Take a photo of a barcode or cover
148 reviews for:
On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep
Gary Ezzo, Robert Bucknam
3.32 AVERAGE
148 reviews for:
On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep
Gary Ezzo, Robert Bucknam
3.32 AVERAGE
A few useful tidbits but ultimately didn't seem feasible to me without a lot of misery on everybody's part. I can understand the appeal to exhausted, overwhelmed parents - but not much of this book's descriptions of babies or families seemed familiar to me.
One baby is sleeping through the night, one is not. I think it has as much to do with their personalities as it does with following the tips in the book, but it still had good tips for those who want to teach their children to sleep through the night.
A structure that doesn't work for our reflux baby. We're better off following his cues and not stressing as much
This book is controversial for a reason. It's not so much the idea of putting an infant on a schedule, that usually happens on its own after a few weeks. The biggest issue I think lost people have is that as early as 2 weeks, the baby is allowed to "self-soothe," or cry themselves to sleep. Anyone that suggests letting a newborn cry for up to 45 minutes is a monster. Seriously. This book was written by people with no qualifications, aside from being parents themselves, but who pretend to be absolute authorities. Presenting it as though the child and parents are in a struggle for control, and only good parent will "win." His disrespect for women is clear in his presentation that "emotional women" might have a hard time and their husbands might need to insist on it for the good of the family. Just disregard the biological response and evolutionary reasons that they exist, and ignore your screaming baby until they pass out from exhaustion. The biggest argument that the book makes is that it works and people are constantly complimenting their baby's disposition. However, several testimonials exist suggesting that parents that have used baby wise and regretted it have actually seen a decrease in the eye contact that their child was making and basically that the baby just gave up on trying to convey his/her needs. Look, if you care more about your baby not interfering with your life and sleep, just get a dog. Your child deserves better.
I found this book really helpful - and hope to be able to use what I learned once the baby gets here!
Several friends recommended this book to Simon and I when we were pregnant with Quinn, but I was skeptical based on the conflicting reviews I'd read. In the end, I didn't read it until Quinn was almost four months old. In fact, this is the first baby/parenting book I've read since he was born! And honestly, I'm kind of glad I didn't read anything during the first few months. I was already getting so many different opinions and snippets of "helpful advice" from everyone on the planet (parents, friends with children, our landlord, old ladies on the bus, random college students, etc) and it felt surprisingly liberating to enter parenthood without feeling like we had to do something a certain way, or that we were failing because our baby wasn't doing something by a certain age.
Quinn started teething at 3.5 months and I was thoroughly unprepared. Despite copious amounts of teething gel and a special teething dummy, I wad feeling stressed out and drained. Quinn has never been good at napping, and for the past two weeks, he's only ever napped on me, which means I can't actually do much while he naps. After two weeks of this, I was determined to get him into some sort of napping routine, where he slept in his own bed. He likes his bed at night, so this shouldn't be so hard, right? And since he wasn't napping, he was irritable and crying all the time, and often I found myself feeding him to get him to calm down, even if I knew he wasn't actually hungry. Cue more exhaustion, as mummy is burning far more calories than she's putting into her body. I've lost 7lbs in the last month, and that's on top of my baby weight. Something had to change.
In desperation, I finally found our copy of Baby Wise and speed-read it over the course of a few hours. Despite my initial scepticism, I was hopeful about the idea of getting Quinn into more of a feeding and sleeping routine. And while I will admit that there are some helpful nuggets of advice in this book, the general tone is very off-putting. Probably the most useful thing for me was the reminder to feed Quinn on each side at each feeding, even if it meant waking him up--I'd been so desperate for him to sleep that I frequently let him fall asleep at my breast after only a short feed, which then resulted in a short nap and irritable baby. Purposefully giving him longer feedings has resulted in him going longer between feeds and generally being happier, and one hour-long nap in his bed! Woop!
But Quinn just isn't a Baby Wise baby. BW says that demand-fed babies don't sleep through the night, especially if they co-sleep with their parents. Quinn was demand-fed for the first four months of his life, and we co-slept until he was six weeks old, and sometimes we still let him sleep in our bed if we're particularly tired or he's particularly upset. Quinn has slept through the night most nights since he was seven weeks old. He doesn't sleep quite as long as BW says he should at this stage (he usually does 7-9 hours a night, rather than 11-12) but he established his night-time sleeping routine all by himself. In fact, he can put himself to sleep at night without crying--contrary to the BW suggestion that we let him cry himself to sleep without checking him for the first 20 minutes. In short--we achieved the desired outcome of this book (a baby who sleeps through the night) in spite of (or maybe because of?) co-sleeping, demand feeding and not having any daytime routine.
Also, apparently babies should sleep, be fed, have some awake time, then sleep again. I've tried this with Quinn, but it's just not his natural routine. He wakes up, plays for a while, then feeds and goes back to sleep. Personally, I don't feel the need to change this.
