Review of The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight aka the Sleep Lady Shuffle
Posted on March 1st, 2010 in Baby | Comments Off
We came across The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight book before we had our first child. In it she describes her method of training children how to go to sleep on their own – a method she refers to as the “Sleep Lady Shuffle”. The paperback is available for $11 from Amazon.com. Here’s our review, including a detailed account of sleep training with our 11-month old son.
We should mention that this review isn’t like other reviews on this site. We’re writing this because we had a hard time finding a detailed log of how others have faired with sleep training with their children (using any method, not just the Sleep Lady Shuffle – which is the method proposed in this book). Though every baby is different, we hope that by giving you an accurate night-by-night summation of what we went through will help other parents make better-informed decisions and have more realistic expectations.
The premise of the book
Children of all ages need sleep on a regular routine. This includes naps, and though the amount of sleep and number of naps children take is different depending on their age, naps and uninterrupted nighttime sleep is essential for proper development. Kids need help sticking to that routine, and though all babies are different, their sleep needs don’t vary by as much as one could think. By establishing a routine, separating children from sleep crutches (like bottles), and implementing the Sleep Lady Shuffle, babies learn to sleep on their own.
According to the book, it’s safe to implement the shuffle with babies at 6 months of age. Sleep needs are different for a 6 month old than for a 4 year old, and the book has age-specific sections to help parents provide a more age-appropriate system and nap schedule.
About the Shuffle
Kim West (aka The Sleep Lady) describes her ’shuffle’ as a gentler alternative to the much more popular and clinically tested Ferber method. I didn’t read Ferber’s book, but I know his night-time sleep training involves the parents leaving the room for several minutes at a time while the baby is left in the crib. Contrast this with the shuffle, in which West expects the parents to stay seating in the room verbally shushing the baby and reassuring her with occasional touches if needed. Nights 1 – 3, park a chair right next to the crib. Nights 4-6, the chair should be farther away. Nights 7-9, the chair can be next to the door. After that, put a chair outside the room but still in view of the baby. And finally, feel free to disappear for 5 minute intervals. All the chair shifting is where the term shuffle comes from.
I couldn’t help but be a little skeptical about this ‘gentler’ approach. It seems like sitting in front of the baby those initial days would actually draw out the crying and seem more cruel to the baby (since the parent is not supposed to pick up the baby, although West says to use your judgment). It turns out those first few nights are pretty torturous, but since we are unable to compare this to other sleep training methods, there’s no way for us to compare their effectiveness or the baby’s severity of the protest.
Before we started the shuffle
Up to this point, we mostly rocked our son to sleep. During the night it was not uncommon for him to wake up multiple times and for us to turn to co-sleeping in order for us to finally get some steady rest. Nap times were also a grab bag. We wanted him to have two naps, but often there would just be one, maybe an hour long.
We spent two weeks focused on creating a better bedtime and naptime routine. This meant not giving a bottle right before bed (as bottles should be associated with mealtime, not bedtime, according to the book – nice advice). Instead, we decided our new night routine would be as follows:
- 5:00 pm – Dinner
- 5:45 pm – Bottle
- 7:00 pm – Clean-up time (putting away toys)
- 7:05 pm – Bath time
- 7:25 pm – Put on pajamas
- 7:30 pm – Read 3 short books, say good night to various things in the room, turn off the lamp, say prayers, and sing a lullaby until the baby is drowsy
- 7:45 pm – Usually drowsy by now, so he goes in the crib. Shuffle time
The times may have changed a little night by night based on a few factors, but for the most part we stuck to this. The order of events always stayed the same, making a predictable routine for the baby and parents.
For naps, we did an abbreviated routine above. It started with a little clean-up, maybe just one book instead of three. The lamp goes off. Etc. Over time, our son picked up on the pattern and would often yawn as he sensed sleep time approaching. Naps were to be at 9:30am and 2pm, but those have been much harder to stick to (more on that later).
Once we were mentally prepared to try out the shuffle, we logged how it went. We kept in mind how long it took from the moment he was put in the crib to the moment he fell asleep, and to what degree he protested during this time. Below are our results.
As prepared and determined as I was to do the shuffle, it’s still tough on a parent to not respond to a crying baby as quickly as we’ve done up to this point. Our son would typically stand up, hold the rail, teeth against the rail, throw his teddy bear out of his crib, and cry loudly. Every 10 minutes or so, I would wipe his nose and face, give him some water, and guide him back to a laying position. The first couple of nights I held him briefly once or twice just to calm him down, but he went right back to the crib. I would say, “It’s time for bed. Lay down and go to sleep. Daddy is right here.” He didn’t understand exactly what I was saying, but I think he got the gist of what I wanted. Of course he’d want to pop right back up and cry even louder, but I was persistent, which paid off eventually. On night three, I labeled the severity of his protest as medium in contrast with the previous 2 nights – honestly I don’t know if that is really what happened or if it just seemed less severe. After he finally went to sleep, he slept throughout the night. When he woke up the next morning (between 530am and 7am), he was pretty cheerful and didn’t hold anything against me (yes, I was concerned about that).
I had moved my chair further from the door. I’d still help him every 10 minutes or so with wiping his nose after crying, and holding if needed (but never had to more than twice per night). Nights 4 and 5 were much like the first 3 nights. But on night 6 something marvelous happened. When I layed him down, he didn’t stand up, and he didn’t cry. Instead he laid still (for the most part), eyes open, calm, quiet, until he fell asleep peacefully on his own. Yes! It worked! At least once! That was big confidence booster for us as parents. Our son had learned what to do.
Though I’m supposed to shift my chair every three days, I wasn’t prepared on night 10 to do so. As seen in the chart, our son was becoming much more accepting of what bedtime means. During the two nights that are marked as yellow above, he spent the first 10 minutes protesting a little, but after ten minutes I would guide him back to laying down, and he would stay there quiet and calm until he fell asleep.
Though West’s shuffle continues until the chair is outside the door and eventually no chair at all, we didn’t do this. Our baby’s door faces our living room directly, so logistically leaving the door open wasn’t something we ever planned on doing. We were satisfied to be able to just put him down while he was still drowsy and let him fall asleep on his own while one of us was still in the room. That’s worked out well for us and for now, that’s as far as we see us taking the ’shuffle’.
One thing we wished the book covered, and we may be figuring this out on our own eventually, is getting out son to embrace going into his crib without having to be at a certain level of drowsiness. The ’shuffle’ only covers the parent’s distance from the child when the child is put in the crib, but the child is always expected to be put in the crib at the same level of drowsiness. For now, this isn’t too much of a problem, but if one day our son decides to be a wiggle worm or is wired with sugar for some reason, then we are left with a pretty long night. Ideally, we’d like to get to the part where our child learns to lay still in his crib by himself until he gets drowsy on his own.
About naps
At bedtime, if our son protests being put in the crib, we know he’s tired and we know we literally have all night for him to embrace sleep. With naps, that’s not the case. We are sometimes unsure whether he is really sleepy, and we sometimes feel uncertain we’re gauging his sleep window correctly. Also, unlike night time, there are more interruptions and conflicting schedules (preparing for church on Sunday, for example). We’re still working on this.
Bottom line
The principles mentioned in this book worked for us and our son, and he now sleeps much better throughout the night on his own with minimal-to-no wake-ups throughout the night. Though our success with naps varies from day to day, it’s better than before, and we have a structured daily routine which helps all of us as well.
Our family likes a good night’s sleep, thanks to the principles and advice from the Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight.
