Baby whisperer routine - godsend or stress increaser and waste of time?

[dal21]

hi - hope you can share your views/ experiences as i have a dilemna.

DS has just turned 6 weeks old (although was born at 37 weeks, not sure if that makes a difference) and today was first day trying to start implementing EASY. Before i had ds, i swore i wouldnt use a dummy, or co-sleep etc. etc. PFB syndrome. Needless to say, I do use a dummy and have also started co sleeping on occasion.

Before today-was quite chilled and going with the flow. DS has settled into 3 hourly feeding himself and despite wanting to be held quite a bit; things are ok.

I read the bw though and am now petrified that am falling into the 'accidental parenting' trap and my child will be damien the devil child if i dont break habits of co-sleeping/ holding to send him to sleep now. But equally 1 day of clock watching and following routine has left me a little frazzled.

is the short term pain worth it for the long term gain? what are your experiences/ views?

Step away from the book!!!

You are doing brilliantly without it. 3-hourly feeding by 6 weeks is brilliant (mine took 6 months!) and it is normal and perfect parenting to hold your baby as much as you like!

i liked the BW - she is very good at helping you to learn to read your baby's cues
I never followed the EASY as i don't do routines but her philosophy of feed them, then some active time followed by a sleep is pretty good
also, her PU/PD totally over stimulated my DS

i think what i am trying to say (in a very roundabout way ) is pick the bits that work for you and your baby and ignore the rest!

Hi dal21,

I used baby whiperer when my yonger ds (now 5) was born. I really liked the ideas behind it, but don't think I stuck to every last word - e.g. we did sometimes co-sleep.

with ds 1 (10, so pre-BW) I had no routine at all for the first couple of months and he had awful colic. He was born early and overseas so I had no real support. My mum came to stay when he was 10 weeks old and helped us get into a routine - and the colic stopped. No idea if they were linked, but having a routine really helped.

Good luck!

I see that your TERROR occured AFTER you had read the book

Your mistake was to READ THE BOOK

I have a toddler who has a dummy and still occasionally co-sleeps

But I also have a 5 year old who does neither

They grow up - make the most of your baby time! It doesn't last very long

Snuggle up and don't feel GUILTY! You are doing fantastically. Enjoy.

lol morning - tis but true. i have visions of waking up one day and ds will have 666 stamped on his forehead. she is quite hardcore - you can do what you want with your baby, but you WILL pay the price! has left me quaking in my boots and i wish i was joking!

Ignore it, honestly. I had two days of trying to get DS into its routine - terrified that I had become an accidental parent. He got stressed, I got stressed, we sent it back to the library

Like Ruby, I used selected bits of the BW. I used the 3-hourly feeding routine to structure the day but let everything else happen whenever (my Ds would often fall asleep whilst feeding so how on earth I was supposed to get the Activity bit in after Eating )

DS comes into our bed at night if he wakes up (he goes straight back to his own though once he has fallen asleep), he has dummy for naps and at night - so what??

As MP says, they all grow up and grow out of it - and you can't beat snuggling up to your little one

I agree with moringpaper... enjoy this time as much as oyu can. my dd is nearly 10 months old, and i am missing those early months already! god knows how i'll be when she is really independent

you sound like you are doing SO much better than i was at that stage!

I think you should just use your own instincts. I mean, what did women do before these books were around? we are all here to tell the tale

sorry, no actual help as such, but just my little opinion.

Like Rubyshivers I liked BW for the same reasons. I liked the fact that later on (6 weeks too early) that I could figure out when he needed a nap. He had a nap roughly the same time everyday so I could leave some jobs until he was napping. Godsend, in the afternoon when he napped for 1 1/2 hours, went out in the morning he napped I got some jobs done and time for tea and maybe power nap and he would sleep at night. Dream feed. Also recommend by a plumber! I like her cup of tea style and I cried when she passed away. Just use it when you need it, it like getting advice from good northern granma. It's not a bible. Only brought for a friend when she was having problems not before as it was none of my business

If you're happy with your life, then chill out and enjoy things. I used the BW, but like with all things, you need to pick and choose the bits you like - nothing is worth following to the end letter imo.

The bit about not being an accidental parent, I think is easily answered by you asking one question - 'will I be happy doing this this time next year?'. If the answer is no, don't do it... but if the answer is yes, then generally its fine. So Do you want your child to be sleeping in bed with you every night when its a year? probably not, but will you mind it on the odd occasion? Probably that'll be okay.

She is useful for ftm, but if you have settled into your own routine, then go with the flo and trust yourself!
HTH

I read the BW hoping it would be the holy grail to daytime naps.

DS did start to nap, but we didn't follow the book word for word, as ds hadn't read it and didn't know that he should be playing when actually he was eating

However, I did take aspects of the book, and dreamfeeding was a complete success for us.

Go with what feels right for you.

Sorry I couldn't post as much as I wanted to earlier, tea was ready!

I hated her term 'accidental parenting'. By which she means 'buy my books or you are a failure'. What you are doing is instinctive parenting and imo there is no better kind.

I also disagreed with her views on co-sleeping, and if you ask the BF experts like Tiktok on the feeding boards they have very little time for her breastfeeding advice.

Pleeeeease throw the book in the bin (I did with my copy -- didn't even take to charity shop as I never wanted anyone else to read it!) and carry on with enjoying your baby

I used the babywhisperer and it was a real help to me. Have also found the baby whisperer website useful for dealing with sleep problems in an older toddler.
I don't think it works for everyone, but for me it really helped me have a sense of what was coming (I don't like unpredictable situations!)
I too got stressed about accidental parenting but a lot of that was pnd!
Agree with what others have said, always remember the baby has not read the book!