If the Baby Wise routine works for you and your baby, go for it! I was hoping for some decent advice on getting Quinn to take more regular and longer day-time naps, but aside from making him cry it out, I didn't find anything useful in this book. There's some reasonable advice on breastfeeding and getting the most out of your baby's feeds, as well as guidance on how long they should go between feeds. Yesterday Quinn managed 2-3 hours between his feeds, but today he was irritable because of his teeth, so if we managed a whole 2 hours, I was happy! Sometimes it's not just a case of what suits your baby, but what suits your baby on a certain day.
Ultimately, I'd say take from this book what you can--and research their facts elsewhere. There's a lot of scaremongering in this book about co-sleeping, as well as some absolute statements about attachment parenting (e.g. if you demand-feed your baby and wear him in a sling, he'll never let you put him down). There seemed to be a lot of Baby Wise vs. Attachment Parenting comparisons in this book, so if you fall somewhere in between these two extremes, you mind find yourself in the same position as us.
Quinn started teething at 3.5 months and I was thoroughly unprepared. Despite copious amounts of teething gel and a special teething dummy, I wad feeling stressed out and drained. Quinn has never been good at napping, and for the past two weeks, he's only ever napped on me, which means I can't actually do much while he naps. After two weeks of this, I was determined to get him into some sort of napping routine, where he slept in his own bed. He likes his bed at night, so this shouldn't be so hard, right? And since he wasn't napping, he was irritable and crying all the time, and often I found myself feeding him to get him to calm down, even if I knew he wasn't actually hungry. Cue more exhaustion, as mummy is burning far more calories than she's putting into her body. I've lost 7lbs in the last month, and that's on top of my baby weight. Something had to change.
In desperation, I finally found our copy of Baby Wise and speed-read it over the course of a few hours. Despite my initial scepticism, I was hopeful about the idea of getting Quinn into more of a feeding and sleeping routine. And while I will admit that there are some helpful nuggets of advice in this book, the general tone is very off-putting. Probably the most useful thing for me was the reminder to feed Quinn on each side at each feeding, even if it meant waking him up--I'd been so desperate for him to sleep that I frequently let him fall asleep at my breast after only a short feed, which then resulted in a short nap and irritable baby. Purposefully giving him longer feedings has resulted in him going longer between feeds and generally being happier, and one hour-long nap in his bed! Woop!
But Quinn just isn't a Baby Wise baby. BW says that demand-fed babies don't sleep through the night, especially if they co-sleep with their parents. Quinn was demand-fed for the first four months of his life, and we co-slept until he was six weeks old, and sometimes we still let him sleep in our bed if we're particularly tired or he's particularly upset. Quinn has slept through the night most nights since he was seven weeks old. He doesn't sleep quite as long as BW says he should at this stage (he usually does 7-9 hours a night, rather than 11-12) but he established his night-time sleeping routine all by himself. In fact, he can put himself to sleep at night without crying--contrary to the BW suggestion that we let him cry himself to sleep without checking him for the first 20 minutes. In short--we achieved the desired outcome of this book (a baby who sleeps through the night) in spite of (or maybe because of?) co-sleeping, demand feeding and not having any daytime routine.
Also, apparently babies should sleep, be fed, have some awake time, then sleep again. I've tried this with Quinn, but it's just not his natural routine. He wakes up, plays for a while, then feeds and goes back to sleep. Personally, I don't feel the need to change this.
If the Baby Wise routine works for you and your baby, go for it! I was hoping for some decent advice on getting Quinn to take more regular and longer day-time naps, but aside from making him cry it out, I didn't find anything useful in this book. There's some reasonable advice on breastfeeding and getting the most out of your baby's feeds, as well as guidance on how long they should go between feeds. Yesterday Quinn managed 2-3 hours between his feeds, but today he was irritable because of his teeth, so if we managed a whole 2 hours, I was happy! Sometimes it's not just a case of what suits your baby, but what suits your baby on a certain day.
Ultimately, I'd say take from this book what you can--and research their facts elsewhere. There's a lot of scaremongering in this book about co-sleeping, as well as some absolute statements about attachment parenting (e.g. if you demand-feed your baby and wear him in a sling, he'll never let you put him down). There seemed to be a lot of Baby Wise vs. Attachment Parenting comparisons in this book, so if you fall somewhere in between these two extremes, you mind find yourself in the same position as us.
The family of the people who wrote this won't follow it. Babies have become gravely ill when parents have used this book. There were lawsuits a number of years ago. I read it and was appalled. Every copy should be burned.
Have a consistent start feed and last feed of the day. That will hopefully change my life. Will update stars depending on results.
Read this book strictly for informational purposes and have not attempted the techniques prescribed with my children. I found this book to contain errors, pretend examples, and it used tangential science as if it were proof. While the techniques may work, the author sounds like an ignoramus.
Some of the book is helpful and some of it not so much... pick and choose because it can be very rigid at times.