[smum]

Please tell me im not alone in my concern at some of the advice being given to (us) mothers & parents in Tizzie Halls best selling "Save Our Sleep" book. I cant help but wonder how helpful or dangerous it is to give tired, exhausted & desperate parents advice like this...

Excerpt - "I often come across a baby who has learnt to vomit at bedtime during failed attempts at controlled crying. If you have one of these babies you will need to teach your child that vomiting will not get your attention or buy any extra time. This is hard, but it has to be done to stop the vomiting. The way you achieve this is to make the bed vomit-proof. Layer the towels in the bed and on the floor so it is easy for you to remove the vomit. When your baby vomits take the top towels away, leaving a second layer in case of a second vomit. If the vomit has gone on her clothing, undress her and put clean clothes on without taking her out of the cot by moving her to the other end. Do not make eye contact or talk to her while you do all this and be calm and confident through out, so you can fool your baby into thinking you don't care about vomit."

There are other books on the market that can help promote & achieve natural, normal infant sleep, books that are gentle & peaceful & support a mothers instinct & normal, healthy infant attachment...why this one? Are we that desperately exhausted that we need to do 'this' to make our infants natural sleep needs suit us?

Tizzie Halls advice is completely unfounded anthropologically, biologically & psychologically. It is not evidence based & at times her advice goes against the SIDS safe sleep guidelines. This book is not recommended by any paediatric association on earth & the practices within in it are in fact discouraged by many paediatric professional organisations as well as the Australian Infant Mental Health Association.

No matter what sleep issues youve had, what practices youve tried to help obtain that ever elusive sleep, i dont know how any parent can read that excerpt & not be heart broken...that is not what being a parent is about, that is absolutely heartbreaking.


Some gentle sleep books:
Sleeping Like a Baby - Pinky McKay
No Cry Sleep Solutions - Elizabeth Pantley
Three in the Bed - Deborah Jackson
The Baby Sleep Book - Dr Willam Sears
Helping Your Baby to Sleep - Anni Gethin & Beth Macgregor

This post has been edited by smum: 16/12/2012, 04:45 AM

[mum201]

I think you are preaching to the converted here (in the most part).

[ollies-mum]

I know their is always loads of posts on this lady and ive never read her book, but my mouth is hanging open at the above excerpt. I cant believe anyone would listen to that advice. Just horrible

[Pooks*potters]

I am not against controlled crying when needed, but that does read pretty harsh. I can't really imagine this applying for a small baby.

Just to throw something out there, coz I know all babies are different so some parents might not have experienced this.

At about 5 months my DS could intentionally make himself vomit to get attention. He had reflux so he learned that vomiting= attention. I never made a big fuss of his vomiting unless he was also obviously distressed, and would often quietly change the sheets and clothes as Tizzie describes, without fuss and bother, calm and peaceful. I also had to learn to NOT pick him up if he was calm (I had been, but then realized my mistake), as he then thought he was getting up and the confusion would upset him when I tried to get him back to sleep (he is very much a creature of routine and predictability, any weirdness would make it so hard for him to sleep).

I also had to get DS to stop vomiting for attention, and yes that meant not giving too much attention to his vomits (let me reinforce, ONLY when his vomiting was not accompanied by distress, I would ALWAYS respond to distress). I'm fortunate that in terms of getting him to sleep, he is more of a yeller, whinger and player than a crier.

He will still occasionally do it in the car, because he hates the car with a passion and will grunt and try to bust loose of the car seat, and eventually get really angry and sometimes will vomit. If I turn to look at him, he will grin. We are not talking about a distressed baby here, we are talking about a very determined one. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to drive, so I can't do much to remove that particular unpleasantness from his life.

Unfortunately for him, I also need to sleep and go about daily activities, so controlled crying, or responsive settling, or whatever you want to call it, was part of the picture for us. It wasn't so much about trying to get a baby to conform to my unrealistic demands, as it was me insisting I needed more than 3 hours sleep total per night, and couldn't spend half the day on the couch holding him while he slept.

I'm not saying Tizzie is right (not by a long shot), I'm just putting it out there that there are other reasons parents might do some of those things.

[PurpleNess]

Do people really think babies vomit for attention? Really?

I'd urge all parents to do their own research before employing any of the CC methods & learn what it is that actually happens to your baby physiologically and why they actually stop crying...

[MakeLoveNotBacon]

Yes the vomiting passage is particularly distressing.

I don't believe a baby vomits for attention. And if it does? Then how desperate is the poor little thing? If I concluded that my child was vomiting just for attention, then that is what I would give him - my attention.

She wrote all that pre-kids I believe and I wondered if she has soften some.

[Kay1]

I looked into her 'routines' when DS3 was a few weeks old. When I realised there seemed to be no settling techniques apart from wrapping your baby and putting them to bed and walking away I bailed.

[Akatara]

Unfortunately I think a lot of these books are just money making exercises preying on desperate parents.

Having said that I am finding the 'wonder weeks' quite interesting, and I think I am noticing more things about how my baby is developing and developmental stages than I did with my first two babies. It's interesting to watch, and I thing it makes me a bit more relaxed, as most things are 'a phase' that they will eventually grow out of. (We hope!)

[WinterIsComing]

From everything I read, it seems a baby just doesn't have the mental capacity to strategise and plan ahead, ie "I will vomit and mummy will come", manipulation is just outside their abilities. A lot of them do vomit from intense crying, unintentionally. Once I had to drive in bad traffic without stopping for hall an hour and DS wouldnt stop crying....after a while he started dry retching, couldn't stop, it was horrific and I was in tears, I could never follow her advice.

[*mylittleprince*]

I've just had twins and my local multiple birth club swear by her methods and routines and many people follow them strictly. I decided to read her book (didn't use any books for DS) and didn't like the idea of a rigid routine (and the feeds seemed like so little) so demand feed and follow tired signs for sleep and it's all working out well (so far).

Each to their own though.