Child Wise Book/baby Wise Books?

I've known many kids raised by this method. By the time they are teens they are nice in front of their parents but act horrible when their parents aren't around. All of the kids that I know who were raised by this method are disrespectful and rude when an authority isn't around. The girls are the "mean girls" who stab their friends in the back. I would think twice before you use this method.

The no-cry sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantley is a good book. Lots of ideas and very clearly tells you that not every child is the same. I used this book the most although I also found good info in the other books mentioned here as well. Each of my boys was different.

I "Babywised" my daughter...it was so beneficial. She was and is a super sleeper. I highly recommend it. However, friends who only implemented a few of the ideas didn't have as much success. There is a chapter on starting late. Good luck!

Do not, do not, do not go the Baby Wise route. The author has no medical training or background whatsoever! Zero! You can not dictate when a baby eats and sleeps. Baby needs to tell you when they are hungry and when they are tired. You help with that by watching their signals, follow their cues and you'll fair far better. The second baby starts showing signs of needing rest you go and start the nap routine. Start a baby that young on the nighttime routine early in the evening-like 6. You have to expect waking sometimes several times per night with the little ones.

I know it's very hard to do but it will be invaluable if you take some time to read up on your own as well. I read 3 different baby books when my high needs son had me at my wits end and it made a world of difference to be able to glean info from them that worked for my family and my attachment style parenting. Dr. Sears Baby Sleep book and The Baby Whisperer and the No-cry Sleep solution. All 3 have valuable info. I took a bit from each to create a sleep routine that worked well.

Jane M has some good suggestions!

The no-cry sleep solution for toddlers and ... - Elizabeth Pantley
is the book all my moms club friends raved about.
Good luck. ( have not heard of your book before.... sorry )

The babywise books are about a parent-led schedule, rather than feeding and sleeping on demand. They are not recommended by the AAP, as they believe on demand feeding is the healthiest for baby.

Things to try: swaddling, co-sleeping, sleeping in a swing, loud white noise, letting the baby sleep on his belly (get a breathing monitor) and making sure the baby is warm enough. I am not an attachment parent-er, but I think at 5 months there's nothing really healthy you can do to "make" your child sleep - but you can make them more comfortable to sleep.

Good luck.

Baby wise is NOT a good parenting book. The AAP recommends against the practices in this book because babies on this system have been known to have Failure to Thrive. It's parent led feeding , etc. It also can make your milk supply disappear.
If you are looking for a book go with the no cry sleep solution. At 5 months he's preping for a 6 month growth spurt. It's very normal for babies to wake up that many times a night.
Please feed on demand , it's the best for you and him. someone doesn't dictate to you when you are hungry or sleepy why should someone dictate it to your little one. Just love him and follow his cues.

There has been new research that shows that allowing a baby to cry it out can cause physical harm to the brain, as well as increase their chances of SIDS and other problems.

Please look through the articles in this link:
http://www.drmomma.org/2009/12/sleep-training-review-of-r...

If your baby is waking several times during the night, what is he/she seem to need? Is this waking and crying for hours, or just waking and going back to sleep? Needing to nurse? If your baby is waking and crying uncontrollably, you could be looking at a medical issue like reflux. Talk to your doctor about reflux medicine and see if you notice a change in a couple of weeks. Reflux is VERY painful and lying down makes it much worse, so they tend to cry more at night and not sleep well.

If it's not that, and baby is waking for a drink, look at things like the air being dry, baby being stuffy (nose), allergies - especially if you use scented stuff, etc. And keep in mind that a baby is growing and developing at an alarming rate..... which means they need an amazing amount of calories. Going all night without nursing can cause a drop in blood sugar, and cause baby not to get enough calories.

I think your first step is going to be to see what is causing the problem in the first place. A 5 month old doesn't just dislike sleep.... something is wrong.

Please consider reading another book. This book has been linked to failure to thrive and even death in infants. Even the AAP has come out against this book. Please visit http://www.ezzo.info/Aney/aneyaap.htm for more info about the babywise books.

Love Love Love all of the childwise books! Ihave at least 5 in the series. For sleeping I think they are perfect. I first learned about them 6 years ago when I was pregnant with my first one. It sets you up on a rotational hourly routine I don't have any issues with sleep never have I got my first book before my son was born.I started day one with the routine It started to really work at three month. I really believe this will help. In the meantime sneak a nap in for yourself!! Take care

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends AGAINST these books. BEfore you make any decisions, please go to the AAP website and see why...cases of failure to thrive, dehydration, etc. I don't do any sleep training with my kids, so don't really have any advice, there are just much safer and gentler methods around.

