On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep

By Gary Ezzo

The infant management concepts presented in this book have found favor with over two million parents and twice as many contented babies.

On Becoming Babywise brings hope to the tired and bewildered parents looking for an alternative to sleepless nights and fussy babies. The Babywise Parent Directed Feeding concept has enough structure to bring security and order to your baby's world, yet enough flexibility to give mom freedom to respond to any need at any time. It teaches parents how to lovingly guide their baby's day rather than be guided or enslaved to the infant's unknown needs. The information contained within On Becoming Babywise is loaded with success. Comprehensive breast-feeding follow-up surveys spanning three countries, of mothers using the PDF method verify that as a result of the PDF concepts, 88% breast-feed, compared to the national average of only 54% (from the National Center for Health Statistics). Of these breast-feeding mothers, 80% of them breast-feed exclusively without a formula complement. And while 70% of our mothers are still breast-feeding after six months, the national average encourage to follow demand feeding without any guidelines is only 20%. The mean average time of breast-feeding for PDF moms is 33 1/2 weeks, well above the national average. Over 50% of PDF mothers extend their breast-feeding toward and well into the first year.

Added to these statistics is another critical factor. The average breast-fed PDF baby sleeps continuously through night seven to eight hours between weeks seven and nine. Healthy sleep in infants is analogous to healthy growth and development. Find out for yourself why a world of parents and pediatricians utilize the concepts found in On Becoming Babywise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hawksflight & Associates, Inc
• Release date: Dec 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988739901

Gary Ezzo

Gary Ezzo se desempeña como director ejecutivo de Growing Families International. Él y su esposa, Anne Marie, han hablado con millones de madres, padres, educadores y médicos clínicos a través de sus libros best seller y seminarios de fin de semana. Sus conceptos de crianza se han traducido a 25 idiomas. Únase a Ezzo en línea en Babywise.life para conocer sus últimos hallazgos y actualizaciones.  

Reviews for On Becoming Baby Wise

[erinegarner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely priceless when raising a little one. If you're expecting or a new parent, this is a must read.

[atimco-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I never knew that having a baby would plunge me into a feud between two camps holding wildly different philosophies on childcare. There are so many voices out there, each claiming to know the very best way to raise a healthy, happy baby, and of course they all contradict one another. Babywise, a seemingly innocuous book on feeding and sleeping patterns, is at the heart of this debate. Babywise promotes Parent-Directed Feeding (PDF), which the authors differentiate from hyperscheduling (feeding the baby on a strict timeline, regardless of hunger cues) and attachment parenting/La Leche League doctrine (feeding the baby constantly and trying to reestablish the theoretical emotional bond that was broken at birth). PDF pushes a "feed-wake-sleep" pattern and certainly leans more to the scheduling side of the argument. It does allow some flexibility if the baby seems hungry before the next feeding is planned. The goal of PDF is to get the baby sleeping through the night at an early age, thereby easing the burden on the mother. The core of Babywise is this: according to the study done on 520 babies given this treatment, an outstanding number were sleeping through the night by 12 weeks or earlier. This sounds almost too good to be true, but apparently the "secret" is to organize baby's time into a predictable "feed-wake-sleep" pattern. That way the baby's best energy is present for the feeding, which should help ensure the feeding is a full one. Then follows burping/diapering and any play/awake time, then sleep again. (Only, I'm finding this rather hard to do. How do you MAKE a baby follow this pattern?) And now for the controversy. Critics of PDF are outspoken. My usually mild lactation consultant became very defensive when I asked her opinion on it, and said that it teaches your baby not to trust you and also (more to the point, in my mind) that it will kill breastfeeding moms' milk production very quickly. Oy. I agree that Babywise's treatment of breastfeeding is weak. The authors basically say, "don't worry, the baby will know what to do" which is demonstrably false. Also, I believe my lactation consultant is right that if you are constantly merging feedings to minimize the number of times you nurse (and especially if you eliminate the night feeding altogether), you'll lose your milk production and the baby will end up weaned way too early. The authors briefly mention that going long stretches at night without breastfeeding might decrease the mother's supply and suggest not dropping the late-night feeding (around 11 or midnight) to circumvent this problem. While I completely agree with the authors' critical stance toward the unsupported Freudian theory of birth trauma (which arguably leads to the style of parenting called attachment parenting), some of their arguments reach too far. They say that birth, far from traumatizing the child, frees him/her from a highly restrictive environment. That's fine as far as it goes, but then they say that one of the restrictive aspects of that environment is that the baby cannot hear his parents' voices. This is untrue; babies in the womb do hear sounds and recognize their mother's voices upon birth, maybe also their fathers'. Another point of the childcare controversy is co-sleeping. The Babywise authors are very much against it, while my breastfeeding Bible, The Nursing Mother's Companion by Kathleen Huggins, is for it. It's fascinating how each side brings studies and "facts" on co-sleeping to the table... which often contradict one another. We co-slept from necessity during the first two weeks, but moved our son to a bassinet as soon as we had ironed out the feeding issues. In general, he now sleeps beautifully at night with one 3am feeding. One strength of this book is how the first chapter is all about the husband-wife relationship. The authors don't get too in-depth, but I love the point: baby will be loved best by his parents if they are committed first to loving (and expressing that love to) one another. The security of the marriage bond (which, by the way, is correctly defined here as between a man and a woman) is more reassuring to a child than parents who fly to address every whimper instantly. I appreciated the practical help he offers couples, with a list of common household tasks and responsibilities, with a column to fill in for who will do what. The authors make the point that on-demand feeding schedules and comfort nursing can make for an exhausted, stressed mother — and that does not help the baby. While we are not following the Babywise method religiously due to the potential milk production issue, I think the suggestion of making sure every feeding is a full feeding is a helpful one. Because I have tried to do this from the beginning, we don't have much demand-feeding where the breast is offered for every cry the baby makes. My baby eats every three hours or so, with a longer stretch at night, and at two and a half months he's thriving.Overall, many of the common-sense principles the Babywise method are helpful, but I would caution against reading this book as your sole source of baby knowledge. For breastfeeding information, it is not helpful at all (and may even cause problems). But honestly, from what I can tell both the PDF/Babywise advocates and attachment parenting advocates demonize the other side. My lactation consultant seemed to think PDF was a cruel practice of hyperscheduling, almost abusive, which the Babywise authors demonstrate it's not. And the Babywise authors seem to think mothers who breastfeed on demand are utterly exhausted, codependent, miserable zombies. From what I can tell, these are both extreme caricatures that miss the essence of the other side's argument. I was telling my mother about this controversy and she was rather disgusted with both sides. In her mind, the answer is simple: "I had babies and I took care of them; I did whatever they needed." Sounds about right to me.

