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.