sheyne rowley

[LMS]

Hi Prama,
I have known at least 2 other mum's who have had Shayne in their homes and they did nothing but benefit from her. I have also bought her new book. Whilst not reading it from cover to cover as it is rather thick, I looked for the sections that were appropriate to our issues and it made a whole lot of sense to me and my DH. We used some of her techniques when DD was not settling to sleep easily, and within 5 days there was a massive turn around. Sometimes you just need a little helpful guidance or a new idea and her's have truly worked for us.

[amyhunz]

I have to 2nd the positive praise for Sheyne! I think her philosopy is gold. My DD is now 17mo and a different child because of her advice. I can't praise her holistic approach highly enough. I realise all babies/ toddlers are different but her ideas are logical and sensible and I believe would apply to most children.

I must have read near 50 books on sleeping and her philosphy is the only holistic approach i.e. tackles sleep in relation to the rest of a child's day - eating, behaviour etc I bought the 'No Cry' books and the 'Save Our Sleep' (more routine focused books). To be honest, I got jack of the no cry/ gentle stuff. It just didn't work for my LO. A more structured approach was key. I don't believe in CC (as does Sheyne). Rather I believe in really listening to a baby's cries and interpreting them correctly. I know when my LO is crying out of the desire to have company or because she's over-tired versus when she's sick or has a genuine emotional need. Because she doesn't wake very often I know that when she does, it's out of a genunine need. Sheyne's philosophy helped me grasp this with confidence. I now get the sleep I need to be a better mum to my DD. My DD is also a healthier, happier child.

In the end we're all going to disagree, but I can only say what worked for me and I have no hesitations recommending her book to anyone. She is the reason I'm now pregnant with number 2...I thought my DD was going to be an only child!

[Bec1]

Hi Prama,

To answer your question, Sheyne has a 99 percent success rate for her personal visits. Obviously reading the book is very different to having her there. As far as babys needing routines, well I agree each baby is different and some just go with the flow and some don't (mine unfortunatley). All I can say is my kids have been so much happier after being on the routines. Some of the previous comments have made it sound like I wanted the routines so i could go out clubbing or something (errr) but was searching for someone with answers, and for me and lots of others she was the only one that worked. I'm certainly not saying that it is the only solution but people often come to Sheyne after they have tried everything else. And yes it is common with Sheynes method for babies to sleep thru first night. i've been to sleep school and certainly not the case there (i'm still racked with guilt after going there I can assure you).

Just thought it might help someont to know she helped me. You can contact sheyne on her web site but if you are stuggling then let her know as she does prioritise.

Again, hope this helps. please, no judgments for trying to do the best for my family.

[lily'smum]

As a mother to a 10 month old DD with serious sleep issues and a physio I have to put my 2 cents in!!!

We call this book the bible at Mum's group, it really helped our family get on track. I don't have to follow the routines religiously now, I am more able to allow DD to find her own groove, but when she gets lost or overstimulated and tired I am able to use the same reliable winding down technique to give her the sleep she needs.

Other books and techniques I've tried (and I've tried them all!!!!!) left me physically ill. But this book makes you role play for a week first and work on communicating with your baby so that when it comes time for "sleep training" it's not such a shock to bub. Honestly, there was MUCH less crying for us using this method than with attachment parenting, CIO, NCSS, babywise or tresilian(3 times). I never wanted DD to sleep I just wanted her to be happy when she was awake, for everyone's sake!
DD develops very strong sleep associations and would wake every 20 minutes if I rocked, fed etc to sleep. It got to the point that even she had worked it out and work scream and push me away when she woke. But on the other end of the spectrum she would not cry to sleep and it broke my heart trying
Sheyne's main message is don't fix what's not broken, so you don't have to use a routine unless you need to. She is also pushing the balance in the day affecting night, and this really rings true with us, if DD doesn't eat well (solids and BM) she doesn't sleep well and if she doesn't sleep well she doesn't eat well etc etc etc.

Yes, every baby is different, but actually so is every ankle. Each ankle has a different mechanism of injury, different capacity, endurance, needs to do different things (ie granny vs elite athlete).The difference is a baby is dynamic and ever changing and growing. At least this book recognises that.
I don't claim to be the best physio because I've sprained my ankle (and physio didn't work, I needed a recon) and I also don't claim to be the best mother just because I've had one baby! My point here is sometimes you need to refer on in order to get the best outcome. If you do your research (as you are now!) you'll prob find Sheyne has spent a lot of time with a lot of different bubs, and that's good enough for me. I was at the point where I would try anything and I'm so glad I did.
I find this technique doesn't lock us into a set routine for age scenario, as DD needs much less sleep than your average bub. It certainly hasn't got us sleeping through. But, that wasn't what we were looking for. All I wanted was a happy baby and that's what this method achieved for us. I'm not saying it will for you... But maybe if you've tried everything else and nothing has worked it's worth a shot if it makes your family happier all around?