Updated

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends AGAINST these books. BEfore you make any decisions, please go to the AAP website and see why...cases of failure to thrive, dehydration, etc. I don't do any sleep training with my kids, so don't really have any advice, there are just much safer and gentler methods around.

Okay, the only reason that so-called "parent-led feeding" would lead to failure to thrive is if people did NOT do it correctly. Having a schedule for your baby does not mean that you feed the baby only every three hours, never feeding him or her sooner than that. Much the opposite! It means having a set pattern to the baby's eating, playing, and sleeping activities during the day so that you can have a much better idea of what your baby needs when he or she cries. A baby is not hungry every time he or she cries. The danger of the demand-feeding system is that you pop your breast or the bottle in the baby's mouth every hour or two, when the baby is not actually very hungry. The baby then only eats a few ounces - and if he or she is breastfed, that means all the baby is getting is foremilk, which is not going to provide enough calories like hindmilk to keep them satisfied. Which then means they are "hungry" every 1-2 hours, making you exhausted and them gassy (which happens with too much foremilk)! If you do like BabyWise suggests, and feed every 2-3 hours (depending on baby and baby's age), and make sure you give the baby a FULL feeding, then your baby will be satisfied and will thrive, unless there is a special underlying medical condition. A system like BabyWise helps you as a mommy use your God-given ability to judge whether your baby is actually hungry, based on how long it's been since the last feeding. Obviously, if your baby is growth spurting or did not feed well at the last feeding, he or she might need to feed early the next time. This is part of your parental judgment. There is no need for you to let the clock or the schedule completely dictate when you feed your baby; but also there is no need for you to throw out the "baby with the bathwater" and just feed whenever the baby whimpers. I found it much easier to meet my kids' needs when they were on something of a schedule, and we have all heard a lot that all babies and kids do much better when they're on a routine. (That's what eventually helps with the baby's sleep).
As far as the rest of the schedule, next in the pattern of activities is awake time for the baby. When they are newborn there is not a lot of wake time. At five months your baby will have a good amount of play time. After play time comes sleep; you have some good advice here about bedtime routines. Cry-It-Out is not for everyone, but for some moms and babies, it is a life-saver. I also recommend The Baby Whisperer, as well as BabyWise. Even if you just skim those books for the pertinent information, it will be worth your while. Plus, like some have said, I don't agree with everyone in those two books (which is true for almost every book I have read, except for the Bible!). So you have to decide what is best for you and your baby, and throw out the rest. I think everyone comes up with their own conglomeration of ideas that works for their family.
Sorry this is long, but I had to respond to some of the posts that made it sound like parent-directed feeding was going to absolutely be dangerous for your child's health. ANY method can be dangerous when taken to extremes, which is why a healthy balance needs to be struck! God bless you - I know this is a really difficult issue! My first child was a textbook baby but my second, who turned one recently, is not. They both are wonderful, though, and such blessings! I pray you can find some rest and peace with solutions like we have found.
EDIT: I want to add, one thing that has really, really helped with getting our second child to sleep through the night on her own: my husband or I go in, makes sure her diaper isn't soaked, and then lays her down in her crib in the darkness and puts a hand on her. As soon as she stops crying, the hand is gently taken away. If she starts crying again, the hand is gently replaced. We do this until she falls asleep again. At first, sometimes it took us doing this for half an hour or more. But quickly she learned. Now she has been pretty much sleeping 12 hours for the last two weeks or so. I like it because I'm not leaving her to cry (she feels my presence) but I'm not perpetuating a bad habit by picking her up and/or rocking her.

Oh my goodness. Never too late to start. I raised one without and one with Baby Wise. I recommend highly for all to use it.

The schedule for sleeping teaches children to trust you.They know when they sleep and when they wake you are there and you are taking care of everything. That's why they wake at night, they are afraid you aren't there - they he doesn't trust that you will retrieve them.
My second child is now seven and goes to bed so easy it always surprises me. My teen, my first child without Baby Wise, still has a hard time getting herself to sleep at night.

