Sleeping Like A Baby by Pinky McKay

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Pinky McKay is an Australian parenting expert. She is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and Certified Infant Massage Instructor. Pinky is also a mother to five children.

In her book Sleeping Like a Baby, she provides down to earth, realistic advice which is based on scientific evidence. She advocates a more natural and intuitive way of raising children such as co-sleeping, and breast feeding. Her advice goes against current trends of raising babies, which seems to advocate going against your instincts, and forcing the baby to do what you want (like the crying it out method). Her advice to me makes sense and seems right. However at no time do you feel lectured or pressured.

Lots of subjects regarding babies are covered in this book such as communication, sleep, feeding, and sleep environments. It talks about issues from newborn to toddler. The focus is on sleep and the factors that can effect sleeping habits.

Pinky discusses baby body language and the different stages of sleep and wakefulness. Each stage is fully discussed and some basic indicators of each stage are provided. She also gives advice on what you should do with your baby in these stages. For instance Quiet Alert stage is the best time to play with your baby. Some basic signs your baby is quiet alert are wide, bright eyes, looking at you directly, and 'cooing' noises. This section to me was very helpful in fully understanding a babies body language which is one of the few ways they can communicate.

Another point covered is sleep issues. She breaks down by age what can cause a baby to wake in the night, such as new development milestones or teething. This section was interesting to read as she explains what are the main causes of sleeplessness in that age bracket. She also suggests strategies to combat it. Though she points out that a baby is constantly growing and changing and so too is it's sleep patterns, and this is perfectly natural.

Pinky has clearly done a lot of research and has many studies to back up her advice. The end of her book also has lots of useful Internet sites and contact numbers for organisations that deal with various subjects like breastfeeding, SIDS, Depression, and Safety.

The biggest thing Pinky teaches in her book is that it's ok to let baby set the routine. It also teaches you that all those things we find natural to do with a baby (such as rocking to sleep) feel natural for a reason, they are natural. Also, finally, that we as parents can not completely control their babies sleeping habits. That while he might sleep perfectly now, in a week, fortnight, or months time it could all change again, and it is perfectly normal for this to happen. Her approach certainly helps you drop the guilt and stress about doing things "wrong".

I will definitely be purchasing her book Toddler Tactics.

Save Our Sleep by Tizzie Hall

Rating: 2 out of 5

Save Our Sleep is for anyone who is having sleeping issues with their baby. It is written by Tizzie Hall who is an internationally renowned baby whisperer and has spent 18 years working with parents resolving issues with their babies.

I had heard about this book through various people and was a little dubious about it. From what I had seen and heard Tizzie Hall's advice sounded very harsh and rigid. I bought the book thinking I should at least see what Tizzie Hall has to say as some people raved over it. But I did not really believe it would be of much help and definitely not for us. So I was rather surprised to find the book was no where near as bad as I thought.

Tizzie Hall's greatest tip for a settled baby is routine. She has various examples for different stages of a babies life in her book. Tizzie states that the routines are flexible and should be tailored to suit your life (for example if you have other children to work around etc).

Tizzie's other big point is learning the difference between a complaining cry and an emotional cry. She doesn't believe in the "crying out" method and firmly advises against it. Her belief is there are two main cries a baby does, and you can safely ignore one (the complaining cry) and absolutely not ignore the other (emotional cry). Which to me sounds like a variation of controlled crying, which we do not agree with.

Save our sleep also touches on other common sleep problems. These includes things like starting solids, teething, and health issues. It also discusses SIDS and safe sleeping arrangements. But there is no real depth to these issues or strategies to deal with them.

I can see how this book would appeal to distressed sleep deprived parents with the promise of a baby sleeping through from 7pm - 7am. I know far to many people it didn't work for then those who it did work for. Also I had a problem with the lack of scientific evidence in this book, all of Tizzie's advice is based purely on her beliefs and observations not on actual studies or facts. One piece of advice even flies in the face of advice given by the World Health Organisation (Tizzie believes babies should start solids at 4 months not the recommended 6 months).

Overall I would not recommend this book to other parents. I think it sets expectations to high that you can force a baby to sleep from 7pm-7am. The books focus is on routines, not really sleep problems. In the end I feel this book could cause more stress to parents if their baby failed to conform to the routine and was not "normal". The thing this book was good for was making us realise this method really was not for us, and we can set a routine that suits us.