In a nut shell I'm sold and it was much gentler than ANY other advice, book, method I have tried. Geez I should ask for some sort of commission for this promo!!! I am passionate because it changed my life big time and turned 2 screaming messes (me and DD) into happy laughing silly happy people.

Also, is it necessary to crucify one another on our opinions. I would assume most people asking questions on here are looking for help from people in similar situations. Shouldn't we be able to respect other people's opinions and support those looking for help? I thought that was the point? After all we're all struggling blindly through motherhood, where's the comeraderie?
Preparing self for onslaught of abuse now!

[amyhunz]

I had to say..."well said Lily's mum"! Very happy for you that you found something that worked.

I had forgotten all the stuff on communication. Sheyne is very big on this. And it does honestly make a difference. Just yesterday I left DD with HB without saying goodbye and she cried and cried. If I'm honest with her and say goodbye it's not nearly as dramatic. This is just one example of what Sheyne recommends with communication. It's now 2nd nature in our house (most of the time!) but it took a while to get there.

Anyway...all the best everyone. In the end we're all going to parent the way that works for us...I've learnt not to whinge about something unless I'm prepared to take on other people's suggestions and try...so if you're happy with the way things are, like Lily's mum said, why fix what's not broken? But for those looking for change...Sheyne really made a difference in our house :-)

[clairekerzner]

Hi guys,

Just reading through this thread, and I felt compelled to toss my hat in the ring in support of Sheyne Rowley's Dream Baby Guide.

I tried seven different sleep schools/ systems in my 14 month odyssey to get my daughter sleeping, including Ngala, which is the WA government-endorsed mothercraft centre (where they seem to advocate only for crying it out, except they tell you that's not what it's called- sticking my screaming baby in a cot in a strange place and walking out for three hours sounds pretty much like crying it out to me).

Anyway! My daughter was until a fortnight ago breastfeeding eight times a night, and still co-sleeping, though I was keen to transition her to her own cot. I've gone back to work in the last couple of months and I was dying from exhaustion- we just couldn't keep going like we were. I found the Dream Baby Guide after a friend of my mother's reported magical one-day results, and after I read through Sheyne's (very extensive) discussion of her philopsophy on her website, I decided that her approach fitted well with me. It's all about teaching your child to accept your guidance, and showing them what you expect of them before you even put them in the cot by doing role playing with a teddy/ having fun play sessions to show them the cot is a safe place/ etc.

We've spent a good couple of months putting into place the daily behavioural changes- particularly around eating and nappy changes, where we were having lots of trouble- because we didn't want to rush things. And a fortnight ago, my husband put my daughter down in her cot for the first time in eight months plus, patted her tummy (not part of the Rowley routine, but we could live with the addition since before then she'd almost never gone to sleep without breastfeeding), and she went to sleep without crying *once*, and slept straight through the night.

Honestly, I couldn't believe it. But it's exactly 11 nights later, and she's asleep in her cot right now (as every night since the first one) after putting herself out without the tummy pats. She's also been having a 2 hour nap in her cot during the day, which I couldn't even imagine before now.

Anyway! I think the other parts of the Dream Baby Guide (eating/ nappy changes etc) actually helped us more directly than the sleep part- but the whole philosophy is sound. If you teach your child what you expect, there might still be tears, but they'll only be of protest instead of real sadness.

I recently wrote a detailed blog post about all the sleep solutions we tried, and what finally worked for us. If you're interested, you can find it here.

[amyhunz]

Wow Claire! What a fantastic story and testimony to the work of Sheyne I quickly read your blog...great tips and it seems we've read alot of the same material. I think you nail it when you talk about RESPECT through COMMUNICATION. That's where I found Sheyne's material different from all the other 'sleep solutions'. Not to say that the other books don't have good things to say. They just don't provide as broad a picture as Dream Baby Guide.

