Rest Assured: The Heart and Science of Nurturing Baby Sleep

by Louise Herbert

A gentle way to get more rest and help your child develop healthy sleep habits

Rest Assured is, thankfully, not another sleep training book. This is a book for parents who want to help their babies sleep while staying true to the instinctual drive for parent-child connection, security, and attachment. Yes, it is possible. Author Louise Herbert—a certified expert in sleep science, lactation, and perinatal and infant mental health—offers a neuroscience-backed approach that supports each child's unique needs and biological development to promote safe, healthy, and restful sleep. Inside, you'll find practical guidance on trusting yourself and your child to find the middle ground between “cry it out” and “wait it out.”

Learn about the biology of healthy, safe, biologically normal infant sleep, and get a how-to guide for supporting natural, healthy sleep in a way that results in easier, more restful nights for the whole family. If you're in need of a way to help your baby sleep well, Rest Assured will ease your stress and equip you to navigate this pivotal parenting phase.

Get practical guidance on infant sleep that aligns with our human drive for connection and secure, thriving attachments Learn about the latest sleep science, what's normal as babies grow, and what they need to start consolidating sleep Support your child's emotional resilience, regulation, and cognitive development If you're struggling with your infant's or toddler's sleep patterns, this book gives you a nurture-based alternative to “cry it out” sleep training techniques.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

Published November 25, 2025

Reviews

[Ashley Kiker]

I am a mental health therapist and have spent the majority of my career working with foster and adoptive families. I specialize in attachment and connection based therapy and parenting. The science and education in this book is so helpful and needed for new parents. The way she wove it with storytelling is beautiful.

Even though I have a career in attachment work, I desperately needed to hear these words as a first time mom. This book made me feel so seen and validated and encouraged. For parents trying to lead with nurture in a world pushing independence, this book is a warm hug.

[Kelli Grubl-Stagner]

I read this book snuggling my baby while she slept and it was just what this mama heart needed. Any of my mom friends, this is such a good read on nurture. 😭🤍

[Liz]

A loving and gentle book for all mothers but lacked any solid advice. I realized I’d have to buy her $99 course on top of this book?! No thanks.

[Nav Patience]

This book is a lot more heart than science. In the storytelling aspect woven through the chapters, each of the mums are cornered by a friend, family member or stranger to endure questioning laden with expectation about their baby’s sleep; positioning them to question and doubt themselves, and their baby. I found this rather negative and (despite publishing in 2026) out of touch with today’s dialogue which has many mums embracing and encouraging contact naps and safe co-sleeping, breastfeeding for as long as possible, and the increasing initiative in parents wanting to avoid cry it out methods to support their babies to sleep.

Whilst there are some practical tips dotted through the book, mostly at the end of each of the chapters, the author’s approach of acknowledging the reader’s hardship (chapter two: “it feels hard because it is hard”) doesn’t provide much strategy or practical support for new parents navigating their journey with babies and sleep (less science). Instead, it looks to provide comfort in telling the reader that what they are doing is okay, even if they feel alone, even if it feels hard - ‘keep soothing, keep comforting, and sleep will come’ (more heart).

If you need some reassurance that everything to do with your baby’s sleep (and perhaps your lack of sleep) is normal, this is a good book to have on hand. If you’re looking for guidance on nurturing and fostering baby sleep - gently and supportively - this book has a few tips, then closes with a QR code which links to paid course options offering baby sleep support.

[Katie]

As the other reviews have mentioned, this book is comforting in some ways but short on practical advice. The summary is, if your baby's sleep is difficult, intermittent, and heavily dependent on mama's soothing, your baby is normal and hang in there, because it will get better in a few years and you'll look back on this time and see how short and precious it was. Which is actually more helpful than it sounds, to some extent, but doesn't give me as much guidance on how to handle split nights, false starts, and short naps as I was hoping (she refers to her website for more specifics, but the only resource there is a paid course). I also felt that the style was a bit repetitive and the little scenarios were way overused. And I think it also bears noting that the book is very much geared towards mothers, only mentioning fathers/husbands very briefly maybe 2–3 times in the whole book. Which makes sense as babies are very much primarily dependent on mothers for many months, but seems to leave a gap in terms of the nurturing and support that dads can provide to both their babies and their wives.

[Allyson]

I am not a fan of self help books, but this one was exactly what my postpartum heart needed. It is so beautifully and graciously written for those of us who have little babies who seem to need extra comfort. You can’t spoil a baby. We aren’t born being able to fend for ourselves. This book helped as a reminder that being a source of comfort is going to help regulate our babies in a world that is so full of dysregulation. I want to be my baby’s peace. Being close isn’t a bad thing and I can now feel more vindicated that my baby knows I am her safe place. I’m choosing not to sleep train in the “conventional” and this book has given me peace that it’s the right thing for both my daughter and for me. I want her to know that she can count on me to be her source of comfort for the rest of my life. The last two chapters in particular made me shed a few happy tears as my baby is currently feeding and napping in my lap. This was exactly what I needed during this season.

