I always knew I wanted to use Babywise, and when I found out that everyone whose parenting results I admired was also using Babywise, I was doubly convinced!
The first thing I learned is that it’s harder than it looks! At least for me it was. I started out sticking very closely to getting full feedings every 3 hours and had pretty good success with that. By the end of the first week, my baby girl had her days and night straight (thankfully!) and would go back to sleep after eating in the night with little trouble. But daytimes were a different story. It seemed nearly impossible to get her to sleep when she was supposed to during the day, though I kept her eating when she was supposed to (I could make her eat, but I couldn’t make her sleep!).
To add to her sleeping difficulty, she seemed to have so much gas pain or some kind of digestive discomfort that prevented her from getting to sleep and woke her up early. Finally I found it was an oversupply problem and the extra foremilk was making her gassy. I was able to solve this with block feeding for a couple weeks (thanks to the great help I got in the Chronicles Google Group!). Sleep slowly got a little better, but it still just never happened the way it was “supposed to” during the day. I realized that I may have read Babywise but my daughter hadn’t so I would have to teach her.
We kept working toward getting full naps in at the proper times, and finally when she turned 6 weeks something seemed to click and from that point she would go to sleep on her own and nap well for most naps of the day. It has been that way ever since. (She is 12 weeks old now.) She is so much more happy and contented than I could have imagined she would be. She never cries except to be a little fussy when she is tired sometimes, and she really cries as soon as she realizes I’m about to feed her. She likes her food!
For anyone who thinks that Babywise is following someone else’s rigid schedule for your baby or is based on crying it out, that is so far from the truth! The beauty of Babywise is allowing the parent (not the baby or a book) to be in charge and direct the day to best meet everyone’s needs (including baby’s). And I never did crying it out, first because I knew her cries were from pain and crying wouldn’t make that go away, and second because since 6 weeks I can put her in her crib and she will go to sleep all by herself without crying. Sometimes she has minimal low-level fussing, sometimes not, and if she does I give her a pacifier and she goes right to sleep. She also sleeps through the night now for 8-10 hour stretches.
I work at home, so it is imperative that I am well rested at night and that my baby takes good naps and is contented when she is awake without having to be held constantly so I can get my work done. (To learn more about what work I do at home, you can visit my website http://
I don’t believe that it is necessary to follow Babywise strictly to achieve good results, but what it is beneficial for is to provide certain guiding principles that the parent can apply in the way that works best for them, even if it is different than the way Babywise applies these principles. I am thankful to Babywise for the principles of the eat/wake/sleep cycle, feeding is parent-directed not baby-directed, baby can learn to go to sleep on her own (even without crying it out), getting full feedings, and not extending daytime feedings until sleeping through the night.
Even though I don’t follow Babywise rigidly, I have used the principles in it to guide us and have achieved the desired result of a baby that sleeps through the night, is well-rested in the day, and is perfectly happy and content, a real joy to have in my life.
-Janice
