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Tell me about Babywise
I admit I was woefully unprepared for parenthood in terms of having read books (other than watching the Happiest Baby on the Block dvd, which was very helpful in learning how to soothe her), and am interested in hearing more about this Babywise book. We are trying to figure out an approximate schedule with Leah, and it sounds like this book could be useful (we haven't been doing "play time," just feeding and trying to get her to sleep). Is it appropriate for use on a newborn, or is it for older babies? What is the basic premise?
Thanks!
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Re: Tell me about Babywise
TTC #2: BFP 12/17/11, m/c 1/7/12 and D&C 1/12/12
baby blog/cooking blog
If I read your siggy correctly, your baby is one week old. That is way too early to even think about setting a schedule, IMHO. Even if it is exhausting, I think feeding on demand is best. This article sealed my aversion to the book: https://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/08/cov_06feature.html
I've read a ton of books, although I should've read them before I had the baby!
I did not read this book, heard negative things about it and since my time was/is very short, I decided to spend it on other books.
I read THE BABY WHISPERER, HAPPIEST BABY ON THE BLOCK, BABY 411, and later, HEALTHY SLEEP HABITS, HAPPY BABY - should've read this one earlier, the concept is that upto about 6-7 mo old, a baby should not be awake for more than 2 hrs, max.
As Jen said, your baby is one week old, sleep habits do not form till about 4 mo old. Feed the baby when hungry, let sleep when sleepy,but do try to make the baby sleep every 2 hrs. Activities - changing a diaper is an activity for a baby, so is tummy time (you can start the day the cord falls off), so is just gazing at you.
THE BABY WHISPERER has a 'schedule' - she calls it EASY - eat, activity, sleep, you (mommy time).
IMHO it is way way way too early to even think about putting your baby on any type of a schedule
I've read most of the major sleep and scheduling books and taken a bit from here and there about what I actually do with DS. So... I'll give it a shot at describing Babywise semi-objectively. (Full disclosure, though: I'm not a fan of Babywise. I read it and even tried some of its scheduling recommendations, but ultimately, I think a baby's schedule needs to evolve over time.)
The basic premise of Babywise is that the parent should be in charge, not the baby. Babywise advocates "parent directed feedings" on a 3-4 hour cycle of eat, play, sleep. The book recommends starting that schedule pretty soon after coming home from the hospital, with some wiggle room for a transition period/regaining birth weight.
I think that the two biggest issues people have with the book are (1) that the book recommends scheduling feedings (with some wiggle room) rather than feeding on demand and (2) that the book advocates scheduling from an early age. My understanding is that an earlier edition of book took a pretty hard line on the timing and that version of the book was condemned by the AAP, which said that following the book's instructions led to failure to thrive in infants. Probably in response to that criticism, the current version of the book allows a little more flexibility and tells you to feed your baby when he's hungry -- and to promptly get back on schedule.
Babywise criticizes feeding "on demand," but the book's definition of "on demand" is feeding the baby pretty much every time he cries, which isn't what most people do. I think that most people who think of themselves as feeding on demand pay attention to the baby's cues and try other soothing options if the baby isn't indicating hunger by his usual cues.
Personally, I think that scheduling based on feedings would be next to impossible if you are breastfeeding, but there may be some people who can make it work. In any case, everything I've read about breastfeeding says that you should feed on demand both to keep your supply up and to make sure the baby is getting what he needs.
For us, what has worked best so far is to sort of let DS's schedule evolve. It's still sort of a work in progress, but I started to see predictability in our day around the two-month mark.
If you're looking to read more about sleep, I particularly liked Mindell's Sleeping Through the Night. Ferber and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child are also worth reading. Mindell, Ferber and Weissbluth all include a sleep training method that includes varying amounts of crying, but they also include a lot of good info. that can help you establish good sleep habits (and hopefully avoid ever having to decide how much crying you can stand). The No-Cry Sleep Solution is OK, but most of the author's advice seemed like common sense to me. (Maybe because it was the third or fourth sleep book I'd read!) I thought that The Baby Whisperer wasn't much different than Babywise, just with a better sense of humor.
I pretty much read the book and took the concepts that made sense to me and implemented them in my own way. My main takeaway from the book was that I started to implement their suggested cyclical approach of eating time, wake time, and sleep time (in that order). The window that seemed to fit best with DD's needs was 3 hours. So, I would feed her at approximately 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm (give or take 30-60 minutes). Plus, I would feed her when she woke up in the night.
I told DH that I would try it for 5 days and see what happened. Well, she started sleeping so much better and I felt much better about having some structure in our lives so we have continued it. We are still on the same 3-hour schedule and she has been consistently STTN for a number of weeks now. With that being said, I think DD's disposition is pretty easy going so I can't only attribute her STTN to the Babywise schedule but I do think that it helped.
I think you just need to take Babywise like all sleep books - use what works and throw out the rest. I didn't get anything new from it that wasn't in other sleep books and the general idea from many of them is Eat Play Sleep during the day and Eat Sleep at night. That said I prefer HSHHC for the broadest help for many sleep issues at various ages.
