Oh I know…. I've been so bad at blogging lately.  Or rather it's not that I've been bad as much as missing in action.  But, well, those of you in the audience who have had kids (i.e. been also possessed by your biological imperative and gone nutters) know what's going on.

And by "going on" I simply mean that I've been going to bed at 9 pm and waking up at 7 am feeling wiped out.  Insert any and all shenanigans in between.

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I have been promising to review "The No-Cry Nap Solution" because it's a great book, and I will do so today.

Let me tell you: few things are the result of such happy serendipity as my getting this book when I did.  Which is to say that I got it about a month before little Don Meow was born and I started pecking at it here and there. 

At first it was a few chance encounters here and there.  Herr Meow's little-brother adaptation period has gone really well, but his naps have always been a little tempestuous: there is this whole "waterboarding" feeling that used to pervade in the atmosphere in the minutes leading to the little guy's nap, as if somehow suggesting that he lay down in the comfort of his bedroom and rest his body and soul for about an hour were tantamount to shaking his hand with my left one or spitting in his eye.

Naps= unspeakable horror.

And then, like a sunbeam through the clouds, came the advice of Elizabeth Pantley into my life.  When an authority on sleep can tell me within the first page that she, "…thought she knew everything there was to know about sleep…" and yet goes on to disclose the findings throughout the book, such as the biological evidence that supports the need for naps, that she was not aware of until writing it.

Reassurance is good.

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"The No-Cry Nap Solution" is the latest book of practical sleep advice from Ms. Pantley — who is also the author of "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" and "The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers."

She is also the mother of four, which definitely vouches for her expertise alone in the been-there-done-that department.  But hers is not just empirical expertise alone: her advice is filled with practical and rational solutions that are good common sense and do not feel like the parent is imposing authoritarian discipline on the child after a "breaking in" period.

The book is approachable enough that you can read it cookbook-style–skipping around and finding your particular bit of troubleshooting necessity as you see fit– or you can be riveted and in sleep shock and read it from cover to cover like a cliffhanger of a novel, suddenly realizing that, yes, your older kid is just damn busy all the time and sees naptime as some sort of lesser pastime with which he cannot be bothered.

Ah… the sweet sound of answers bubblilng up in the mists of tired. 

I am happy to inform that my über-busy three year old just needs a firm and soothing hand.  Now if only they sold infinite patience pills at the CVS down the street, we'd totally be in business.

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Overall, I heartily recommend this book, if anything because you need a guiding hand that does not make you feel like a total failure– like many parenting books can– and instead provides you with calm and collected solutions that do not feel like you're imposing medieval torture on your child.

12 Mar This entry was published on March 12, 2009 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Bookish, Parental Samsara. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.