Books on sleep for babies and children: here are the most useful ones!

Getting babies to sleep is a challenge that many parents have to face from the very first days and in many cases even for a long time. Here is a selection of books on baby and toddler sleep with helpful parenting tips.

The sleep of infants and toddlers cannot be compared to that of adults. In fact, children usually sleep for short periods of time and sleep does not depend on the time of day or night in which they are. This depends on the fact that the little ones have not yet sufficiently developed the part of the brain where the adult “biological clock” is located.

For this reason, it is normal for many children to sleep during the day and spend their nights awake. It’s not something strange or worrying for children, but this affects the sleep and rest of parents who end up wondering: why doesn’t our child sleep at night? What can we do to change this habit?

Methods for getting babies to sleep

Before recommending some reading that can help you find solutions for peaceful nights , we remind you that the most common methods for putting a child to sleep are divided into four broad categories, depending on the approach used:

1. NAP ( Nighttime Attachment Parenting) or attachment approach: Focused on the child’s needs and parent-child contact.

2. CIO (Cry It Out) or make him cry (standard extinction) approach: focused on the need for the baby to learn to sleep independently.

3. CC (Controlled Crying) or the controlled crying approach (gradual extinction): the best known and most controversial is the Estivill method.

4. Other approaches based on the child’s routine, autonomy and natural rhythms : the “sweet” method by Honegger Fresco, the EASY method by Hogg and the method based on autonomy by Brazelton.

Each of these approaches is based on very different schools of thought. It is obviously not possible to say which is the best, also because there are many variables and much depends on individual situations or experiences.

Books on sleep for babies and children

The baby and toddler sleep books that I will list are among the most popular with parents. The reviews I’ve read are generally positive even if there are occasionally some negative notes. For this reason, reading the reviews can be interesting to understand if that book is right for you or not.

One caveat. The things you will read about these texts are still ADVICE .
It is true that they were written based on studies on the physiology of newborn sleep, but it should be emphasized that they can work great and quickly for some children and families, while for others they can be a real disappointment. On the subject of children’s sleep, unfortunately, the magic wand is not there yet.

This book helped to understand that the nocturnal awakenings of newborns are normal and physiological and that many are the most common prejudices in our culture regarding the sleep of children from 0 to 3 years. For this reason, the text is a real help in choosing where and how to sleep peacefully with your children, with practical advice and some simple strategies to manage your children’s awakenings with serenity and, why not, with a pinch of imagination.

The bedtime book offers practical advice for a happy baby’s sleep from the first weeks of life up to adolescence. It offers useful information on how and how much children should sleep and the measures to be taken for safe sleep.
It also helps understand which is the most suitable environment for sleep, the importance of rituals and the different methods of falling asleep, in order to choose the most effective one for each child.
A large part of the book is dedicated to sleep disorders and remedies to address them, from behavioral techniques to traditional medicines and herbal medicines.

This book teaches how to interpret the language of newborns by distinguishing the different types of crying and reading body movements. Through concrete examples and true stories, it helps new parents to establish an intense relationship with their child so as to be able to understand their needs at all times.

6.  Mom teach me to sleep by Rondine De Luca

Mom teach me to sleep is a book that aims to give answers to the most common questions that parents do about the sleep of their newborns and their well-being. In the book there are no rigid schemes to follow, but the account of many different realities through which parents can understand which way they can do for their own case.

The bedtime ritual by V. Rossi

This beautiful book stimulates parents to build a healthy and intense relationship with their child by observing his behavior. Explains to parents in a clear and understandable way the characteristics of sleep, the importance of time and patience to devote to children and offers solutions to various problems that may arise. A very useful and valuable book