Yes- use it. Follow the schedule it gives exactly. Also- put a crib toy in the bed that makes noise. Nothing is more wonderful than hearing the toy come on while they play and wait peacefully for you to retrieve them.

A good note too - try baby sign language. A few signs will facilitate you and your child's communication (like drink, milk, eat, dirty diaper, momma and daddy). Your baby will look at you like "You know what I'M saying?" The excitement on their faces is priceless. I see a happy baby and a happy mom in your future. :)

PS: I did not use the diet part of the book. I breast fed and used my best judgment there.

I have a sleep sense program that helps with teaching baby to get to sleep & it has CIO & no CIO. send me an e-mail to get a copy ____@____.com

Love these books! I used them for my 5 kids and they were all sleeping through the night early (6wks - 10 wks and 7pm-7am). If I remember correctly it says don't let them cry long until at least 3 months but they were great sleepers by then so I never did the cry method. My SIL did for small increments 5-10min., go in pat on back, turn on mobile, walk out and it only took a few days for her guys to learn to put themselves to sleep.
I love that my guys were all very content babies because of the simple schedule - eat, wake, sleep - and they always knew what to expect and so did I. Honestly, it seemed so common sense - just have a schedule - and it all just fell into place from there, I didn't need to do more. I have great sleepers and they are all secure, well rounded kids who thrive academically b/c they are well rested. There will be times of course when your baby will still wake - teething, illness, etc. and will need some soothing. My kids stayed in the 90% for weight and height on this parent-led schedule.
Hope this helps - you have had some good advice so far.
Good Luck!

Updated

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the sign language.
Very impressive that they actually learn it so early. My kids picked it up between 7 and 9 months and it is amazing. It really minimizes frustrations on both sides! We just focused on "more" and "all done" at that age and then moved on to "please" and "thank you" which i still use when they are across the room talking to another adult - so I don;t have to yell "what do you say?" :)

I hope my advice can help...

I was at wits end when our son was 9 months old and woke up like a newborn for bottles. I was so sleep deprived and still had to work a 9 hour day the next day (45 hours/wk). I got the book (I don't remember where I heard of the book, but got it) and read it. I was reluctant since he was our first, but since I was just so exhausted - I needed to do something and something quick. I did the baby wise and had him cry himself to sleep. The first night was torture for both my husband and I... it was so bad that my DH was almost begging me to get our son and take care of him. DS had no idea how to put himself to sleep that he was used to being rocked for over an hour. After the second night of CIO (cry it out), he went to sleep on his own. He did great! He is a healthy 6 year old boy. I know there are people out there that say DON'T DO IT... I say if you need a solution and you feel that your baby is needing this too... then do it!

It has not been linked to infant deaths! Wow, some people have to be so critical of what even a pediatrician recommends (ask your own pediatrician... most agree with CIO). Funny that my milk supply didn't slow down when I put our daughter on a schedule... wonder why that happens. Oh and she had normal weight gains, never under weight. I've had several friends go to their peds over this same issue and they were told to use CIO.

Good luck to what ever you decide :) And don't forget to enjoy your baby...

Try healthy sleep habits happy child. It worked for my children.

We used Baby Wise and it worked well for our child. The book teaches about building a day-time routine that transitions into a steady night-time routine so your baby doesn't have the problems you mentioned. Top tip: the child sleeps in the crib, no where else (only exception is the car seat while in the moving car). Tip 2: Do not let your baby sleep all day! Tip 3: Do a bedtime routine so your child knows its time to go to bed. You have to be the enforcer at bedtime. Watch for signs that the baby is tired - rubbing eyes, stillness, laying down head - and then start the bedtime routine. It took our baby 3 weeks to stop crying at bedtime. The average time was 10 minutes; the longest was 30. Any more than 30 minutes of crying and you did something counter-productive during the day. He is almost 10 months now and he goes to bed like a champ now. Of course, all this assumes that conditions are well for bedtime (hot or cold?) and the child is healthy.

P.S. - wow, l'm surprised at all this fear-mongering against Babywise. I've never heard any of it, but all I know is that the methods worked for our child. I guess you have to just educate yourself and then adapt methods best suited for your child and beliefs.

This book can cause a lot of dissention simply becuase people feel so strongly about their opinions and ways of doing things. I HIGHLY recommend the book. it worked so well for my two daughters. both were sleeping through the night at 10 weeks. we have always gotten good sleep (them and me). The nice thing about the book is you don't have to read the whole thing! Just the first few introductory chapters then you go to the chapter for the age for your kid. The chapters are divided by ages.

