Sleep ‘self help’ books: autobiographical evaluations and personal entanglements with reading professional advice books on young children’s sleep. An exploration of the journey through early parenting and managing sleep through two mothers-as-researchers perspectives.

This article reports on two researchers’ experiences of navigating children’s night-time sleep, in relation to reading best-selling parenting books, published by professionals the UK last 20 years. We felt we were ‘getting it wrong’ where so badly wanted ‘get right’ for our children, because they did not sleep like books described: silent, solitary, separate and 12 uninterrupted hours. It was also possible ‘read’ advice without owning own positionality: particular classed, professional identities. Perhaps this is always case research, should ‘treat bias as a resource’ seminal life history work urges. found could but take personally, which tended focus behaviour-orientated strategies within routines rituals around sleep. harness an under-studied approach Early Childhood Reader-Response theory, argues transaction; reader brings personal context text at same time gleaning information from it. Seeing transaction helps us understand how identities feed into reading: readings shape, are shaped contexts.