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Summary: Extremely bad information on breastfeeding
Review: This book contains misleading, inaccurate, and downright dangerous information about the importance of breastfeeding. The author asserts as fact that there is no significant difference between breastfeeding and artificial feeding, despite reams of medical evidence to the contrary. Visit my web-site, and in particular, the page entitled "Why Breastfeed" for a small sample of medical journal citations demonstrating that there are serious health risks associated with artificial feeding. My web address is <http://www.clark.net/pub/activist/bfpage/bfpage.html>
Rating:
Summary: not very helpful
Review: This book desperately needs to be updated. The out-of-date information on breastfeeding alone was enough to put me off (eg, that breast feeding has not been proven to be useful immunologically, etc). I did learn some new techniques my baby uses to self-soothe (sucking fists, etc) and I am relying on the pacifier a lot less, but overall the book was a big disappointment. I can't believe T Berry Brazelton has his name on this! Really just another person in the cry it out camp.
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Summary: Don't Believe the Hype.
Review: This book is completely worthless. Short on specific tactics and long on glib anticdotes, I found no value at all to this "classic". What a bummer.
Rating: 
Summary: great book
Review: This book is great for parents that believe that children should be independent and have the ability to follow the suggested approach without being weak. I used the approach with both of my daughters and found despite their very different temperaments, the approach worked successfully with them both. Don't bother buying this book if you are parents that believe in having a family bed, or believe that a child only cries because it needs you...the approach is not for you. If however you believe that your role as a parent is to teach your children how to use the gifts they have to calm themselves then this is for you. By the way, some of the techniques in the book are very useful during the toddler years as a toddler's ability to compose himself on a playground will increase your child's ability to cope with playground chaos and his own emotions.
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Summary: This is a terrible book!
Review: This book is poorly organized, vague, and counteracts all of my natural instincts as a parent. I don't understand how Brazelton could have written a foreword for it. None of my experiences with my child are reflected in here. In my opinion, the reason why Sammons' patients began to sleep better in the few weeks before they came back to see him is precisely because they waited a few weeks before they came back to see him. In other words, the infants got older, and their abilities naturally improved. Yes, babies can learn to self-calm, but it is not a reliable method of getting a very young infant, say, younger than two months, to sleep. Sammons never clearly answers the key question in this dilemma: While trying to teach your child to put himself/herself to sleep, what do you do when your child starts to scream? Not fuss, but actually scream. How long should you let your child cry at one month, at two months, at three months? These very basic and important questions are not really addressed by the author. The author doesn't want you to schedule your child's day time sleeping, but says that if you are "communicating" with your baby, you will naturally fall into a schedule. I don't agree that this is necessarily true for all parents. Also, his writings indicate that putting your child in a swing, or rocking him/her to sleep is somehow cheating the baby out of the opportunity to learn to self-calm. This goes against every instinct in my body, and all of my experience with my (7-week old) child. I hope the author responds and tries to address these issues, and I hope that he realizes how vague his book is on these topics. The problem of learning to sleep is an important one, and it deserves a clear, comprehensive answer, preferably one that does not guilt the parents into thinking that if their baby is awake it is necessarily because they did something wrong.
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Summary: This book is an absolute farce.
Review: This book made me wonder whether the author had ever actually lived with any babies for more than half an hour. I want to warn parents to stay away from this book! I can't think of anything I have read recently that made me this angry. How could Brazelton endorse this crap! I think that the practical advice in this book that works can be narrowed down to two items...1) let your baby learn to suck his hand or his thumb; and 2) try to make nighttime feedings dark and boring, without stimulus. Well gee, thanks, I already knew that. None of things the author writes about agree with my own baby experiences. Most of the time, I don't understand what he is advocating, leave a baby under two months alone to learn to self-calm? Well fine, if it works, but what if your child is crying hysterically, what if he doesn't naturally "fuss" and then settle down? There is no advice for this very common situation. It seems that if your baby cries, it is probably your fault. You're overstimulating your baby, or, conversely, you're understimulating your baby. You intervened too quickly, you didn't intervene fast enough. If you let your baby cry too much, he'll work himself into hysterics, and that will be your fault. If you don't let your baby cry, he won't learn to "calm himself" and that will be your fault. The doctor also doesn't explain the correct way too intervene, when your baby is really crying, or wailing. His advice goes completely against what my senses and practical instincts tell me. For example, If a parent says his/her baby likes the sound of the vacuum cleaner, or a tape recording of the parent's heartbeat. Oh no, according to Dr. Salmmons.., you are being fooled, he thinks your baby is not being soothed, but instead is shutting down, and is dangerously overstimulated, leading to sleeping disabilities later on. He seems to have no experiences with breast feeding mothers, and particularly, those who are having a relatively easy time feeding their babies. Examples: He advises parents to let their baby sleep as long as they want to during the day and never wake them. Well, if you breastfeed, you know that you have to keep your breasts on a fairly regular schedule or you will endure massive pain and potentially mastitis, so, unless you want to pump, you have to wake the baby. (You'd think a doctor might know this). Furthermore, he seems to feel that a baby who is upset, or overstimulated will have trouble eating (mine never had trouble eating in his life, at least not from the breast), so it was very difficult for me to learn to "read my baby" as the doctor suggests all good parents will. In summary, this doctor does a lot of theorizing about baby's ability to self calm, but is disturbingly short on practical advice for real situations. I found his book did nothing but make me feel by turns, guilty, helpless, and angry.
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Summary: Excellent, not politically corrrect view of infant rearing.
Review: This is a book for parents who want to give their infant everything. It tells them why they shouldn't, and why letting your infant fend for herself is the best way. It has a frank and insghtful, not politically correct, discussion of the pros and cons of breast feeding. (The reviewer who has blasted the book for this is, of course, a man. He probably wanted his wife to give birth naturally, whether she wanted to or not. It's easy to insist your baby be breast-fed, especially when you don't have to do it.) For parents interested in raising their children right, right from the start, this book is a must. Once you read it you will see, for example, that pacifiers are your baby's worse enemy, and that the best way to raise your infant is by giving it a lot of freedom and letting it settle by itself. For those who are interested in RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) this book is a must. All bookstores in Southern California have been sold out of this book for six months. I've just ordered 5 from amazon.com, and will be giving them to my friends.
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Summary: Babies don't come with instructions?
Review: This is an indispensible guide for any new parent interested in assisting their infant in achieving their natural calming potential and in getting much needed rest themselves. As a mother of three children three and under, I found this book gave practical information in handling infants and sped the communication process allowing me to address the needs of my children with confidence. I have had three remakably happy infants and have followed the suggestions in the book to the letter. No pacifiers, sleep in crib from day one, there are just too many to note in a short review. This book is a must have for every expecting parent and the gift I always give. I re-read this book during each pregnancy and used it as a reference after delivery.
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Summary: A MUST-HAVE for new parents! Should be given out @ hospital!
Review: This wonderful book helped us IMMENSELY in parenting our daughters when they were newborns. It gives very valuable insight into the "inner minds" of babies, and believe me, it will save you hours of frustration in trying to calm down your fussy newborn. When my kids got fussy, facing them to a white wall worked every time, among other methods outlined in this book. I give this book to friends who have had their first babies. I think that it should be "required reading" for all new parents!
Rating: 
Summary: The Self-Calmed Baby
Review: Though some information in this book needs to be taken with a grain of salt, overall the opinions offered by Sammons are practical are very, very useful. I've recommended it to many friends. This book gives helpful, common-sense advice.
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