It's been a while since i read it but basic principles is to get your baby on a schedule. Sleep, eat, awake repeat. (that way they are not hungry when they are awake. If you are feeding on a 4 hour schedule you would feed, have awake time and then put them down for a nap. You don't snack in between feedings!!! Wait the 4 hours then feed again. (the book says to wake the baby up if it's been 4 hours since the last feeding but i would always let them sleep till they woke up on their own and adjust the schedule accordingly)

The big, big thing about successful sleep training is putting them down to bed awake!! I think as parents we are teaching our children how to fall asleep. What a great skill for them to learn. Put your child to bed for night time or nap awake. (preferably their own crib in their own room). At night I would look at the clock and let them cry for 15 to 20 minutes. (it's important to look at the clock because hearing your baby cry for only 5 minutes may seem like an hour to you. Take a shower so you can't hear if that helps) Then i would go in and try to calm them down WITHOUT picking them up. Then i would set the timer again for 15 to 20 minutes. (it usually only took one time) when they wake up at night wait for 15 minutes until you go in there. See if they will fall back asleep on their own. Then go in and comfort them without picking them up and wait another 15 minutes. Keep doing this until baby is asleep. Babies all wake up several times a night. The thing they have to learn is to put themselves back to sleep. Otherwise they need you to do it for them. It took my girls 3 nights to figure it out. It may take your child a little longer because he is older. But keep at it. Be patient and remember that you and the baby are healthier if you get a good nights sleep!

I read baby wise and got a lot out of it. I didn't know anything about babies and it helped me gain a routine that worked for both the baby and also myself. It was all baby for months and I never knew when I would be able to get a shower or run to the store b/c I had no idea what condition the baby would be in. So in that regard it gave me structure and in a way that met both of our needs. I also know now that sleep is a thing our body needs to have rhythm with. We are meant to be on a fairly predictable schedule of sleep and wake for our bodies to operate at their best. It helped me establish that routine with my first child. I only loosely used it for my next three but it had given me some basic principles to establish sleep patterns. I would caution against following anything in a book word for word or abandoning any basic principles that work best for your family as you'll never get things to operate exactly like what you read in any book. I never did, but the book did help me...and with a colic baby.

I have 4 kids & Babywise saved my life! I recommend it...use it as a guideline & adjust as needed.

Healthy Sleep Habits Healthy Child worked for us...twice...with great results.

Ok, I read people criticizing BabyWise all the time and I'm just guessing that they haven't bothered reading. Here is the essence of Baby Wise. Get your baby on a schedule. First of all, make sure that they eat a full meal each time. Don't let them go more than three hours without eating at this age. Therefore, if your baby is sleeping, and it's meal time, wake him up and feed him. This is difficult to do, because you want to just let them sleep, but this does work--it gets them on a schedule. This book does not advocate letting your child go hungry. It says to feed them when they are hungry, but do NOT let them go more than 3 hours at first without eating. This will make sure they get plenty during the day, and help them sleep longer at night. It does suggest a cry it out method, but I never really did this. I comforted mine in their cribs while they were fussing. When they're screaming, you can be pretty sure they're not going to sleep any time soon. Just put him in the crib when he's tired but not asleep, and if he fusses, love on him, pat his back hum or shush him til he goes to sleep (I keep saying him, you didn't say what you have). If he's waking up hungry, feed him, it might be a growth spurt. If he just wants comfort, comfort him, but don't take him out of the crib unless he's screaming. If he is, take him out, calm him down, and put him back in before he goes to sleep again. This lets him know that the crib is where he sleeps. At five months, he should be able to sleep through the night if he's getting plenty during the day. But I remember at least one of mine did go through a growth spurt during that time. Still, this should last only a few days at the most. Oh, and I've used this book with all three of mine...very healthy kids and 3 month old now, and always a very healthy milk supply. The AAP is money led...they don't like the book because it sells so many copies and a doctor didn't write it, someone with common sense did. Several of my friends have used it, and some even used the cry it out method...I just can't do that...but they all have healthy kids!

Good luck, anad even if you don't have a ton of time, I'd read the book for yourself. Get the whole idea and then follow what you want to. Don't fall for the scare tactics of others. I wish you the best, including some peaceful nights sleep soon!!

