The Complete Sleep Guide for Contented Babies and Toddlers - Book Review

The Complete Sleep Guide is written by a popular British writer and nanny, Gina Ford, that isn't particularly well known in the USA. Unlike many baby books, Ford backs up some of her methods with research as well as personal experience. She is full of logical advice to help fix sleep problems and her advice really works. I also really like that her sleep training advice varies depending on the age of the baby. For newborns she has a sort of in-between method that doesn't advocate pure CIO, but also doesn't just tell you to do nothing until your child is at least 4-6 months old and already has sleep habits that will take a lot of work and/or crying to fix.

My main problem with her method is that her schedule is extremely strict. She tells you exactly how long to have your baby sleep/stay awake/when to eat etc. I think she wrote her book like this in response to so many people's requests to be told exactly what do to (because sometimes we feel overwhelmed and clueless and just want someone to tell us what to do to make the insanity stop!). I simply took note of this advice but took a much more relaxed approach that worked best for me and my babies.. I simply took note of this advice but took a much more relaxed approach that worked best for me and my babies.

She also has a couple other books:
The New Contented Little Baby Book: The Secret to Calm and Confident Parenting
The Contented Toddler Years
The Contented Little Baby Book of Weaning (written more for the British folk)

Once again, these books have a very rigid structure which I followed in a much more relaxed fashion.


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