerous and nuts, we are now thrilled to be sharing sleep with our baby and plan to do so with any future children. Even during the newborn stage, I was never tired during the day and I truly believe it was the result of us all sleeping together. Our newborn daughter's crying could be described as less than 5 minutes per week--due to our perseverance to respond to her cues and infant communication.
I'm so happy that there are researchers and doctors who write books like this to help westerners, like us, realize what the rest of the world knows--babies love to be with their parents--it's good for their physical and emotional health, and it makes parenting such a joy!
I highly recommend this book, even if you've already read other books that discuss infant sleep.
Rating:
Summary: Grandma Approves!
Review: I was tickled when I found this book while browsing for sleep books for the youngest of my five children, who is about to have a baby. Back when she and her siblings were babies, they shared a bed with my my husband and I, and our family ended up incredibly close. I'm not saying the closeness was because of what people now call the family bed but it was a vital part of our children's young lives, to be able to sleep next to their loved ones and not have to be alone in a crib somewhere else. My mother told me I shared the bed with my parents when I was a baby in Ireland, so on it goes. My other children who have children have all brought them into bed as babies. My youngest wants to, but she is getting alot of pressure from people in her future mom's class not to do this. So I got her this book and I read it first, and it's charming and so very helpful, kind, caring, funny, fully of tips I wish I'd had when they my own were little. 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.
Rating:
Summary: Six thumbs up!
Review: I'm a mom of a 7 month old baby and I can't sing this book's praises enough. I won't repeat what everyone else has said, but all the positive reviews are right on. I was skeptical at first because I'd read another family bed book and was disappointed in the lack of science, humor, and in the feeling that the book conveyed that you HAVE to have a family bed or your kid will be [messed] up. Good Nights isn't radical at all. It gets to the points graciously and with style and authority, and is packed with practical advice. I know I'm repeating what other readers have said, so I'll leave it at that. I only want to say that my husband, our baby, and I give this book six thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: Get this book!
Review: I'm not used to being up at this ridiculous hour (3 o'clock in the morning) any more because my baby (five months old) is sleeping so well since we let him out of his crib and into bed. He sleeps so much better now. Before I was getting up five or six times a night to go to his crib and feed him and comfort him and get him back sleeping. Now that he's in our bed he still wakes up a little, but only maybe three times a night and he just kind of latches on to nurse and we both drift off to sleep. i don't have to feel like he's so scared and alone like he obviously seemed to feel in the crib in the other room. This book is one I was proud to share with friends and my mother. It's full of science and safety tips and written with humor and compassion. This isn't one of those preachy books that makes you feel this is the only option but more like if you choose this veyr good option, here's how to make it work for you. My husband and I have even tried a few of the tips in the 'Love in the Laundry Room' chapter about keeping the sizzle in your sex life. I've got to say that it has made things mroe interesting, especially when my mom watches the baby and we go out on a date and go 'parking.' Who would have thought we'd be doing this at this age? I highly recommend this to anyone who has a new baby and doesn't want to put them through a Ferberizing or any of those 'training' methods that inevitably ends up with the baby crying and crying and the parents maybe doing the same. Your baby grows up so fast and this is a nice way to spend time together. The book reassures us that our babies will end up being independent when they're older and that the family bed in and of itself does not create a cling monster. Judging by the older kids who I know shared their parents beds, this is right on the money. Get this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I've read papers by Dr. Gordon and have always loved his approach to raising babies, but I'm surprised at some of the ideas in his book. Much of it is reassuring to parents who choose the family bed since he covers the value of the practice and the benefits. But when it comes to encouraging a family-bed baby to sleep through the night his advice sounds like a family-bed Ferber approach. First he says to wait until your baby is at least 12 months old to do anything to make the baby sleep better. (Parents of younger babies won't want to hear this) and then he has a Ten Nights approach to cutting out night waking. He says to choose 7 hours (suggesting 11:00 pm to 6:00 am) and during those hours you don't breastfeed the baby, instead "rub, pat and cuddle a little until he falls asleep." This is wishful thinking, as any baby who has been breastfed all night will never accept this without crying. Dr Gordon acknowledges this by saying "These will be hard nights." But that "If your baby learns that crying, squirming, and fussing (euphemisms, let's just say "crying") will get him fed, you will set yourself back quite a bit." He also says that this usually takes ten nights and can take longer. To me, this sounds like crying it out, but in the family bed. There are better suggestions in a book called The No Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night.
Rating:
Summary: the title is TRUE
Review: My child is 6. He was in the "family" bed until he was 2 when his mother and I divorced. After that, he slept with her when at her house and with me at my house (alternate days). I bought the book because my son was having troubles transitioning to sleeping alone. I can testify that everything the author says about how the family bed works applied to my experience. Mostly sleeping together made me and my wife (ex) and our son all happy. Basically sleeping together was easy and always felt natural.
I especially like the section on how to deal with other people's disapprobation.
Though intended for parents of newborns, even for this graduating member of the sleep-together club, it was a good, quick and easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Real answers to real questions
Review: My wife and I have been through lots of other sleep books that talk about gentle nighttime parenting, but this is the only one that actually offers real solutions to every day problems in the family bed. Things like what if baby is too active, or what about night waking? How do you get the little ones to go to beds of their own eventually? The authors make no bones about the fact that the family bed is great but not always a perfect situation, and they give plenty of examples of how to help parents and little ones get a good night sleep. I'm a plumber, so common sense solutions are right up my alley. This book offers plenty of them in a friendly and easy to follow way. My wife and I are now sleeping better because of a couple suggestions in the book and everyone's happier.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, fanstastic resource
Review: Our baby was in bed with us for about eight months when I saw the author of this book on the CBS Early Show. I knew I had to have this book, as Kevin was a squirmy guy who awoke several times a night to nurse, and my husband was getting awakened by all the movement and we were concerned about safety, all that "worried parent" stuff. Plus the pediatrician Dr. Gordon seemed like such a gentle, dapper, nice man. I wish he could be our pediatrician! Because of this book, we hauled out our futon and put it on our bed, and now when Kev squirms and wriggles, the whole bed doesn't bounce. And now he's nursing less frequently at night because of some other tips I followed in the book. The chapter on safety was a really big help. Because of all the negative press about the family bed there doesn't seem to be much in the way of solid safety tips out there but this book provided a chapter full and they were easy to do. We were doing most of them by nature anyway, but we easily changed our situation slightly and made it even safer. I wish pediatricians could have this chapter to give out to patients because they just seem to say 'don't do it' when you tell them baby is in bed. According to the book, 80 percent of parents bring their babies into their beds to sleep, at least for awhile. There was also that study that was in the news this week about how more parents than ever are doing this. It seems like with all these people sharing their beds with their babies there should be practical help about co-sleeping, with real safety help given by pediatricians, instead of just denial. I wish all pediatricians would read this book. It's enjoyable and fun to read, and doctors would like all the scientific footnotes at the back of the book. Non doctors shouldn't be scared off by the science, because as I said the book is super readable and fun. It's the best resource I've ever seen on the topic. The only thing I wish there had been more of was the quotes from the 'graduates' of the family bed. They were so beautifully reassuring that these kids go on to become wonderfully adjusted and independent and happy later in life -- and they were straight from the horses mouth, which means so much.
|