Interpreting cries is another aspect I like about Sheyne. She doesn't say 'your baby won't cry if you try my method'. In fact, she says the opposite. There will always be crying when you're implementing something new. Humans don't naturally like change, particularly toddlers! But the key is knowing what type of cry - is it a protest or a genuine emotional need? At 19mo if my DD cries it's 90% a protest rather than genuine emotion. I found this hard to work out in the early days but Sheyne encourages stopping, listening and working this out for your bub.

Anyway, thanks for your post and all the best for the future.

[clairekerzner]

Happy to say that one month after Sophie started sleeping through the night in her own cot, she's still doing it every single night. We've had maybe two or three nights in the last month where she's woken up once, and on those she's gone straight back to sleep with just a quick back pat and her verbal cues.

We've only had one night where it all went wrong and she went to sleep at 7:30, woke up three times before 10:30, and ultimately wouldn't go back to sleep without being in bed with me- but it turned out her eighth tooth had broken through her gum during that night, and the next night she slept straight through again.

Anyway! It's a very consistent, long-term miracle we're having here. I didn't mention in my original post, but Sophie was born with severe brain damage after birth asphyxia. Despite a month in intensive care and a very bad prognosis, she's been a complete miracle and today is 100% healthy and up to date with all of her milestones. Still, all that had a big impact on our willingness to let her cry- we just couldn't do it after all the trauma we/ she had been through at the start.

The nurse at Ngala, when I explained this background to her, stared at me for a minute, then asked, "Do you actually want to be here, or did your husband talk you into coming?". When I agreed to leave Sophie screaming her head off for almost a full hour, she told me that all her crying was just angry crying, and asked me why I was still upset when my baby wasn't (to me, furiously angry is just another kind of upset, something that Sheyne Rowley acknowledges and tells you how to deal with).

I can't really say enough bad things about our Ngala experience- and I still didn't get the difference in the types of cries until I got the Dream Baby Guide. A bit sad that it took a book to teach me something that an in-person clinic attendance couldn't.

[amyhunz]

Claire - Unfortunately I witnessed the same thing at a public hospital day stay when my DD was 5 weeks. Luckily it wasn't my DD but another couple (poor them). The 4-month old baby boy screamed for 4hrs before giving up out of pure exhaustion. The parents were young teenagers and honestly didn't know what to think but I can stab a guess that the 'routine' went out the window when they got home! It was sad to watch.

I recently had the priviledge of hearing Sheyne in person and she mentioned during her talk that she has submitted her work to the State Govt and they are assessing it for implementation/ roll out across the State in every Day Stay or longer-type facility. I thought this was excellent news!

So we can only hope that things might change...and in the meantime keep sharing our success stories with as many who want to listen :-)

[BellyBelly]

At 19mo if my DD cries it's 90% a protest rather than genuine emotion. I found this hard to work out in the early days but Sheyne encourages stopping, listening and working this out for your bub.

I just wanted to make sure I understood this point, as I have been thinking about it and it is troubling me. So by saying this, do you mean that 90% of the time when your little one cries, it's not for a genuine or emotional need or reason, it's a 'protest' and needs to be dealt with differently?

Aside: I am very aware that a few NEW users (who haven't even introduced themselves in the main introduction thread or posted elsewhere) are coming in here and raving and singing Sheyne's praises... this thread is being watched closely and anything seen to be promoting or pushing products will be removed.

[amyhunz]

Hi Kelly, thanks for asking for clarification :-) To be honest, my DD hardly ever cries. If she does happen to cry going down it's an over-tired cry. So I probably used the wrong terminolgy but to me she's protesting because she's tired and doesn't know how else to express herself.

If she wakes in the night (rare) I always attend because it's a rare occurence. Although I tend to wait a minute to see if she's transitioning between sleep cycles (usually just cries out rather than a real cry) or if it's a real hearty cry - I always attend this cry. Usually she's sitting up and just needs a cuddle - seems like she has the occasional bad dream.

I was really just trying to make the point that listening to cries rather than treating them all the same has really paid dividends for me. I have a DD that sleeps really well and because of that, rarely cries making it easy to work out what's going on.

Hope that helps. Sorry if I misrepresentated myself by saying that...

[skeetaboat]

I was dubious when I first saw this thread pop up because of the number of rave reviews by brand new users, but have since read (some) of the book (my mum lent it to me), and so I wanted to put my two cents in..

I have found Sheyne's communication priciples really good for dealing with my toddler. He's a lot more co-operative and we have fewer tantrums because I'm communicating with him better and he knows what we're doing, what I expect, what's coming up, yada yada. I think the communication philosophy fits in well with the P.E.T stuff.

