Oh, Baby[wise]: Intro
I’m Anna. I’m a first-time mom, and I read Babywise.
If you’re not a parent, you might have no idea what I’m talking about. On Becoming Babywise, by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, is essentially a guide for parents to put their babies on a “parent-led schedule,” with the goal of getting them to sleep through the night at a younger-than-average age. The general idea in the beginning is to have the baby on an eat/wake/sleep cycle of about 2.5 to 3 hours from the start of one feeding to the start of the next.
Of course, this is incredibly controversial, especially since the AAP recommends on-demand feeding and has condemned Babywise in the past. Using a schedule as Babywise recommends has even been linked to failure to thrive in some babies. There are many opinions on why this is the case. Hyper-scheduling is when the parent sets a feeding time in stone and does not budge from it, not taking into account the baby’s hungry cues. Babywise does tell the parent to feed a hungry baby, regardless of the schedule, but it is still regarded as a dubious, if not outright harmful, system by many.
However, the book’s enormous popularity and “success” stories have made it highly accessible, especially, I think, to young first-time moms with a religious background. The Ezzos have a Christian background, and Babywise is the secular version of their Christian curriculum on child-raising, called Growing Kids God’s Way. (Note: The only material from the Ezzos that I’ve read is Babywise, so while I do have opinions on what I’ve heard about their other material, I’ll refrain from commenting since it’s all hearsay to me.)
My son is only 3 months old, and I’m not an expert on baby-raising or Babywise. I’ve been trying to use its routine since he was born, and it’s been somewhat helpful to have a general structure, even on days when we have no specific structure at all. But I’ve been thinking about the whole thing a lot lately, and I want to share my thoughts about it in a mini-series.
Part 1, coming this Tuesday, will deal with things I don’t like about Babywise. Part 2 will address things I don’t disagree with, and things I do like about it. In part 3, I’ll talk about other concepts that have helped me and finish up with some concluding thoughts.
If you have any experience with Babywise, please feel free to share it in the comments section!
I read parts of Babywise, but I wasn’t overly impressed so I went with The Baby Whisperer which I adore. I now have The Baby Whisperer for Toddlers because my gal is one in like 5 days…gulp! She was sleeping through the night with only one feeding at 4 AM at about 3 months. Awesome.
BUT, I’ve heard that Babywise has worked AMAZING for some Moms. I think you have to go by your babies temperament and what you want out of life. I did NOT want to sleep with Gooner and I did NOT want her in our room. 
I wanted her happily sleeping in her room and I wanted sleep. So, we figured it out! Looking forward to your thoughts.
I will be interested in your comments too though I have never read Babywise. I nursed on a schedule for baby #1 and then conceived #2 when she was only 7 months old. So! I nursed #2 when she wanted to and was thankful to the Lord that she was a sort of natural baby spacer (it all depends on what you feel about birth control etc). I hardly slept one single night through until she was around a year old! But I didn’t feel like I suffered any either ~ it seemed my outlook changed and so I was able to handle it without a problem ~ I was happy and thankful that God allowed this to give me a little more time before conceiving #3. He had a little trouble nursing so nursing as he wanted to was a must for my sake! I think there is a lot in personality ~ their personalities tend to start showing up ~ umm ~ before they are born, in my opinion! #2 by the way goes to sleep very well and started sleeping right through the night almost as soon as she stopped nursing (she needed a little firmness for security but that is all). #1 has a hard time falling asleep and has needed more help in that area… she is also very strong willed.
Anyway… looking forward to it!
Hey Anna! You’ve been awarded/tagged over at my blog! 
I LOVED the book! I have 3 kids and followed it step-by-step with #1, then pulled it out with the second two to refresh myself. I am, by nature, a scheduler so this book was for me. As a first-time mom who had no mother herself, I was pretty clueless. I armed myself with everything I could read and asked lots of questions. I read Babywise just one week before my first was born and it covered so much that no one else had mentioned. I had no idea how often babies ate, how long they would eat that way, etc… until Babywise cleared it up for me. I feel like Babywise came to my rescue just in time! I also loved the Biblical approach, and while these men who wrote this book are not perfect, they were careful to approach the subject from THE PERFECT ONE who created all mothers and babies. My hats off to them for many, many restful nights when all of my friends had dark circles under their eyes!
Anna!
You make me so excited to be a mother..some day
AND, you’ve been awarded at my blog! Just for fun Come visit to check out the scoop!
I have ready BabyWise, (with my first so that was 3 yrs ago) and agree with a lot of it. I make a feeding structure for my baby but occasionally give in to feed him early if he seems more hungry, or later if he is taking a longer nap.
I also believe in self soothing to help babies sleep better. It has worked and looked a little different for all three of my kids, but mostly has allowed them to be sleeping through the night (11-12 hr stretches) by 12 weeks of age. Micah now is 9 weeks and sleeps 6-7 hr stretches every night.
I read Babywise and am definitely the routine-type of mom. That being said, putting into practice the advice in this book also contributed to my boys not gaining weight as they should have. Since they were really several weeks premature (although not really premature for twins–born at 37 weeks–I didn’t think of them as preemies) I had to totally “redo” things after they didn’t gain back their birth weight and indeed, had to nurse them every two hours for two weeks to get them on track.
The main thing I took from Babywise was the sleep/nurse/wake/sleep cycle. I’m a firm believer that this cycle helped my boys learn to fall asleep on their own faster without the need to be nursed to sleep, which was absolutely needed as twins.
I have to rave about “Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child” though. THAT was the book that saved my life. The author actually is a proponent of many of the same ideas as “Babywise” but I think it answers MANY more questions (at least it did for me) and has a much kinder tone. I also felt the author was more balanced. He takes all parenting styles into consideration and shares what is his view the best way, but then also gives advice for other parenting views too. For instance, while he’s not a proponent of “the family bed” (nor is that my philosophy) he would still give advice for those who do want that to be their lifestyle. His main issue is healthy sleep habits, no matter what your philosophy, and I appreciated that.
I would really like to read that book. I have heard a lot of good things about it. I agree with you that Babywise seems to say it’s the only “right” way to parent. I’m talking about that in a future post.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Hmm, I haven’t heard about that. I’ll be interested to read your opinions!
[...] be honest, this brought back some painful memories. I wrote about Babywise last year when Christian was a few months old. I was overly influenced by the desire to get him [...]
I read Babywise when my son was 4 months old, and thought “I can do this.” Started using the principals, to my discretion (I nursed on demand through 5-6 months, simply because we had so.much.trouble. the first month and a half of BF’ing, I didn’t want to undo anything, also, my little guy weighed all of 5lbs 14oz when he was born, and has never been a heavy weight. Combine that with First Time Momitis and, well…you can imagine my fears.) The child NEVER slept as a newborn it seemed. He would take 2-3 45 minute cat naps through the day, and was up every 2 hours to eat the first few months, and every 4 hours after that. You can imagine I felt pretty darn good when he started sleeping 4 hours in a row. However, I did start letting him CIO around 5 months, especially when I knew he was just throwing a fit and didn’t need comforted. (That fit throwing sure starts at an early age.) I found a lot of thing that worked for us out of Babywise, but not until later on. I started weaning out night feedings around 7 months, because it was nothing but a comfort for him. After that he immediately started sleeping through the night and has without ever regressing. We’ve never had to re-sleep train. But, I chalk a lot of that up to his personality. He self weaned at 10 months, so I’m really glad I nursed him as he wanted for a long time, or that probably would have happened much sooner. I fully expect this next baby to be completely different! I’m trying to prepare myself for that. Can’t wait to read your thoughts!