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3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
There was some helpful info in this but I took it with a grain of salt.
I took a class by Gary Ezzo and I think the man is crazy insane. I would never recommend anything he writes.
This is actually my second time through it. So glad to be able to read it again before baby comes. Feeling much more prepared and optimistic for good sleep habits this time around! I didn't know about this book until my first son was about 10 months, but after doing the suggestions in this book our days and nights were so much better. A must read for all parents to be!
There are basics in here --use a schedule, feed children more during the day so you won't be up feeding them at night, create good sleep habits. But you'll find those same ideas in any other parenting book on sleep---go read those instead. This one gave me the feeling that a child is something to be molded by the parents, rather than a human being offering his or her own gifts to be discovered. And following this one would mean missing out on some the very best moments of early motherhood---like rocking your babe to sleep or falling asleep with your child on your chest.
In my opinion (obviously), there seems to be a continuum in parenting philosophies with extreme attachment parenting on one end, that fails to give parents enough respect for their needs, and Ecco on the other end, failing to respect infants' needs. I'm much more comfortable with something in the middle, such as The Baby Whisperer.
In my opinion (obviously), there seems to be a continuum in parenting philosophies with extreme attachment parenting on one end, that fails to give parents enough respect for their needs, and Ecco on the other end, failing to respect infants' needs. I'm much more comfortable with something in the middle, such as The Baby Whisperer.
Overall I found this book to be very helpful. I am mere days (hopefully hours) away from giving birth to my first, so I can't say I have put these practices into use yet or could vouch for their effectiveness, but I did learn a lot by reading this book. I find the PDF model discussed in this book to be a good balance between a lot of different theories I have heard, and I think balance is key.
Babywise is not as awful as the attachment parenting crowd would have you believe. I've been trying to read a balanced sampling of books from various philosophies of parenting, and there was a lot in this book that resonated with me, and none of the cruelty and abandonment that I'd heard that it espoused. I think it's another valuable piece to put in my parenting toolkit.
I found the concepts (especially the cycle of eat-play-sleep) to be very useful as we were teaching both our babies to sleep well. The book is well organized (making it easy to use) and contains a lot of useful information. There's also a community of blogs about Babywise that I have found extremely useful and interesting (Chronicles of a Babywise Mom is the first one I followed).
While this book makes some good points (e.g. babies cry for reasons other than hunger...maybe they are tired or overheated), I think it's a little too simplistic. I think parenting is very complex and this book treats babies a little too cookie cutter for me. I do really like the scheduling aspect & found it to be very helpful with my own babies, but the rest of it I think isn't for me (for example it gives you an idea of how long your baby "should" nurse, but babies are all so different! My daughter would nurse for around 35-40 mins, but my son is done in about 10 mins). I think using your mommy sense (like spidey sense) is more useful than what this book tell you to do.
*I must note, however, that I found this book to more helpful as a new mother 2 years ago. Second time around it seems kind of silly but now I have experience that I didn't have then.
*I must note, however, that I found this book to more helpful as a new mother 2 years ago. Second time around it seems kind of silly but now I have experience that I didn't have then.
I think there is valuable information in this book but I have decided that I do not think you can use an instruction manual for a baby. I think that there is a lot of modern rules and regulations which are important if they are safely related but I feel more comfortable and natural relying on my family's advice and sticking to reading fantasy novels.
This book has some good tips, but some of it seems a little extreme. My 3 mo old still wakes once a night to eat, and seems genuinely hungry at that feeding. I’m not going to train that out of her and leave her hungry. Getting into a better nap/eat/activity/nap/eat/activity/etc routine has been awesome for us, but that’s probably the biggest takeaway from this book.