The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night

Ferber: Advocates crying to sleep with parent soothing on a time schedule. Put your baby in the crib. Come back to pat and say soothing words at 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. Increase the times every night. Hopefully your baby will stop crying and go to sleep. Lots of scientific discussion about sleep.

Weissbluth: Advocates crying to sleep without parent soothing. Open-ended time - no limit. You are "leaving him alone to forget the expectation to be picked up." Has a section on children over 7 years old.

Mindell: Advocates crying to sleep with parent soothing, on a schedule similar to Ferber but with more frequent checks on the baby.

Pantley: Advocates using gentle techniques to avoid crying. Focus on understanding why baby is waking and fixing problems with routines, new associations, and gradual changes in patterns. Supportive of breastfeeding and co-sleeping as well as crib sleeping and bottle feeding.


A Practical (and effective!)Guide for sleep-deprived parents   October 31, 2003
kimberly beck (Sterling, MA USA)
226 out of 230 found this review helpful

As a mom of three, including a very high needs infant and then twins, I know sleep deprivation! As a Childbirth Educator and Doula, I have a fairly extensive knowledge of typical infant sleep cycles and behavior. But as any sleep deprived parent can attest, you can be so overwhelmed, exhausted, and desperate for sleep that you are tempted to try anything and need some support and guidance. The two most common suggestions parents are given are to let the baby "cry it out" or to "just deal with it and know this too will eventually pass", neither of which validates the feelings of these desperate parents or gives them practical ideas for trying to meet both their needs and those of their baby, and often, makes them feel worse either because they can't stand to let their baby cry nor feel they can continue to go on being exhausted and sleep deprived, they want and need help NOW.

This book is that help. I bought the No-Cry Sleep Solution when my twin son and daughter were about 9 months old. I was exclusively breastfeeding them and attachment parenting them and did not want to stop that parenting style, but was desperate for sleep. Elizabeth's book was informative, easy to read, easy to follow, and most importantly comprehensive. She does not advocate for any one method of helping babies and parents to sleep, but rather gives weary, exhausted, and overwhelmed parents useful information about what reasonable expectations for sleep are, emphasizes safety, and then gives them easy to use tools they can use to identify sleep issues and many techniques they can choose from to try to bring more sleep to everyone, regardless of sleep arrangements or feeding style! I especially like her sleep logs and analysis tools. Within a few weeks of reading her book we were all sleeping better and I was less stressed as I was able to understand the reasons behind the waking and address them without tears for me or my babies! And yes, we are now all sleeping all night!
I highly recommend this book if you are looking for ways to gently and lovingly help your baby (and yourself) learn to sleep better!


I LOVE the no-crying approach!   April 7, 2002
Becky (Fond du Lac, WI USA)
678 out of 713 found this review helpful

FINALLY, a book that makes sense to sleep-deprived people! I always thought there were only three options when it came to sleeping with a baby in the house: 1) You just get lucky and have a natural-born sleeper; 2) You can let them cry it out; or 3) You can just deal with the constant night waking.

Thanks to Elizabeth Pantley, I realized there is a gentle, loving way to teach my daughter to sleep without a single tear! After a few nights of following our sleep plan, my daughter started sleeping through the night. This was accomplished without ONE single tear!!!!

Unlike in other books, there is no strict format to follow. You can adapt the ideas to fit your child and at your own pace. No more feeling guilty for not just letting her cry it out and being tired all the time. No more guilt about not following the very rigid programs in some other "sleep books."

Thanks for all the sweet dreams, Elizabeth!


changed my life immediately   March 28, 2003
H. Hood (Oakland, CA United States)
60 out of 60 found this review helpful

I just wanted to report that this book changed my life immediately.
This is a very practical, sensitive book written by a mom who wanted to find a sleep solution that didn't involve varying degrees and timing of crying. I couldn't bare my baby's crying and was getting up 4-5 times a night for 3.5 months. When it occurred to me that I couldn't go back to work like this, desperate, I read web sites and then this book. In 24 hours (yes, one day!) my baby learned to sleep 5-6 hours and then again 2-4 hours. I am dreaming again and have less back pain too.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK for expecting and new parents (and grandparents nagging at you to let the little ones 'cry it out'). Here are a few highlights:

1. keeping babies up later so they get worn out won't lead to longer sleep... it will mean shorter stints since they get tensed up and can't relax well enough to go deep
2. calm down your home at night (sadly and for a little while at least, no more happy baby time for us with visitors and block meetings, baby brigade, etc.)
3. infant babies need 2-3 at least one hour naps per day (my baby slept periodically 30 minutes whenever)
4. babies need very regular schedules (oops, every day was different at our house as I was playing and erranding alot for this break without being at my office)
5. they need absolute darkness to sleep at night (we nixed the night light and noticed our neighbor's porch light came right into the nursery)
6. they don't necessarily need to feed if they awaken and can be patted to sleep (no wonder my kid's in the 90th percentile for weight)

Anyhow, we follow the tricks in the book exactly, all of them but putting a 'lovey' in my bra (good grief), and the method immediately worked for us. Of course it won't work for everyone and all babies are unique. But, if you're going crazy like I was, I recommend it.


