The Gentle Sleep Book: Gentle, No-Tears, Sleep Solutions for Parents of Newborns to Five-Year-Olds

Sarah Ockwell-Smith

Mar 2015 · Sold by Piatkus

About this eBook

The Gentle Sleep Book offers gentle, reassuring and effective solutions to addressing the common sleep problems of newborns to five-year-olds.

'This book should be called The Sleep Bible and needs to be in every parent's bedside drawer' Marneta Viegas, founder of Relax Kids

Are you exhausted by your baby's night-time waking or frustrated by your toddler's reluctance to go to bed?

Would you prefer a gentler approach than sleep-training techniques such as controlled crying or pick up/put down?

The first five years of parenting are filled with worries and preoccupations, but, for the vast majority, none of them is as pressing as the lack of sleep.

In this revised and updated edition of her bestselling book, Sarah Ockwell-Smith offers a gentle, effective prescription for addressing the common sleep challenges encountered by parents of newborns to five-year-olds. Treading a carefully balanced line between the needs of sleep-deprived parents and those of the child, Sarah offers reliable, evidence-based advice including:

*How long we can expect our children to sleep at each stage of development.
*Why much of the popular advice on sleep is inaccurate and counterproductive.
*How to approach common issues including frequent waking, night terrors and bedtime refusal.

Sarah's practical suggestions for each developmental stage include how to create a consistent bedtime routine and optimal conditions for sleep, the effect of diet, and how to use comfort objects effectively. This revised and updated edition includes new chapters providing specific advice on daytime naps (when and how to drop them) and how to take care of your own needs and emotions during the early years of disrupted sleep, because your feelings and health matter too.

Ratings and reviews

This book gave me the confidence to parent my baby to sleep in a way that felt right to me - with love and respect, not by leaving them alone to cry - at a time when I felt like I was swimming upstream in a sea of sleep-training parent advice. So grateful to have discovered Sarah Ockwell-Smith's writing. It has truly changed my life, as well as my baby's.

good

About the author

Sarah Ockwell-Smith is the mother of four children. She has a BSc in Psychology and worked for several years in Pharmaceutical Research and Development. Following the birth of her first child, Sarah re-trained as a Paediatric Homeopath, Antenatal Teacher and Birth and Postnatal Doula. She has also undertaken training in Baby Massage, Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy. Sarah specialises in gentle parenting methods and is co-founder of the GentleParenting website (www.gentleparenting.co.uk). Sarah writes a parenting blog (www.sarahockwell-smith.com) which is read by 3 million parents per year, and is the author of BabyCalm, ToddlerCalm, The Gentle Sleep Book, The Gentle Parenting Book, The Gentle Discipline Book, The Gentle Potty Training Book, The Gentle Eating Book, The Second Baby Book, The Starting School Book Between: A guide for parents of eight to thirteen-year-olds, How to Be a Calm Parent and Beginnings. She frequently writes for magazines and newspapers, and is often called upon as a parenting expert for national television and radio.