Preachin' the Baby Wise

On Becoming Baby Wise: Give your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep by Gary Ezzo and Robert Buckman

When to use:  Read within 3 months of delivery…any sooner, you will forget by the time the baby comes…I referenced it multiple times after L was here.

I know the old school generation rolls their eyes at all the parenting books out there.  I have to admit, they do have a point.  There are a ton of them! I found the more I read, the less I knew.  There is so much conflicting information especially about establishing a sleep routine.  

Having said that, I think that our generation has always had easy access to information.  We are used to googling whatever question we might have and instantly having the answer.  I wanted one source for reference to keep it simple.  I found that the Baby Wise (BW) book worked very well for us.  I found it the simplest to read and it gave me a great structure to start with.  The basic premise is sleep, eat, play and repeat.  


I followed the book pretty closely and L has been a really easy baby so far...She slept through the night around 8-10 weeks and has only woken up twice in the night since I went back to work 4 months ago.  Would she be the same way if we would not have followed the BW method?  Who can say for sure?  What I will say is when we have a day when the BW routine is off for whatever reason, L is a mess.   So, now, I am a preacher of the Babywise.

Looking back, there are a few times I felt frustrated with BW.  Here is a heads up to help ease any of your own frustrations:

• Around 6-8 weeks all of my BW following friends (including myself) had major issues with naps...The babies just quit sleeping during the day and were crying a lot more.  Although the book  pretty much is right-on for other things, I could not find a place in the book that explained nap disruption very clearly.  I was about to ditch BW all together.  This phase passed, and I am pretty sure she was having one of her first major growth spurts.  Hang in there!  It only lasted 3 days or so with L.  They were rough for me, but they passed and we got back to the BW routine.
• Nap times are still hard to master exactly the way BW explains it.  L is now 6.5 months and I do the best I can.  It seems to work fine. 
• It took until about 10 weeks until L was waking up happy (not crying).  I think she just needed time to trust her surroundings and know that I would come get her when it was time to wake up.  Now she sits quietly in her crib when she wakes up. 

I will say I have only read and implemented the first book in the BW series.  I have read the pre-toodler BW and will keep you posted on the implementation of it.

Let me know if you have any other questions about BW...I am happy to help!  I have also referenced a great blog called Chronicles of a Babywise Mom.

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