This book is truly in tune with both babies and parents....   April 30, 2002
Alice Visser-Furay (Dublin, Ireland)
126 out of 133 found this review helpful

I am the mother of 4 children, including 21 month old twins. Before I started using the No Cry Sleep Solution methods, one or both of my babies was awake every hour all night long. I practice AP (Attachment Parenting) as much as I can, but I could not be an loving, understanding parent to any of my 4 children on the amount of sleep that I was getting. In addition, my babies were often fussy and were obviously overtired. Pantley's methods were perfect for an AP parent like me who wanted to continue to co-sleep with and breastfeed my babies, but who also desperately needed more sleep. I developed a sleep plan based on some of the ideas in the No Cry Sleep Solution, and slowly but surely both babies began to sleep longer stretches, until they eventually started sleeping through the night. I still get fabulous early morning sleep/cuddles with the babies, and I can be a much more effective and loving parent during the day! We are all happier now. You can read more about the test mommies on Pantley's No Cry web-site...

I just read the critical review of The No Cry Sleep Solution written by kelly-lcce and I wanted to discuss the points that she brought up from the perspective of an AP parent who has actually used the methods in the book.

1. She says that Pantley's recommendation to use a "lovey" is wrong because it means parents are trying to force their children into an attachment to an object instead of a person. But Pantley clearly states in the book that a lovey doesn't take your place, instead it helps the baby feel safe when you can't be with him (no parent can be with their child 24 hours a day). One of my twins uses a lovey (none of the others did/do), and we have wonderfully close relationship.

2. kelly-lcce states that "none of the benefits of co-sleeping were covered at all" and that there is very little on helping a baby/child co-sleep soundly. This is simply not true. Pantley herself co-slept with each of her 4 children and she even recommends a book on Attachment Parenting to help parents understand this choice. And there is an entire section on helping co-sleeping babies to sleep better (p. 130-136). I have co-slept with all of my four children (and still do when they need me, or I need them!), and I felt that Pantley's book was very supportive of parents who make this choice.

3. kelly-lcce says there is no value judgment on breast vs. bottle, and that Pantley should have said that the advantages of breastmilk outweigh the disadvantages. It is true that Pantley does not "judge" those who bottlefeed (by choice or necessity) - I think that is one of the strongest selling points of this book - the author is accepting of numerous different choices that parents and babies make. However it is also very clear that Pantley breastfed all four of her children well into their toddler years - this fact speaks clearly of her thoughts on the subject.

4. kelly-lcce says that Pantley's use of the concept of "flexible schedule" is very similar to that presented in BabyWise. I just looked up "flexible" in the index of the book and immediately found several paragraphs on how important it is to listen to baby's cues. Pantley's goal is to help parents "Follow a Flexible Yet Precitable Daytime Routine" (again the subject heading of a section). There is even a quote from me in the book about how, with my twins, I have a vague structure to my day, but I pay close attention to the each baby's unique cues to tell me when they are tired (p. 108).

5. kelly-lcce says that holding a sleeping baby is one of her favorite things of being a parent, and that Pantley's book strongly discourages this. Pantley says "There is nothing- absolutely nothing - as endearing and wonderful as a newborn baby falling asleep in your arms or at your breast" (p. 70). She says that in a perfect world where mothers had no other responsibilities, it would be ideal for babies to always fall asleep in their mother's arms. But since our world is not perfect, it is a good idea to gently and slowly help baby learn to go to sleep in his bed. Pantley says that like her, you may choose sometimes (or often) to let baby sleep in your arms and, "when you don't put him down...hold him with your heart, too, and relish every gurgle, every flutter, every sighing breath. Trust me when I say, "you will miss this (p.72-73)." She's right!

6. kelly-lcce didn't like the section on getting a baby to go to sleep in the crib without mom or dad, because it seemed like Ferber sleep training to her, "just minus the crying". Well isn't that the point? To acheive better sleep for baby and parents gently, without crying? This particular section is obviously not meant for co-sleeping families who disapprove of cribs, but in typical Pantley fasion, is accepting of the variety of choices that good parents make.

7. kelly-lcce felt like the first half of the book where the author discusses the needs of babies is disregarded in the second "solution" half of the book, and that this is just a sleep training book. I'm not quite sure in what ways Kelly-Icce thinks that babies' needs are being disregarded, because the most important strain throughout the book is that parents need to be in tune with their baby's needs, AS WELL AS their own needs. This book is not meant for parents who are happy with their sleep situation as it exists. In the beginning of the book Pantley asks the reader to consider whether or not her baby's sleep habits are actually problematic and disruptive of family life, or if it is simply the "sleep-through-the-night" expectations that were troublesome. Clearly kelly-lcce did not respond well to this book because she feels her chidren's sleep habits are not disruptive of her family life. For others, like me with my night-waking twins and two other young children, the No Cry Sleep Solution was the perfect way to fine-tune my needs with those of my babies, making us all much happier.