Children's Book That Helps Kids Fall Asleep Is Now A #1 Best-Seller

As the mother on an 18-month-old, a book that promises sleep definitely caught my attention.The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep by Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin was published in April 2014, but has become an underground success on parent boards lately causing it to skyrocket in popularity, topping the Amazon bestseller list, and even outselling Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman”.

The author of the 26-page book is a Swedish psychologist and linguist, and uses psychological tricks and positive-reinforcement methods to soothe children to sleep. Yup, just like Goodnight Moon back in the day was written with specific language to help your child to relax and fall asleep.

“The tale gives suggestions to the child’s unconscious mind to sleep,” Ehrlin says on the book’s site. “The Rabbit who wants to fall asleep works perfectly either at naps during daytime or home at night, in a group or alone.”

It’s not the most compelling story. Roger the Rabbit is tired but can’t fall asleep, so he and Mommy Rabbit visit “Uncle Yawn.” Parents are given instructions to yawn throughout the story and emphasize key phrases – all part of the suggestive magic – and they can insert their child’s name into the story too. Plus, characters like Sleepy Snail and Heavy-Eyed Owl give advice on how to fall asleep to Roger  that your kids can’t help but hear.

If you missed that mention of the book being 26-pages long, yes, it is a really long read. Great for those kids that may require a little longer coaxing to get them off to the land of nod. Not great for little ones with short attention spans. It’s supposed to be most effective for kids 2.5-9 years old. That way they’re old enough to actually understand the words and stick with the book, but not so old that they don’t believe in the story.

What everyone wants to know is, does it work? Based on the user reviews on Amazon, it does!

“Both of us were asleep before the book was over. [Definitely] becoming part of our bedtime routine.”

“Our 9 month old daughter has been wild at bedtime, and we’ve tried so many methods of calming her, but this has been the first thing to get her into sleep mode in under 20 minutes.”

“It took almost the whole book, but mine were out – and the one that never falls asleep first (whose name I was using throughout) was sleeping first.”

“We’ve read countless other stories over the past year to try to get them on the same page with a wind down feeling, but nothing has worked except this book.”

And this review came courtesy of a friend of mine, “Worked well the last two nights as well and just got him down for his first nursing free nap. The only problem with the book is that it knocks me out too then I never get to go downstairs and do what needs to get done. lol”

That is one of the things to watch out for: Knocking yourself out! The book does come with a warning to not read the book “close to someone driving any type of vehicle.”

The author was giving the ebook away in an attempt to just get the word and the postive testimonials out there but his website now says that he’s talking to publishers and it’s no longer available for free.