Really liked it and learned a lot. Helped us improve our daughters sleep habits. Great read. Thanks for the advanced copy!

Parenting books are tricky, with a lot of conflicting information coming at you from all angles for the rest of your child's life. I go into parenting books with the caveat that I'm going to learn a few nuggets of information and leave the rest that doesn't serve me behind.

The author takes a lot of care to explain the science of sleep for babies (and adults) as she has spent a lot of time studying our internal clock. She explains several experience where animals are able to keep their internal clock on the same time even when the presence of light is removed. I thought it was interesting to learn about the biology of our sleep rhythms.

There are several things I will take a way from this book and try with my five month old. Like shorter naps in the day to increase night time sleeping minutes. Note, he's a pretty good sleeper, not totally through the night, but we don't have a lot of the problems mentioned in this book like being up all hours of the night or only sleeping when being held.

There were several things I didn't agree with the author on and have to remember to use my instincts and chat with my doctor about specific concerns I have with my child.

If you're having trouble with a sleeper or just want to learn more about sleep, this is a quick read. You will take away a couple of small things to try!

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book in one sitting and was very impressed with it. As a first time mom to a 9 month old who has never slept longer then 4 hours in one stretch, I have read almost every baby sleep book. How Babies Sleep was one of my favorites on the topic for a few reasons. It is based on scientific research, all of which made great sense to me. The parts in the book that spoke about how blue light disrupts sleeps is something we are well aware of as adults, but haven’t put much thought to when helping infants learn to sleep. This book focuses more on how to help baby with their natural sleep cycle and less about “sleep training.” It is a very interesting book and I highly recommend it to any parents to be or mama’s who are struggling to help their little one sleep. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me an ARC OF THIS BOOK.

I have a five month old, my second child, and I thought I would read this book to see if she had any advice on naps and shifting nighttime sleep. There was some useful information, though I'm not a big advocate of CIO, especially for young babies. I liked reading about the science of sleep, and the information was really detailed.

This is a sleep training book by a young scientist who is a mother of two. Axelrod is a fan of Ferber, the doctor who advocates "crying it out" (he calls it "self soothing") for very young babies until they basically give up calling for parents in the night. Axelrod calls her version "gentle sleep training" because it's not as hard core as Ferber's, but it's still sleep training. She combines it with some good basic advice about babies' sleep needs (shorten daytime naps if baby doesn't sleep as much during the night, keep the room dark) and some harder core instructions for parents who want to go to these extremes and whose parenting styles match up with hers.

The basics -- First, prepare for a whole lot of very scientific reading about the sleep needs of fruit flies, which is Axelrod's specialty, and then sleep science in general. I'm not sure how many frazzled new parents want this much information about fruit flies and circadian rhythms but you get a lot. Then we get to her methods. Axelrod says that once babies are 11 pounds, they're old enough to sleep basically through the night (she says to plan for one hour less than the longest number of hours they've ever slept). She advocates swaddling babies and putting them in cribs in a separate room with blackout curtains and no light at all except for a red nightlight (which doesn't rouse us the way white, blue or other lights do). Keep baby on a very strict schedule of when she eats, sleeps, etc. and wake her from naps if necessary in order to create the sleep schedule you want. She details the exact number of hours babies of each age need in sleep (she says there is no variance between babies) and then figure out how many naps they are supposed to have during the day and put baby to sleep in her room based on all of that. If baby cries in the night, wait 90 seconds before going in and then only pat the baby for a few minutes and then leave again. You are not allowed to nurse the baby unless it's in an approved feeding time. You are not allowed to pick up the baby. You tell them they're fine, pat them a bit, then leave. Then you let them cry another 90 seconds and then repeat, and repeat, until baby learns to give up and go to sleep. If you are allowed to feed the baby because it's an approved time, you must put the baby back down in her crib before she's asleep and leave, and commence all the regular sleep training stuff.

Sorry, but I won't ever recommend CIO books and there's so much of this book that just goes against my mothering ideas. I co-slept with all five of my babies and they all had very different sleep styles and needs. It worked out well for us because I pretty quickly got the hang of nursing half asleep and we all got better sleep. My first baby was my trickiest but we got into sync before too long. My 5th baby slept from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. from her second day of life and slept through the night her entire infancy, just next to me in bed. We both pretty much slept through her nursing. Co-sleeping isn't for every parent, but I would hope that responding to babies' needs (emotional and nutritional) would be, even when we are sleep deprived.

I also just can't see this strict regimen working for many families, especially those with multiple kids or who cannot structure every minute of the day around the ever-changing exact schedule of naps and feedings that Axelrod advocates. She has a Russian nanny who enforces her routines for her and she seems to assume that most parents will have their babies in child care that will follow their schedule, but for parents who keep their babies at home and also juggle other kids and other duties, it all seems exhausting to me TBH.

This book will be a big hit with sleep training fans, but it's not one that I would recommend.

I read a digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

This book was super helpful and informative. Who knew there was so much I didn't know on this topic!! It was a very interesting read

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

The title of this book pretty much describes what it's about--babies and sleep. The author goes over everything about what sleep is, the importance of it (for parents and baby) and details on night/nap sleep training. As a new first time mother to a 6 month old, I have actually read up A LOT on sleep training and the techniques, so most of the information in the book I already knew. One thing though I really enjoyed were the more science based information on things and case studies/real life stories. She has great charts to reference and an easy to read chart on quick solutions to sleep issues with your baby.

I definitely recommend this for parents who are interested in sleep training and want to know more detailed information on the topic. New parents need to take note on the section with helpful tools and equipment. Everything she listed we have/use and they really do help out. We were able to have our baby sleep through the night (up to 10 hrs straight) and nap successfully in about 1.5 weeks by using techniques she mentions in this book.

4/5