[lithicbee · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I did not get all the way through this book by the time my wife gave birth to our twin daughters at 35 weeks and then I had no time to finish it really. I have used it since for some bits and pieces of information. The basic premise, that parents are in control and should neither adhere to a strict schedule or meet all of baby's demands instantly, makes sense but is a bit too idealized, especially for multiples. Mostly, it made me feel guilty that we could not live up to the ideals in the book, and scared of what the results will be. I have friends who swear by it, but our reality does not allow for following all the philosophies in the book. It is probably worth reading if you are interested in trying to be the perfect parent.

[sabrina_davidson_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an amazing book for new parents. It teaches you how to sleep train your child in addition to other very helpful information.

[veritasnoctis-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The parent-directed feeding system seems to make sense for the most part, being presented as a flexible middle ground between the extremes of demand-feeding and hyperscheduling. The problems with this book are that it is poorly written and the authors engage in somewhat unprofessional-feeling salesmanship. The important information could have been presented more concisely in far fewer pages and the authors devote a lot of effort toward a sales pitch that arguably turns the extremes to which they contrast their system into straw men.

[abidavis-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Following this book worked like a treat for me and by 13 weeks my daughter slept through the night from 7pm - 7am and has slept like this ever since…she even asks to go to bed for a day nap and at night. Then two years later I read it again as I had my second daughter and I can't for the life of me follow a routine in the same way I did the first time round, so in turn, my second daughter does not sleep through the night or nap very well either. They need to write a 'Wise with Baby and Toddler too'.

[jpsnow · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

They are somewhat pompous in places; somewhat simplistic in others. I do accept the basic premise that families need to be child-oriented rather than child-centric. The book is very much focused on the first weeks and months.

[bbexlibris · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

From experience I can say that this book truly is a life saver. I am not vouching for Ezzo's character, or all of his ideas. I do know from experience that this is a great book! My baby slept through the night at two months! I have friends whose babies still wake up on into two years. That is not good for anyone. The methods do work, but you really do need to not be legalistic about their enforcement. Use it as a guide rather than a Bible!I do recommend reading the book with wisdom and taking out of it what you feel comfortable with, and just not using the parts that you question. Isn't that the way we look at most books anyway?Anyone who after reading this book thinks that it is okay to starve, neglect or beat their child has definitely not read it right. This book says nothing of the sort!! If you feel your child needs to be held, HOLD HIM!

[sstokman_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book saved me from certain insomnia! I was at my wits end when a friend suggested it and we're on the third book now and loving it! I think, as with all parenting books, you need to read and decide what works best for you, and the book even says that. There's a lot of flack out there for this series, but I can say as a parent of a child who would not sleep anywhere but ON me for the first 6 weeks, this works. My daughter slept through the night at 11 weeks (we started the book at week 6) and hasn't woken up since except if she was sick! Also, by "through the night" I mean 6p-6a!

[tullyfamily · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was great! It helped us know how to schedule our babies, making for a much happier family!