[Cassandra]

This book is mostly encouragement to the mother who does not want to do cry it out sleep training, with some interesting science to support it. There is some practical advice in here, but if you’re looking for a step by step plan to better sleep than this book will not meet that desire - her course would probably be better for that.

The main flaw I would state of this book is that it paints being close/attachment/bed sharing as the fix for everything, whereas in my personal experience just because you contact nap/bed share does not automatically mean you have a peaceful sleeping baby. It doesn’t shed much light on what else could be going on under the surface.

[Sophie]

Beautiful, stunning book

I found this book is so validating, and reassuring. It just makes perfect sense to me and has given me strength and confidence to continue doing what feels right (and easy) for me, my family, and my individual baby. Phrases like “a clingy baby is a normal baby” hit exactly as they were meant to. Thank you so much for writing this book. It’s the voice of gentle reason and logic. It’s also beautifully written, and made me appreciate this precious time even more so than I already did. I was full on blubbing at the end! Please write a toddler edition!

[Karla]

A must-read for every new mom.

Louise offers a compassionate, evidence-based guide for understanding baby sleep that centers both science and maternal intuition. Rather than pushing one-size-fits-all solutions, she invites mothers to trust their instincts, honor their babies’ needs, and build a relationship with sleep that is rooted in connection, not control.

This book feels like a steady, reassuring voice in a season that can be overwhelming—reminding moms that they are not failing, and that responsiveness and love are not mistakes, but strengths.

[Corine Turner]

I want to give it 5 stars bc I loveee the author & overall essence of her philosophy. I found this book through her social media. However I found the beginning chapters felt almost unnecessarily negative when trying to relate to the experiences of us moms. I wanted a comfy hug of a book, which did come later. But it took a while to trudge through the initial negativity. I probably wouldn’t have persisted if I didn’t love the author so much, but I’m glad I did bc I ended up loving the latter half of the book.

[Elena Horsnell]

I cannot recommend this book enough! It felt so reassuring, comforting and soothing all at the same time. It gives practical tips (that make so much sense to my soul) on sleeping arrangements for my individual hunny.

And I really liked the prompted pauses that gave me the opportunity to reflect and think about how I feel in certain moments.

Is this a happy coincidence?.. She's having her first independent crib nap, at the time of writing this review 😅 I don't think I'm ready for this next chapter, even if she is 💕

[Jessie]

The book made me cry at times, which I wasn’t expecting. Very nice to have reassurance that I’m not “ruining” my child by contact napping or still nursing through the night. Especially when our first was such a different sleeper. Occasionally the way she spoke as the baby, with all the “mamas” in those paragraphs annoyed me for some reason. But those only happened once at the end of each chapter. If we are blessed with more children I may just need to reread this book during some of those trying times. Highly recommend to pregnant women/moms with new babies!!

[Carrie]

I think I can honestly say this is the most beautifully written parenting book I have ever read. It is a beautiful mix of poetic storytelling mixed with such good informative brain based information. I can’t tell you how many times I cried reading this book. The perfect gift for any new mom. Just beautiful.

[Courtney Ethridge]

This book felt like a giant hug 😭 this book isn’t about sleep training or methods, but it talks about how our babies are wired to sleep and how to best support their sleep by supporting their biology and nurturing them no matter how sleep looks for your family. It was SO GOOD. I recommend to every single mama with babies

[Johnna Boyd]

Such a reassuring book for a mother, father, or loved one of a child who doesn’t sleep through the night. Every chapter was so educational and insightful on the science of sleep in general. I highly recommend for anyone who has a baby or toddler who isn’t sleeping “like everyone else’s”.

[Grace Rugger]

This book was so encouraging & the exact words I needed to hear. Wild how many opinions there are on infant sleep & to have an evidence-based book rooted in biological development was refreshing.

[Steph Ricci]

Can I give it 100000 stars?
This book means so much to me.

[Chloé]

This book felt like a reassuring hug as I read it during nighttime wake-ups with my 4 month old. I used to spiral during those sleep interruptions, wondering whether it was okay to nurse her or rock her back to sleep, especially because my social media feed was inundated with self-dubbed sleep “experts” insisting that she’d have to learn to self-soothe and fall back to sleep independently, otherwise she’d rely on those mom dependent sleep associations every single time and never learn to connect cycles. That advice never felt right to me. She definitely has some ability to connect sleep cycles, because how else do we end up with some long stretches on good nights? And if nursing to sleep is so terrible, why does breast milk change its night time composition to include melatonin to soothe her? And how could anything that makes her drift off so peacefully and naturally truly be bad?

This book helped me take a deep breath and trust those instincts. It calmed my emotions while also backing up every claim with research. It supported what made sense for me and offered gentle tips while not pushing any overhaul of our sleep patterns.

Sometimes the story-style parts of each chapter sounded repetitive, but some so perfectly captured recent experiences I had that I was glad they were there.

This was the book I needed, a reminder that it’s okay to lean in to nurture and to let my baby develop better sleep naturally overtime.

[Reader]

This is the most beautiful book, the way Louise blends education with storytelling is so captivating.
I truly hope all new parents have a chance to read this.