Oh, and also, Baby Wise says eat, wake time and sleep, that way the baby doesn't rely on bottle/breast to go to sleep. On the back to sleep. It's the safest. And in the crib. Much, much safer, and also much better for baby and you.

Ok so if it is the secular book be Gary and Ann Marie Eszzo that you are asking about, then I have read the Christian version called "Allong the Infant Way". What it suggests is a routine. If anything is strained in your family, the baby will feel it. Put baby on the following 3-4 hour routine, it has to be in this order to work. Eat, play, sleep. When they wake in the morning, feed baby, then have 5 minutes - an hour of playtime depending on the age and how long of naps they usually take, then down for a nap. My firstborn was not sleeping through the night when he was 3 months old. We had just moved into our house, and he started "snak" feeding and I was hurting (I nursed him) I also had gone back to work when he was 8 weeks old so his whole world changed. I doubted that this would work when I heard it in the class we were taking that goes along with the program. They said it would take 3 days to a week for it to work, I tried it, had it changed at the daycare. And whala 3 days later I got the whole nights sleep. What it also says is that when they wake in the night to eat, if you are working on dropping feedings, let them cry it out. They will cry for 20 or so minutes, if you know that they are changed and not cold or hot and are just hungry, let them cry. They will learn to resettle themselves. This sounds cruel and I have heard other parents that don't want to do this, but it is part of the system to build a secure child. This Christian version of the program also has "help" and parenting classes for children and parents up through the teen years, and there is a moms group that meets once a month to recharge us. Contact me at ____@____.com if you would like more info. Good luck. You can get more info at www.gfi.org , this is the website for the secular books and the "Christian" versions. I belive the main difference is that the "Christian" version uses scripture to back up what they are talking about.

I did a combination of BabyWise and BabyWhisperer, and it worked really great. If you dont want to pay for the books, my library had both. The only thing I didnt like about babywise was they advocated crying it out, but I did have her on a loose schedule, which worked really well.

The BabyWhisperer is super easy to read, it's about putting babies on a loose, parent led schedule to get them to be happier and sleep better. She calls it the EASY schedule, E for Eat, A for Activity, S for Sleep. I cant remember the exact timing, but it was about doing things consistantly, like they eat, then have activities, then sleep, then start over. It's all about doing things so that babies know what's coming next, which makes them comfortable, since they're still learning about the world.

I read this book along with some others and I just kind of combined them all to make it work for me. I have an 18 mo old, and at 4 mos old we finally put her on the sleep schedule at the advice of the pediatrician. She was not sleeping thru the night and it wasnt because of her = it was because of us. At 12 lbs the dr and the books say they can sleep thru the night without food. I breastfed and supplemented with formula. She would eat dinner around 6 and then go down for what we thought was a nap until we would wake her to give her more food at 11 in the hopes that she would sleep thru the night. Dr asked why we were waking her and i said - so she will sleep thru the night. Problem was after we woke her and fed her, she never would go back into as deep a sleep as she had earlier in the evening and she would wake up about 4, and i would feed her assuming she needed it. Dr told us to stop waking her as we put her on a schedule that was not allowing her to sleep well. At that point in her life, she was on about an every 3 hr eating schedule. So i just assumed i needed to kind of keep that up all day and night. Well I was totally wrong. She would take great naps but I just couldnt figure out how to get her to sleep all night long until we fed her and then put her in the crib awake around 7. She cried for about an hr. Now i would never do this if she was ill or teething. I would go in about every 5 mins, then 10, etc and just pat her on the back and say shhhhh. Dont turn on the lights, dont talk to them and dont look them in the eye and dont pick them up. Every time, I would rub her back and say ssssssshhhhh. At about an hr, she rolled over and went to sleep and didnt look back. She stirred that first night around 4, but i watched her on the monitor....she went back to sleep. Went down the next night with no problem and has slept all night long every night since that and she is now 18 mos. She sleeps 6:30 to 6:30 and usually has a good 1 1/2 nap during the day. She knows when it is bed time. We eat dinner and then she is cleaned up and we read books with the lights down low and the door closed. I put her down in the crib fully awake and she lays there for a few minutes talking to herself and then she is out like a light. If you do it, you have to be diligent with it...you cant try it and then when they cry or it takes longer than a night to do it, give up. She will thank you for it in the long run when she learns how to put herself to sleep. Good luck!