The Happy Sleeper: The Science-Backed Guide to Helping Your Baby Get a Good Night's Sleep-Newborn to School Age

UPDATED IN 2024

Many parents feel pressured to "train" babies and young children to sleep. But kids don't need to be trained to sleep--they're built to sleep. Sleep issues arise when parents (with the best of intentions) over-help or "helicopter parent" at night, overshadowing their baby's innate biological ability to sleep well. In The Happy Sleeper, child sleep experts Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright show parents how to be sensitive and nurturing, but also clear and structured so that babies and little kids develop the self-soothing skills they need to:

• fall asleep independently
• establish a full, 11-12 hour night of sleep
• take regular, healthy naps
• grow into natural, optimal sleep patterns for day and night. 
  
  

The Happy Sleeper is a research-based guide to helping children do what comes naturally--sleep through the night. 

The Happy Sleeper features a foreword by neuropsychiatrist and popular parenting expert Dr. Daniel Siegel, author of Parenting from the Inside Out and the New York Times bestseller Brainstorm.

Heather Turgeon, MFT, is a psychotherapist, a science columnist for the popular online parenting magazine, Babble.com, and a writer for the National Sleep Foundation. Her health and psychology articles have appeared in Salon, The Huffington Post, and The Daily Beast. She is also the mother of two little ones, both of whom sleep happily through the night.
 
Julie Wright, MFT, is one of Los Angeles's best known parenting group leaders and has taught thousands of moms in her popular "Wright Mommy and Me" groups at The Pump Station & Nurtury. She trained at Cedars Sinai Early Childhood Center and co-founded a program for parents and babies, ages 0-3, at the LA Child Guidance Clinic. Julie specializes in attachment theory, infant sleep, and mindful parenting. She also works in a private practice with infants, children, and parents, and is the mother of a well-rested teen.