We've yet to implement the sleep stuff, because bubs is under 6 months and toddler is heading towards 3 (its recommended for 6mo-2yo). But I will give it a go with bubs when she's old enough because after 2 years of being BF'd to sleep and the last 8 months of being cuddled to sleep, the nearly-three year old still requires us to be there until he falls asleep (which we actually don't mind), and wakes up screaming if no-one is there with him (which we do mind, especiallly coz it's happening 4 times a night, and is pretty distressing for us all). It's like he can't fall asleep without us there, and I'd like to avoid that with the next bub. I have tried Sheyne's general philosphy with bub a couple of times - wrapping, rocking for a few minutes and putting her down awake, to be pleasantly surprised that it worked - 5 mins later DD is asleep (not exactly what she says to do but close enough) it never occurred to me to give her the chance to try to fall asleep on her own before, because my firstborn was so insistent on human contact to fall asleep. Other times I've found that after being put down wrapped and awake, DD will sort of talk to herself for about 10 minutes but go the other way and start to get unsettled and wriggle out of her wrap instead of settling down to sleep. I think it depends on how ready for sleep she is.. plus she's used to being fed or rocked to sleep, so I guess it's not going to work all the time at this stage and I'm really just experimenting to see what works ATM. I will give it a proper go when DD is old enough and see if it works for us.

So there's my 2 cents. If anyone has any suggestions for how to stop DS waking up screaming at this age, I'd love to hear them!

ETA: added info..

[clairekerzner]

Hi Kelly,

I guess I'm one of those inconsiderate new members- I apologise, but I didn't actually realise there was a place to introduce myself. I arrived at this thread through the sitemeter on my blog- a common search term entered into Google had brought someone there and also here, so I thought I'd check it out and contribute my experience.

Like I said before, I've tried about six other sleep books/ methods, I've talked about ALL of them and what I did and didn't get out of them, and I decided to comment on this particular thread because the Dream Baby Guide is the method that worked for us in the end.

I'll go track down the introduction thread. I came across helpful BellyBelly threads heaps of times while I was pregnant and looking for information- it's a great site.

EDITED TO ADD: I can't actually find the introduction thread. Where should I be going for that?

Claire

[amyhunz]

Maybe I should make it clear that I'm in no way professionally or personally affiliated with Sheyne. Although I think she's a nice person, I don't know her from a bar of soap!

I guess when you find a method that works for your bub it gets you excited. Like many others I did a heck of alot of reading and this method was the only one that produced consistent results that didn't involve me having a breakdown in the process.

Sorry if it seems like I'm 'pushing' her product but I'm really just expressing what worked for me :-)

I also realise that allowing a baby/ toddler to cry at all really rubs some people the wrong way. I acknowledge that everyone is different and that you will parent to what you can tolerate. I don't judge my friends that parent this way and never offer advice unless asked. I guess I saw this thread as an opportunity to provide feedback on a book that is new to the market :-)

Hope that clears things up.

[onthefly]

You can introduce yourself here.

[BellyBelly]

I don't have a problem with babies crying, sometimes no matter what you do, they will cry... but what I WAS concerned at, is the 90% thing, which is why I posted. I haven't put down anyone or accused anyone here. I think it's important to clarify these things, as if someone came and read it and thought, well maybe my baby is just protesting 90% of the time, maybe I should comfort him much less etc. On the internet people tend to self-diagnose, in moments of weakness be easily influenced and take stuff on desperate for answers, and I feel a sense of responsibility for making sure things are clarified and explained as best possible to avoid distressing problems.

[Heaven]

I know when my LO is crying out of the desire to have company or because she's over-tired versus when she's sick or has a genuine emotional need.

What I don't understand is why is the need for company not 'a genuine emotional need'????

It certainly is for me, and if I wanted a hug but my DH decided that wasn't a genuine need I think I'd be pretty upset too.

[amyhunz]

If you want to pick up your baby when you feel the need, then by all means! I did this for quite some time and it led to sleepless nights and a very cranky baby and mum. Not to say that this is the case for all, but it was for me. I had to learn what was her just 'winding down' and her just wanting social company. Keep in mind that she's now nearly 20mo and it's more obvious at this age what the crying is about (well, I've found this). Please don't judge me...I have a happy, healthy child. I think whatever you want to do is fine! Ultimately you have to be comfortable in your own skin with your decisions.