You can try a schedule and if the baby takes to it, that is great, but I spent way too much time obsessing over Maggie's lack of a schedule as baby. Also pp are right that 1 week old is way too early to expect a schedule. My kids really didn't have a schedule until about 3 months, before that they ate every certain number of hours so we could have an idea of when they would be hungry but nothing was by the clock. With Molly I have been much more relaxed about her sleeping and eating, just doing what was necessary for both whenever she wanted. Only recently have we done any sleep training and that was to get rid of the night wakings when she wasn't hungry.
And yes, HBOTB was a lifesaver for soothing techniques for us too. If I could only have 2 books about babies it would be HBOTB and HSHHC.
As another mother of 2 who read everything out there I agree with this 100%.
I thought BW was too far out there for me.
This. Even when i thought I had DD on a schedule early on, she would change things up. Unfortunately, I think there is a bit of "suffer through it" for the parents in the first couple of months.
I have not read the book because I had read about how controversial it's methods are. I did read the article the PP posted. This quotes were shocking and outrageous to me:
" In the past, "Babywise" co-author Robert Bucknam has suggested that criticism of GFI's child-care programs is based on prejudice against Christians. However, a highly placed source within the AAP says that the fact that the controversial "Babywise" books are produced by a large Christian organization has actually prevented the AAP from taking an even stronger public position against the popular books"
"After babies reach only 6 months of age, parents are instructed to begin punitive disciplinary measures such as "squeezing or swatting" of the child's hands or "isolation" in the crib for "rebellious" infractions including "foolishness," "malicious defiance" or even playing with food on the highchair tray. Ezzo explains to parents that the use of "pain" and "discomfort" can be essential disciplinary tools. After age 2 and a half, children who have a toileting accident are required to clean themselves up."
"Thus, parents are told that they can actually harm a child by too much rocking or holding and that they should, at all costs, avoid "emotionalism" in responding to a baby's cries lest parents be held "in bondage" to the child. "
"The book also relies heavily on GFI's own self-conducted, never-before-published studies. Although the phraseology Ezzo uses to describe GFI's "survey" of more than 500 infants leaves an impression of rigorous medical research, no actual peer review process, as defined by the scientific community, was employed."
Further, some of the accusations against the group that wrote the book, GFI, and it's parenting advice, are horrifying. (last page of the article).
Based on that article, I totally understand why you would say that, BUT I can tell you that I highly doubt that the person who wrote that article has actually read the whole book. And I am also will to bet that he or she never bothered to get in touch with anyone who has successfully used the book.
As someone who read Babywise (the whole thing) and has implemented its recommended schedule, I can say that it does work really well for us. And I would like to point out that I am not some crazy, unfeeling mom who starves her baby or doesn't respond when he cries. We started Babywise at 8 weeks and my son is a happy, thriving baby. And he was STTN within regularly within just a couple weeks and now at just shy of 6 months old he sleeps for 10-12 hours a night.
But like any book/schedule, it won't work for every baby and if you are more of and attachment parenting advocate, it definitely won't be your cup of tea.
Also, it absolutely can work for people who EBF. My best friend from high school was the one who first recommended this book to me because she used it with her daughter who she EBF'd for a full year. Also, another good friend of mine used it with her daughter (who is now 3) and is now using it with their new baby boy.
Again, this is not a magic bullet to make every baby STTN...but I think Babywise gets a lot of unfair criticism. And if you do want more info, Babycenter.com has a Babywise chat board for moms who use those methods. I've found it to be really helpful and it's interesting to see how other moms have interpreted and implemented the recommendations in the book.
I had no idea when I read the book (or mentioned it on the board) that it had such a sordid past and is so controversial. The Salon article that was referenced in this post was written in 1998 and is referring to an earlier version of the book. I must have read the 2006 version of the book which did not contain the awful things that were mentioned in the article, which I agree are horrifying and which I would never promote.
In any case, there are other books out there which have similar concepts regarding flexible scheduling without such a controversial past so maybe try reading one of those instead. Sorry - I didn't mean to open up such a can of worms when I mentioned the book in an earlier post
If you read the book you will see that 99% of that information is completely untrue and taken out of context...that's all there is to it.
You can find a terrible review of just about any baby book out there--that's the nature of raising children. People are passionate about what they believe is the right (or wrong) way to do things.
And I'm not saying this because I'm trying to convince anyone they they absolutely should read and use the Babywise techniques...I'm just defending what really worked well for my baby and several other people I know.
I liked Baby Whisperer - esp. to answer the questions you pose here.
bh - I think that the salon article was based on the earlier edition of the book - and it is true that the AAP issued a warning based on the earlier edition. Some of the quotes that you quoted aren't necessarily claiming to be from the book itself but about its author and his institute.
I'm glad it worked for you, and I know it works for some families, which is great. I have a friend who read it and used the techniques and she has a wonderful, happy, thriving toddler. I do understand that the newer version - the one you likely read and used - is a kinder, gentler version of its predecessor, and I'm glad such changes were made.
That said, I don't think that information about what was in the prior editions and outside information about the author is irrelevant, and shouldn't be dismissed as untrue just because there's a newer edition out there. Everyone should consider the source and perspective of the author(s) of whatever book they're reading for advice. And even if his advice has changed in later editions, the author is still the same as the one who wrote a book about which the AAP felt compelled to give a warning about possibly causing a failure to thrive. That was enough to give me pause, and something that parents should be aware of when they pick up the latest edition of the book.
have you read the book?