Hi

Like some other people here I read the BW and found it really useful to use some things which were appropriate for me and my family. we used pick up/put down and it really worked and we've also used a couple of other things. I still refer to it now and again. My dd is 22 months.

Having said that I don't follow the routine at all.. my dd co-sleeps when she wakes in the night and always had day-time naps in her buggy following a walk around the block.

I feel that Tracy Hogg offers good advice, everyone has opinions (and hers are good) but yours are always the best for your own baby.

Good luck, and enjoy the baby time, it passes very quickly

I read she-who-cannot-be-named in the last 24 hours before DS1 was born, and spent six weeks worried because I couldn't express 6 ounces of milk before my slice of toast at 7 am.... so when I was recommended BW it was SUCH a relief! It just helped me calm down and realise there are other ways to do things: I found it helpful in learning my baby's cues (like the 'lizard tongue' etc) and began to find my own way.... So, if you were doing ok before, take a look in this and other books but use them to reinforce the pattern you are following anyway and dismiss them if they don't suit you. (or don't read any and save your money!)

I really liked her approach but the simple fact was that some of it just didn't work for us. I was constantly worried about the "accidental parenting" trap but now I think that of course the "expert" has to know better than us hapless old mummies who are just bound to get it wrong without her help.

I found the "cup of tea" approach really grated. "Luv" has to be one of the worst words of all time! Arghhhh!!!

I found the BW a real support when I had dd1. It gave the me much needed voice of reason at 3 am in the morning.

Then I discovered Mumsnet!

(Although I'm not sure MN is the voice of reason )

Did you know that Tracey Hogg (the baby whisperer) died in 2004?

It didn't work for me at all. I am the kind of person who likes to be told exactly what to do though so SWMKBM ( think thats right) worked better for me.

My friend told me about one book which treats the first 3 months as the final trimester and basically says anything you do during that time won't set up bad habits as they have to spend their time adjusting to being in the big world and anything you can do to help that is exactly the right thing.

Haven't read it, don't know the title, but I think the philosophy is good. Do what you are happy with and bin the book.

Why did you read the book? if Ds has a dummy at 16, let the army sort it out!
Anyone struggling with which book to read, I suggest Dream Babies by christina hardyment(I do wish she'd revise it) it goes thriugh baby rearing methods over the last 250 years -read that and you'll realise how much of what is written is either fashion or ignorance, dressed up as science.
your best tools are your instincts -if bringing up babies required instructions, they'd have them printed on their bums!
Lisa X

Thanks all for your responses.

Seems as with anything to do with childrearing - there are a multitude of opinions.
Since my LO is already into 3 hourly routines; I am part of the way there already. I guess that I will bear the rest of the stuff in the back of my mind when it comes to taking the 'easy' option with things. Sometimes wish I hadnt bothered reading some of the books i have read. Oh well.

dal, as others have said, just go by your instincts. I had DS aged 17 and didn't read any books - he was sleeping through by 6-8 weeks and I only had my instincts to go by. I had DD1 4 years later and still hadn't read any books but we soon settled into a routine when it was appropriate. Both were completely different. I truly believe it is impossible to 'train' a baby to do anything in the first six weeks, we are there to comfort and enjoy them (and feed and change them of course!). IMO, thats what motherhood is all about.

I still to this day haven't read ANY books of that kind and I'm on my third child! I don't class myself as an expert by any means but I do class myself as an expert on Cerys because she is mine. Likewise, you are an expert on Ryan and these first couple of months are when we get to know them through and through. Neither of us would know each others babies or what their signals are because they are different and have different characters that are slowly developing. (actually, when I say I'm an expert on her, I'm still learning, as is she which is half the fun!).

I have to say, I've heard of the baby whisperer but I still don't even know what this 'easy' thing is and I'm not too bothered to find out either!

Thats not to say I don't agree with reading books for advice and support so please don't think I'm knocking it, its just not something that works for me. You're amazing and you're doing great - don't let some stranger (the author) tell you any different - he/she hasn't even met you or your baby!

Thats just my opinion of course, hope its not too harsh...

PLP xxx

'will I be happy doing this this time next year?'.

I really disagree with that approach

You won't HAVE a six week old next year - you will have a toddler. They are TOTALLY different creatures. What you do now bears little resemblance to what you will be doing then. It is a mistake to think that they will be remotely similar people!

Hmm, not read the BW but this "accidental parenting" sounds like that old chestnut "rod for your own back" dressed up to sound less like a batty MIL to me .

I've had my fair share of frazzled/sleep-deprived angsty moments over the last year where I think I should be following some guru/advice of my insane aunt/Truby Kinging grandmother/smug friends. Luckily I am far too lazy to follow the instructions of any parenting book and we have just muddled through.

And guess what? It's fine. Ds would only sleep on my chest for the first 6 weeks. Oh the angst. He doesn't any more (and hasn't since about 6 weeks). He slept in our bed most nights for the first few months - not any more as it makes him want to play (and I miss it actually). His naps were all over the place but he found his own routine as I got to know his sleep cues better.

You can't avoid the angst totally but definitely avoid any book/person that makes it worse. Enjoy your baby. Everything will change.

Hi PLP . No not remotely harsh - your opinion is very valued and taken on board. I guess I was just worried that whatever seeds I sowed now would make my life harder six months down the line. and as much as I love my poppet; I dont relish the thought of my 'accidental parenting' (what a term) making my life harder in 6 months time.
But it is great to know that there are mothers out there who have gotten their babies into routines and sleeping through based on instinct vs. child rearing experts routines.

Just erase the phrase 'accidental parenting' from your brain! There is no such thing! It does not exist! Someone made it up to sell more books to vulnerable new parents!

There, it's gone now. Isn't that better?