The Sensational Baby Sleep Plan: a practical guide to sleep-rich and stress-free parenting from recognised sleep guru Alison Scott-Wright

I have quite a few baby books (Baby Whisperer, Gina Ford, Miriam Stoppard, Baby Week by Week, What to Expect, Dr Sears etc etc) and thought I had read it all. This was recommended by a friend when we were having our second child and I have actually found it the best of the lot for establishing a routine, feeding and letting your baby get good quality sleep for the first few months. Despite the name I found this book is about more than sleep, it is also the best book I have read on feeding and routines. Following the plan in the book sets them up well for sleeping and feeding well in the future. As a second time parent I have found that this book reflects many of the things that we learnt first time round, for example:- That routine is important for babies to feel content.- That if you dive in and pick them up every time they cry rather than observing them first then it does them more harm than good - they don't learn to go back to sleep when they wake up between sleep cycles and don't learn to self-soothe.- That life isn't perfect and sometimes the mother actually matters (I can say this as the husband) and needs rest rather than trying to be perfect in every way and having to completely submit to a parenting philosophy.- That attachment parenting and co-sleeping is a nightmare for you and the baby (no-one gets good quality sleep).I appreciated that it was a balanced book that did not blindly follow the status quo. I appreciated that it took a balanced view of breastfeeding for example. Most of the negative reviews for this book are from people who can't accept alternatives to breastfeeding even being discussed - this book says that 'breast is best' but goes on to accept that it is your choice and that breastfeeding doesn't work out for everyone. It then provides advice if you want to breastfeed, express or formula feed. I found the advice and routines in the the book incredibly useful and uncannily accurate for everything from sleeping to feeding and weaning. The routines are much simpler and more realistic than Gina Ford.Using this book our second child is a good feeder, good sleeper (7pm to 7am by 10 weeks) and very contented.For me, THE BEST book that is good for your baby and reflects real life rather than trying to tell you how everything 'should' be. For me, this and the Baby Whisperer (for reading your baby's cues) are all you need. 'Your Baby Week-by-Week' is also good for any concerns you might have on a week-by-week basis.

Since becoming a first time mum I have been quite shocked at how polarised and one sided most books, experts and advice on every aspect of taking care of a baby are. They all seem to say that if you don't do things in one particular way you are evil and the world will pretty much fall apart. I have found this book to be more balanced and pragmatic than most.Thankfully my sister recommended this book to me when my daughter was a week or two old and I had hit the point of 'oh my goodness I need my sleep'. I haven't looked back and my daughter has slept through from 7-7 (and even occasionally 8 giving us a lovely lie in) from 6 1/2 weeks old. She's now 7 months old and we're still getting the full 12 hrs pretty much every night. During this time we've had a handful of times when she's woken because she got stuck in a funny position and one night when she had a stomach bug and was sick. On each of those occasions we've been in, sorted out the problem, given her a cuddle and popped her back down to sleep, which she's happily gone back to in 5 mins or so.I found it slightly bizarre reading some of the reviews below that comment that the book is anti-breast feeding. I exclusively breastfed until my daughter was 5 months old, gradually introducing formula until we've now switched completely at 7 months. At no point did I feel pressurised by the book to stop doing this. If anything, I think that I actually kept breast feeding for longer than I would have done because of some of the helpful advice within the book about expressing, combined with being able to look ahead and see that I wouldn't be feeding so often forever. It did make me feel that if I didn't manage to keep breast feeding it wasn't a disaster and that also helped me to relax into it and probably strangely helped me to keep going because I wanted to, not because I felt I had to. My sister (who had also used the book) exclusively formula fed her daughter from day 1 and we both found that it worked equally well. One of the things that I really liked about the book was that it didn't treat formula feeding as second class and gave advice on how to do either (or both) depending on what you had chosen to go with.The biggest thing that this book did for me was to help me to get out of my own way. Both my sister and I get comments about how happy, smiley and calm our daughters are, which is certainly our experience and I'm sure that the advice in this book helped us to achieve this. I found the following aspects most useful:1) It gave a loose structure without being massively prescriptiveIt suggests times for feeding and sleeping while saying that an hour either way is fine. This means that there's only about 3 hrs in the whole day when it wouldn't be some kind of feeding time or other. And contrary to some of the comments below the book does say clearly that if it's not in the plan but your baby needs feeding then feed them. I feel that this gave me an illusion of control that made me feel better about life, while actually being more attentive and going with my baby's needs.2) The table showing the type of waking pattern you can expect stopped me from interfering with my daughter's developing sleep patternsI found that she largely followed the pattern of waking laid out in the tables when left to her own devices. Because I could see this laid out and that it only lasted for 8 weeks, I didn't start looking for other ways of trying to get more sleep that would ultimately have ended up in disrupting her sleep and making it less likely that she would sleep through the night.3) Getting into a good bedtime routine means she'll happily go to sleep anywhereWe started with a basic bedtime routine early and we've found this really helps her to feel secure in any new surroundings. We've put her to sleep in her pram and wheeled her down to dinner with us in a hotel, she's slept in travel cots and other cots in hotels and at grandparents and gone down quite happily. This was also a godsend when my partner had a back operation when our daughter was 3 months old meaning he couldn't do anything for a fortnight, so it was all over to me. It also meant that we were happy to leave her with grandparents so that we could go out in an evening safe in the knowledge that she wouldn't be missing us or giving our parents anything to worry about.4) Expressing early meant that my partner could give a bottle and I could have a breakWith all of the other things going on during the first few weeks I don't think I would have got into expressing so early. This meant that even in the early days I would only get up once in the night and my partner would do the other with a bottle. When we went down to once a night he would do bedtime instead of nightime with a bottle giving me some much needed down time. Initially she would go down to sleep much more easily with her Dad than with me. It also meant that she's always happily taken a bottle apart from for one week when she had a cold at about 3 months old. I have friends who breastfed without using a bottle for some months and all of them have then had problems getting the baby to take a bottle as they've wanted to move to formula, or have just wanted to express and go out somewhere. Often there have been tears and tantrums to get to the point where a bottle is accepted.5) I didn't panic about using a dummyWhile the book recommends not to, it also says don't worry if you need to use one. We used one during daytime naps for a couple of months and if she just wanted to suck/chew something and don't need it any more. I'm happy to feed her, but not really up for being a chew toy!5) I never felt bad if I didn't stick to the book religiouslyThough my daughter did lots of things in the way that the book predicted there were also things that she didn't or where we as a couple decided to do things differently. We focused initially on sleeping at night and aiming roughly at the feeding times. She didn't get into a daytime napping routine for a good 2-3 months and still does them at different times from in the book, but for a similar overall time, which is fine by us. We do use a mobile, as we'd bought one the week before we bought the book. She does tend to need music to go to sleep to, but doesn't really mind what, anything will do. We tried reading a book to her early on at bedtime, but she seemed to get cross about it so we stopped and have only got into it quite recently again, which she now loves. I'm sure there are others, but you get the idea.The overall feeling that I got from the book was that you know your own baby, follow your instincts and if you want some help, ideas, or just to see a plan of what tends to happen here you go.Just a note on the concerns about putting babies to sleep on their front mentioned by one of the reviewers below. I felt that this book gave one of the only informed debates that I have read on sleep positioning. She did not recommend putting babies to sleep on their front and gave the reasons for this. She did this while explaining that there is safety equipment that can be used if your baby point blank refuses to sleep on their back or is in severe pain in this position. This isn't something that we experienced, but I have friends who have done and have been unable to find information other than a straight 'don't do it'. This book at least gave advice on how to make it as safe as possible if you feel that you have no choice but to go down that route.