How many times have you read a book or an article on a subject and would like to ask the person who wrote it just a few questions about your situation but can’t.

On the It’s Time to Sleep website all questions are answered by email, either by Rhonda or myself. Since the majority of the enquiries we receive are fairly general you will find that I will respond to most, keeping Rhonda free to do what she does best – settle babies. However, anything a little more complex will be answered by Rhonda.

Not all babies are the same and sometimes you need to have a question answered when starting out, it’s a stressful time and just having the reassurance that you’re doing it right, or the guidance to have someone say you could be doing this wrong, can play a vital part in getting the program to work for you.

Since the release of the video in October 2000 we have answered thousands of e-mails and felt there was a need to produce this accompanying book to answer many of the more commonly asked questions.

Here’s what some of the emails had to say

THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!

We used your program on our 8 month old daughter who WOULD NOT go to bed at night. For 3 months we had been taking her for a drive every night to get her to sleep. Sometimes it would take 5 minutes other times it would take 1 hour. She started waking during the night again as she had forgotten how to settle herself and we were finding ourselves driving through the streets of Blenheim, New Zealand anywhere between 11pm and 3am.

We were sleep deprived, we were barely functioning. We always dreaded 7pm (bedtime). We contacted Plunket (Child Health Nurse Centre) and they put us in touch with your program. At first I was very sceptical, thinking there was no way Megan would do this as she just screams too hard.

WELL, the first night we got up to 8 minutes and she was sound asleep AND slept right through the night. The second night we put her to bed at 6.59pm and she was sound asleep by 7.00pm on the dot right through to 7.45am. The third night (tonight) took a little while longer as we fed her too close to bedtime and she threw up her formula in her cot. We got her up and changed her and the cot, reassured and calmed her down, put her back in the cot and continued with the program and she was asleep by 6 minutes.

This is a fantastic program and I will be recommending it to anyone who needs it.

Once again thank you very much, you certainly have changed a part of our lives!!

Natasha and Jamie

Dear Maree,

After just 20mins using the techniques in the video one afternoon my 7month old daugther has gone from waking for 2 breastfeeds a night to sleeping through from 10:30pm to 6am. She has taken to it so quickly that it was like she was just waiting for me to show her how to sleep by herself. Thankyou for this simple video that gave me the courage to try, we now have a much happier household.

I would like some more information about the date this video was made and is there any research evidence about the technique?

Thanks Linda L.
South Australia

Hi Linda,

Thank you for your terrific feedback, I launched the video in October 2000, we have had fantastic support from the health services in Australia and most baby health nurses use it and also quite a few hospitals use it in their ante-natal classes to teach good habits right from newborn.

These techniques are used in baby sleep centres and one of the oldest ones here is over 80 years old. Rhonda will tell you that when she first learned the techniques they were called "Common sense" it's now called "Controlled comforting".

Kind regards Maree

Rhonda,

If someone had told me this time last week that my daughter would be asleep within 4 minutes of putting her in the cot, and sleeping through the night, I would have told them I was hoping for a miracle.

We have noticed Georgia’s sleep is a lot more sound and she is not thrashing around in the cot. She is also waking up a lot happier (we all are). We honestly can’t believe how quickly she has settled into her new routine, I wish we’d known about your video 18 months ago.

Anyway hindsight is a wonderful thing.Thank you very much for your help and encouragement. I will certainly be passing the video onto anyone I think it will help.

Thanks again

Regards Tracey