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My husband and I both work full time so when I was pregnant with our son (he is now 4) we knew that we wanted to have him on a good schedule and we knew we would need to start shortly after he was born. One of my good friends read Babywise when she was pregnant with her first and had started implementing some of the principles after her son was born. She told me how much she loved the predictability and the routine and recommended the book to me. I think I read the book cover to cover within a couple days – I loved it! I highlighted so many things in the book and put sticky notes in certain spots for easy reference.
A couple weeks after our son was born we began putting some principles into practice to begin a schedule (somewhat loosely at first), but we were pretty strict on the eat, wake, sleep cycle and making sure he ate at the 2 hour, 2.5 hour, 3 hour mark, etc.
Our son was the first grandchild on my husband’s side of the family, and he was the second on my side of the family. Neither of our families were familiar with Babywise and I think a lot of them thought we were crazy. Especially when we would wake our sleeping baby to feed him during the day. However, after we got our son on a good schedule, his days were so consistent and he slept really well, he was generally a happy baby, and people started to comment on how “lucky” we were that he was such a good, easy baby. Some people even told us how “lucky” we were and that we shouldn’t expect that with our next child and we would really see what it was like. I know that we were fortunate that our son adapted to the schedule and thrived on that, and I know some babies may not adapt as well, but sometimes it was frustrating because we felt like our hard work was paying off and most people just said we were “lucky”.
The grandparents loved (and still do!) taking care of him because his schedule was so consistent, they knew what to expect when, and they knew they could count on good naps and overnight sleep (for the most part).
As our son grew up we have continued to keep him on a schedule and even now we are pretty firm with his nap times and bed time. We have had to say no to some family functions, or ask them to move the times around to work around our son’s nap or bedtime, and I think some people think we’re crazy, but that’s not something we’re willing to sacrifice. There are of course exceptions and times where we need to be flexible on nap time or bedtime, but those are pretty rare.
Our daughter was born last July and when she was just a couple weeks old we started with Babywise, just like we did with our son. We were so used to one nap a day with our son and not doing the eat, wake, sleep schedule for awhile so it was kind of a hard adjustment to go back to the infant schedule, but I knew it was something I really wanted to do. We have stuck with it with our daughter and people are saying the same things as they did with our son – she is so well behaved, she’s so happy and alert, and she rarely cries, unless she is hurt. I attribute all of that to Babywise and having her on a consistent schedule and keeping her well rested.
We love Babywise and tell everyone we know about it and how much it has helped us!
Jessica S.
Mom to 4 year old son and 11 month old daughter