LOVE LOVE LOVE
I actually read this after Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, so the "sleep is good" information felt a bit redundant, and I don't agree with all her advice, but WHY ISN'T THE 90 MINUTE ADVICE IN EVERY BABY BOOK EVER????!!!!!
The basic idea is that humans have a 90 minute awake cycle. So counting from the time we wake up at the end of every 90 minutes we have a slight dip in energy and might even feel sleepy. In babies this is super pronounced since they sleep more often. For Branden (3 months right now) every time he wakes I just need to glance at the clock, add 90 minutes and viola! 75% of the time that's when he'll nap next. The other 25% of the time I wasn't sure when he woke up, he took a cat nap which throws him off, he wants to stay up another 90 minutes, etc. Don't get me wrong, knowing this didn't stop him from crying for 3 hours before falling asleep at 2 AM, but it's soooo useful. (I did my best to get him to stop crying, but, well, obviously I'm still working on that.)
This worked great for his big sister Hana too. She was a mystery baby because she never got red eyed or even very fussy before she became over tired so this was invaluable. When she was very, very young she would frequently stay up for just 45 minutes (coincidentally half of 90 minutes, don't ask me for a scientific explanation, that's just what she did.) As she got older the time would increase and she would stay up for 3 hours, take a morning nap, stay up for another 3 or 4.5 hours before her afternoon nap, then wake up for another 90 minutes or 3 hours before falling asleep for the night.
It's a little book, and it's not really full of information (a pamphlet might have sufficed), and you shouldn't expect miracles, but I use it every day.
Dr. Moore's website is http://www.pollymoore.com/ (not very interesting)
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