The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems

I felt compelled to write this review because of how much this book helped me... (sorry for all the details, if you want the to-the-point version read the bullet points below...)For 9 months, I nursed my son for naps and bedtime. This worked out fine for us because he would fall asleep fairly quickly and I enjoyed the bonding time. At around 9 months, my son's sleeping habits changed (as many warned me they would). He is a very active baby and loves to play. I would nurse him and then he would jump out of my arms, and head toward his toys. I knew he was sleepy, but he wouldn't sleep. I tried many things such as putting him in the car, the stroller, tiring him out as much as possible... you name it. I finally was able to get him to sleep by putting him in my ergo carrier and walking up and down the street. This was fine, but still wasn't something I wanted to do every day, twice a day. I was frustrated and felt like I couldn't figure it out. I tried the cry-it-out (CIO) method, and soon discovered it wasn't for me. I turned to the internet and researched and researched and every no-cry method led me to Elizabeth Pantley. I researched her website and many other sites relating to her, but I couldn't find details on this magical solution... At first I did not want to buy the book because #1 I didn't really have time to read a book, and #2 I had the "what is the book going to tell me that I don't already know?" attitude. I had already made up my mind that my son is just not a napper... Finally after several weeks of no naps, I gave in and bought the book, and I am so happy I did. Here is why it's great -- It is not one magical solution (as I thought), but many different solutions based on the problem you are having. She covers many problems in her book, including the ones I was having.- It is organized in a very efficient way, so you don't have to read the entire book and you can just go to the section that relates to you. I do suggest reading the intro chapters, because she goes over information regarding sleep cycles, that helps you understand your baby's sleep a little more (i.e. how many naps they need based on age, how many awake hours between naps, how long babies should nap for).- It is good to have the book around because our babies' sleep routines change all the time (at least mine do) and as they get older, they may develop a different problem.- The book is written in a very gentle and helpful manner. Many other reviewers say that she is like a friend and very supportive of how each mom does things individually. She says that it's not a problem, unless it is a problem to you... which is great to hear because we always hear about how we SHOULD be doing this or that. I felt like she was my good friend helping me discover why my son is not napping and then finding solutions.- She has little worksheets with questions and charts to use if you want to record the sleep patterns. I simply reviewed the questions (which helped me with discovering what I was missing) and I kept my own log for about 2 weeks, just to see if there was any patterns.- I was able to get through the book in about a day, and had many AHA! moments. I immediately took action, and in about 2-3 days, my son was napping on his own, and napping for longer than 30 minutes (which was one of my problems).In summary, I got what I wanted out of this book... A quick way for me to get my son to nap. In addition, I got a lot of other helpful information.If you are interested, I will highlight a couple of things that helped me -- I learned how to read my baby's sleep cues. I realized I was putting him down for a nap much later than I should have been. I used to think, "he can't take a nap now, he barely just woke up... " but now I know better... as soon as he gives me a yawn, or rubs his eyes... off to bed he goes.- I learned to wind him down before putting him in the crib. They cannot go from playing, straight to the crib, they need to wind down. What I do is walk my son around the house with some classical music playing on my phone and say goodnight to all the furniture... it may sound silly, but it works!- I made my son's crib more comfortable and cozy... I bought softer bed sheets and a mattress cover which was slightly padded.These are just a few of the things, based on my problems. if you are having trouble, buy this book! You will find your solution, and you will get your sanity back!!!

