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Anyone Reading Babywise?

Lbarron915Lbarron915 member
in May 2014 Moms
I was given Babywise as a gift, and I'm trying to read it in small bits and pieces while I can. I'm sure that later in the book, this gets explained further, but who knows when I'll have time to read it again! :)
It says in there that they encourage the cycle of "eat, play, sleep" which is different than what many others recommend. I've heard great things about the book, so I'm willing to give it a shot, but my question is - If baby gets used to playing (or staying awake) after eating, wouldn't he want to stay awake in the middle of the night after his feeding too? We are down to one feeding in the middle of the night (actually, about 4am) and I worry that if I try to implement the the Babywise suggestions, he won't want to go back to sleep after that feeding, and we will end up staying awake much longer than necessary. 
Anyone know about this or have any suggestions?
(I am not 'sleep training' him yet. I feel that he is too young, but I will be trying to start some of these principals soon. So any help would be great)

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Re: Anyone Reading Babywise?

  • momo214momo214 member
    Mine is 6weeks and I started reading it after being given it by a friend. I was feeding on demand which was pretty irregular, sometimes 30 mind, sometimes 3-3 ½ hours apart. I started trying to loosely implement the feeding plan in the book with fantastic results. I'm not strict about waiting a full two hours if baby's hungry but I've also been more cognizant about checking to see if she's hungry or just fussy. She was only sleeping for 3 hours between feedings and is not up to 5 hours. With that said I also am not strict about eat play sleep. I try but if she's out after eating I let her sleep the we play. My LO will go back to sleep no problem at night. I will not I've only read about half the book. I read up about the feeding schedule online instead and saw lots of mixed reviews which is why I loosely follow it. I haven't picked it back up at this time.
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  • spacepotatoesspacepotatoes member
    edited June 2014
    For newborns, the play part is not very long and mostly consist of things like diaper changes, talking to them, looking out a window, simple stuff. It just stimulates them enough that they need a rest. Once they start showing signs of being tired, start calming. At night, though, this doesn't apply.

     We have colic issues here that sometimes interfere with this routine but when we can, we try to do it and it works fairly well. We feed on demand, so no schedule. Play lasts 15-30 mins. Sometimes it takes a bit of work to get her to sleep but she'll sleep. We get one or two longer stretches of sleep during the day, the rest are catnaps.
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  • cnbeancnbean member
    I didn't use Babywise with my kids, but I do follow the eat play sleep routine. It works great and there has never been an issue of baby wanting to play in the middle of the night. We just make sure to keep the MOTN feeds really calm and quiet. We have a really small light that we can use if we need it, but a lot of the time we don't even turn that on. I make sure that I don't talk to him or give any cues that it might be play time. Often he hardly even really wakes up during the feed and goes back down without a fuss. Both of my boys are great sleepers and I think a lot of it has to do with this routine. 
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  • spacepotatoesspacepotatoes member
    cnbean said:
    I didn't use Babywise with my kids, but I do follow the eat play sleep routine. It works great and there has never been an issue of baby wanting to play in the middle of the night. We just make sure to keep the MOTN feeds really calm and quiet. We have a really small light that we can use if we need it, but a lot of the time we don't even turn that on. I make sure that I don't talk to him or give any cues that it might be play time. Often he hardly even really wakes up during the feed and goes back down without a fuss. Both of my boys are great sleepers and I think a lot of it has to do with this routine. 
    We do the same. We keep the lights dim starting with the bedtime feed, minimal interaction, whispering if we need to. Aside from the colic lately, we haven't had any issues with LO wanting to stay up at night.

    I'll also add that if she falls asleep after nursing during the day, I don't wake her up. We mostly just follow her lead.
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  • yepyepsmsyepyepsms member
    cnbean said:

    I didn't use Babywise with my kids, but I do follow the eat play sleep routine. It works great and there has never been an issue of baby wanting to play in the middle of the night. We just make sure to keep the MOTN feeds really calm and quiet. We have a really small light that we can use if we need it, but a lot of the time we don't even turn that on. I make sure that I don't talk to him or give any cues that it might be play time. Often he hardly even really wakes up during the feed and goes back down without a fuss. Both of my boys are great sleepers and I think a lot of it has to do with this routine. 

    This is us exactly. Once both kids got over day and night confusion around 4-6 weeks they just eat and go right back to sleep.

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  • Lbarron915Lbarron915 member
    Thanks, Ladies! That was all helpful! 

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  • apinkpelicanapinkpelican member
    I'm considering it. Found the EASY schedule online and tried following for a day or so but the 6 week growth spurt is making life impossible right now. How you get a screaming baby on a schedule is beyond me. I may pick up the book to see if it's something I can try. A friend of mine swears by it.
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  • Lbarron915Lbarron915 member
    @KellyQ116 - So sorry. :(  Thats no fun at all. Luckily, my son didn't have TOO rough of a time at the 6 week mark, but my sister's kids did, and she was the one who recommended the book to me. So - there's hope!! Good luck!

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  • ksyknelvr73ksyknelvr73 member
    We loosely implemented this with DS1 and it worked so awesome. We are starting to attempt the EASY routine with this LO as well and most days he follows it very well but there are days he wants to sleep after eating and I let him, and he doesn't always make it 3 hours between feedings...so if he is hungry then I feed him. But he is 5 weeks old tomorrow and is already giving us a 6 hour stretch at night (usually 9 pm to 3 am), then goes back down after and sleeps until 6:30-7:00.
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    BFP # 2 - 06/05/10 EDD 02/17/11, DS1 born on 2/14/11

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    BFP # 4 - 07/27/13 EDD 04/08/14 - CP 07/29/13

     

    BFP # 5 - 09/14/13 EDD 05/28/14, DS2 born on 5/22/14 

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