How we got into Babywise

Oh, the joys and agonies of your first baby. And how they complain later about being the guinea pig.

When our first child was born, we were all over on demand breastfeeding and co-sleeping. For the first several months, he was nursing every hour. He was the cutest baby in the world and we enjoyed him thoroughly. He was also projectile vomiting and, of course, having very short naps and lots of night waking. Because of a very strong let-down, it was nearly impossible to nurse lying down without choking the baby with milk, so the nights were long.

When he was a few weeks old, our family friend and lactation consultant, Pat Martens, visited and revolutionized our thinking about nursing positions and burping to help with the projectile vomiting. But she did not suggest that we try to space out his feedings.

We may not have gotten much done around the house, but we sure loved everything about our little boy. Gradually, he started sleeping more at night, and by about six months, he was sleeping in the crib and having longer naps with more spaced out feedings. What bliss, and how sweet and sturdy he was!

When he turned two, our second child arrived and she started on the same demanding trajectory. Difference was, what to do with a very creative, and very busy little two-year-old while nursing? After about two weeks of nursing every hour, Chuck stumbled upon Babywise by Gary Ezzo at Hull’s Bookstore downtown, back when he could browse bookstores at work. He brought it home and a whole new world of parenting possibilities was opened up. We knew we needed something to change, but this whole “organize your baby” thing was foreign and it was hard work.

After a few weeks of tears (almost all mom’s), we started to reap the benefits. It’s pretty common for parents starting on babywise to be kind of unbalanced. We definitely were, and there was some fighting, and the baby cried more than we were comfortable with then, and would be now. It wasn’t the baby that had a hard time learning to be organized, it was us.

Six babies later, we can safely say that our babies cry less, eat and gain weight better, sleep longer and more soundly, and have more happy wake times than we could have imagined. We are so thankful for the ideas and structure presented in Babywise. Hooray!