First I want to say that I LOVE all of Pantley's "No-Cry" sleep/nap solution books! My son was born with severe hip dysplasia and GERD, and as such was not very comfortable the first year of his life. He spent that first year in a variety of orthotic devices including body casts (which are soo much fun in diapers let me tel you), had major surgery when he was only 12 weeks old, and the acid reflux made him choke and stop breathing.While sleeping has been a particular challenge for us, I am firmly not a CIO-type of mom and have always wanted our son to know we were there for him regardless of whether it was day or night. We have used many of her techniques and "stage-setting" ideas for both nighttime and naptime. Her books - the No Cry Sleep Solution, the No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers, and the No Cry Nap Solution - have been a lifesaver for me. I believe that different things work for different families and different children within families, and one of the things I liked best about her books is that she acknowledges that and provide suggestions and actual real data!Elizabeth Pantley was the first person to explain to me about sleep cycles and how we sleep. I'm an educated person and even I didn't know this! By using suggestions from her books, we were able to - within a week - get our 12 month old son to take regular naps, which he has only given up recently (he just turned three). Literally, we took a week off work, employed your methods, and within 2-3 days our son was taking regular naps - even though he'd NEVER taken them before (not regularly). I have continued to use her techniques and advice and they have not failed us.Now, our three year old son is starting to give up naps, but he consolidated his sleep in the process. As her books state, citing research, that children need various amounts of sleep depending on their ages, but that there is a range of that. With her help I started paying attention to this, and realized that my son needs a bit less sleep than the average child his age - but she also accounts for that in her books too. He needed about 11 hours. He used to get those with 8 hours at night and a 3 hour nap. At about the age of 2 1/2 he started having more difficulty napping, but began sleeping longer than 8 hours at night. Now a new three year old, he mostly doesn't nap, but sleeps 10-11 hours SOLID a night. We have even seen him (on the monitor) wake up a bit, sit up in bed, and lay himself down and go right back to sleep (sometimes he sings a verse or two of his favorite song, which is adorable). On the occasions where he cannot get back to sleep right away, he might take as much as an hour to call for me. I call this a HUGE success! Our son over 95% of the time, who used to have sooo much trouble sleeping - now sleeps 10-11 hours a night, and does not immediately call for us if he wakes up. This means he has learned how to get himself back to sleep, and that we have helped him learn this gently. It also means that we have learned how to create a sleep-conducive environment for him that feels cozy and safe!!I give this book - and all three of her No-Cry sleep/nap books an enthusiastic 5 stars! I would give these 10 stars if I could!!Thank you SO much to Elizabeth Pantley for writing these books. I just purchased her No-Cry Potty Training Solution book and am looking forward to what help you can provide me in helping my reluctant three year old little boy (when he is ready of course!)

I am so pleased that I bought this book!I am a new mum with a 4 month old and bought this when she was 2.5 months as we were really struggling to get her to nap. Using tips from this book has helped to get her into a napping routine and learn to settle herself.The tone of the book is very encouraging and non-judgemental, which was a huge relief as I was worried that I was creating bad sleep habits for my baby and needed reassurance.It gave me the confidence to find short term solutions to her napping problems, knowing that I had to tools from the book to reverse the habits later down the line when she was old enough to cope.Our baby just wouldn’t nap, and after reading the book I bought an electric swing to rock her to sleep. It was a godsend and saved our little family a lot of stress for a month or so BUT as she has got older we have trained her out of sleeping in it and she now naps 3 times a day in her cot!The first section of the book is about the science behind why napping is important and how it affects your baby. I found this interesting and it motivated me to persevere with finding a solution.The book deals with napping for all age babies and young children, so quite a bit of it wasn’t relevant to me, but the parts that were are clear and concise, with easy to follow references to other sections of the book so you can find all the information you need.This is especially helpful if you are a busy parent who doesn’t have time to read the whole book.There are quotes in the book from real parents which I found very relatable. The book is clearly extensively researched and I felt so much better after reading it to know that our issues were common.Thank you Elizabeth Pantley! The Pantley dance really does work!

I bought this after I found her sleep book so helpful, but unfortunately this book was nowhere near as educating. I found a lot of it was common sense rather than helpful nap techniques. It might help some people who don't have any sort of nap routine but I didn't learn anything new.

There are so many errors in the kindle version that I can't tell you if this book helps or not! Pages are missing, pages appear with one line of text down the side, charts are unreadable. Don't buy this on kindle.

Beyond useless to us. In fact it made our baby sleep worse. Wish I never wasted money on it.

Lots of good tips. It's not preachy. Easy to read. Glad I bought this.