Miles was antsy so I book-shopped in a hurry and came away with two parenting books: The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris (more on that later), and The Sleepeasy Solution by Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack.
I only picked out the latter because it was the one sleep book they had. I'm actually interested in finding Pantley's book but it wasn't there. I've finally decided that Miles is old enough and I am (just barely) self-assured enough to check out some sleep books without wigging out.
I've come to the conclusion that baby sleep books are very much like diet books: they all promise some unique solution that you can only learn if you BUY THIS BOOK!, but they are all pretty much the same with only minor variations that make them "unique." And just like most diet books propose some form of calorie restriction (duh), most baby sleep books propose some form of cry-it-out techniques. Of course they will all claim to NOT be CIO books or no one would ever buy them.
The Sleepeasy Solution is at its core a pretty straightforward "controlled crying" approach, ie, putting baby down awake, checking in on baby periodically, patting but not picking up, blah blah blah. Nothing new there. It has all the standard advice about bedtime routines and choosing a lovey and pacifiers and yadda yadda yadda. I'm sure this approach must work for some babies, because these books wouldn't be so popular if it didn't, but I can now say without fear of reproach by meanie anonymous commenters that I know my kid and this is not the approach for him. Which is fine. His night sleeping is satisfactory to me and I was more looking for advice on naps.
So having poo-pooed the main thrust of the book, I will say there were a couple of aspects of it that I did find both unique and helpful. One thing I ever learned in my baby-related reading is that one does not need to throw the baby (heh) out with the bathwater and assume that if one suggestion doesn't work for you, the whole book is flawed. So here's what I did like:
1. Nap times. There's a lot of conflicting info out there on napping and most of it (I've googled several times) is rather vague. Your kid should be taking X number of naps for X amount of time. Well that's all fine and dandy unless he is NOT doing that! This book is more specific and does some troubleshooting. It lays out sample sleep schedules for each age group of baby, and advises moving naptimes 30 min later if baby is resisting a nap, and if the last nap is creeping too close to dinnertime it may be time to drop one. They allow for "blip" naps - little catnaps taken in a moving car, swing, sling, etc. - as the last nap of the day, which I have never seen in any literature but which totally rings true for me & Miles.
Ironically what I've come away with is that Miles's napping is actually pretty normal and fine, and that he's probably starting to enter what they call a "Yuck zone" when he's almost ready to drop a nap (from two to one) but not quite. Which is why he's inconsistent right now.
2. Night weaning. The approach to night weaning here is, at least to me, novel. All the advice I have previously seen (and heard from our pedi) insists that babies above X months/lbs do not need to eat during the night. This never felt right to me as I could clearly observe that Miles was eagerly emptying both breasts during some of his overnight feedings - surely that was hunger, and surely if I refused him he would a) scream endlessly and b) not get enough milk? To my great relief I finally found a source to agree with me (outside of AP) - this book concedes, as common sense suggests, that babies who eat during the night are hungry during the night.
It also differs on how to address this. Everything else I've read advises you to start night weaning by dropping a feeding, beginning with one the baby least needs, say around 1-3am or so. But this book points out that overnight feedings where the baby either nurses very briefly or drinks just an ounce or two from the bottle, the ones he doesn't need, the ones around 1-3am probably, are for comfort and not food, and therefore (logically) "weaning" from these does not help with the nighttime hunger issue. They recommend weaning from the feedings baby does need, not by dropping them, but by moving them up an hour earlier and feeding less. The idea being, you break baby of the habit of waking up hungry, keep his belly full, but also slightly reduce how much he eats so he'll eat more during the day and eventually night wean. For now you leave the comfort-sucking alone as a separate issue. Makes sense!
Even though I am not having a bad time with Miles at night (aside from teething or the odd rough night), I may try out the night weaning just to see. If I could gently nudge him toward eating more during the day and less at night that would pretty much be a win-win for everyone.
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