One of the first parenting baby books I read was Baby Wise. If you have had a baby in the last few years, I am sure you have heard of it. It was recommended to us by one of Todd's friends who had great success with their new baby who was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks old. I was ecstatic about the thought of only losing sleep for 8 weeks and ordered it off Amazon while I was 7 months pregnant.
The reviews on Amazon were overwhelmingly positive and I could not wait to read this miracle book. It seemed like the negative reviews were parents who fell more on the "attachment parenting" side of the spectrum. When I finally got the book, I loved it! I probably read the entire thing in a week. It made so much sense to me!
Ezzo uses a model of eat-activity-sleep to base a schedule of your day around. His theory is that babies who follow an activity-eat-sleep model become snackers and are not getting fulfilling feedings, therefore they won't go for long sleep times. You create a schedule around your baby's feeding and sleeping, as a newborn they are usually 2-3 hour incriminates, that as the baby gets older start to mold together creating an all night sleep and then naps during the day. Even typing this now it makes perfect sense to me, as kids and adults our days are eat-activity-sleep. So starting this as a baby would make it a smoother transition as they grow up. Ezzo is also against creating sleep crutches such as co-sleeping, rocking your baby to sleep and nursing to sleep. The Sleep Wise baby wakes up, has a nice feeding, plays a little and the blissfully drifts off to sleep.
So here is what I think about this book after having Hudson, I truly believe you have to have a baby with a certain disposition for this to work for you. If you have a "high needs" or "spirited" baby (both ways I have read babies like Hudson described) it won't work for you. I am not the only one either. While scouring the web trying to find resources on helping Hudson sleep, I found many mommy blogs who swore by Baby Wise for their babies until one came along who just could not be molded. Styleberry has my favorite blog post on the whole thing and made me feel better about my own Baby Wise fail.
Hudson is going to have sleep crutches, I have accepted that, but Hudson is not the type of baby that you can read their sleep cues and then put them down to self soothe. First off, I couldn't even put him down for the first 2 1/2 weeks of his life and second Hudson doesn't even have sleep cues, he goes from being happy and content to complete mental breakdown. This kid wakes up mad because there isn't a boob in his mouth by the time he starts to stir. If you think that I am going wake a baby up from my breast that has just cried for 45 minutes straight just so they can have an activity (probably me walking them around while they cry) you my friend are crazy. I rock this baby to sleep, I nurse this baby to sleep and I pull this baby into bed at 4 am and throw him on my breast so I can sleep for an extra hour or so.
All in all I really did like to book and I am not saying it will never work for us. During the day I try to follow the eat-activity-sleep but forget it at night. I take the path of least resistance, which is very un-wise in Baby a Wise world. I have come to terms with the fact Hudson won't sleep throught the night for a while, but he has certain needs that have to met right now. It truly is his world Todd and I just live in it. When he gets a little older and can regulate his emotions a little better, we might circle back and try it again.
The book opens up with this description of the opposite of a Baby Wise mom. She nurses they baby to sleep in a dark room then slowly creeps into the nursery and very carefully lays the baby down, taking extra care to not move away too quickly. Ezzo actually says "poor mother" while describing her. Last night as I stood over Hudson's bassinet after rocking him for an hour and gave it a few rocks so he wouldn't think I put him down yet, I had a little chuckle, I did complete something in that book...I am the Baby Wise fail!
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| Excuse this terrible photo (I took it on my Ipad in a dark room while blogging this) but here is a prime example of a baby who fell asleep at 3 am while nursing and I am not about to wake him up |
So tell me, did you have any luck with Baby Wise?
-Mrs.J
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