So, clearly most of what the Baby Whisperer says about bf is balls, but is anything she says right?

[wastingmyeducation]

I'm reading it more for sleep and routine ideas, but I couldn't believe (literally) some of the bullshit bf advice.

xx

Her bf knowledge is very poor. I think she's rubbish on routines and sleep as well - what she says undoubtedly helps some people, but I think they are actually working their own way through the difficulties and she gets the credit!

her advice is old thou, like everything else advice and techiques change over the years

I hated her bf advice (never followed it) but did find her advice for naps useful. It worked for me anyway. shrugs

A lot of what she says re: breastfeeding sounds like the gumph the CMWs and HVs told me, so I wonder if it's what they were taught back then?

xx

Tracey Hogg was never a midwife or a health visitor, but a nurse 'specialising' in maternity and neonatal care. She later worked as a mental health nurse.

I doubt she was ever taught anything much about breastfeeding.

I remember reading TBW when I was pregnant and thinking it all sounded very sensible and doable.

Of course my DS would probably have starved if I had tried to follow her routines rather than letting him feed, feed, feed.

So now, I don't think she really has anything right, from what I've read and my 10 months as a mum.

i always feel sad when I see anything about baby whisperer routines. I know I left ds crying with hunger as a new born, because according to the book he just couldn't be hungry.

I didn't know anything and completely bought her 'I'm am expert' line.

(loving the name, ChairmumMiaow - that has to be a contender for the best name on MN!?)

Agree that bf advice is rubbish, but I did find the sleep stuff to be absolute magic

I found BW quite helpful actually. Like any book though I really think you should take it with a large pinch of salt as it may not work for your child.

My DD put herself into the EASY routine (Eat, Activity, Sleep) as referred to in the book. I just recognised it as I'd read the book some time earlier and we followed it, roughly, from then on.

I thought the stuff about listening out for different cries was useful - not that I necessarily could identify them all, but at least I knew they existed iyswim.

I liked it but only once ds was about 4 or 5 mths. By that point he was ff becasue of - wait for it - bad feeding advice amongst other things!

Didn't use any of it except the pick-up, put-down thing for sleep.... saved our sanity that's for sure! (DD was 8 mo or so by then though, don't believe in anything other than baby led for first few months)

the thing i took from the book was the feeding and sleep cues

they were a life saver for me

that and her wake to sleep method which is BLARDY marvellous for my (then) 5 am waker upper

the rest is binnable IMO

the feed/sleep clues are good -but rest of it not so much. its still under the cot propping it up and there it'll stay I expect

I've chucked out all the 'advice' books, except one by a Paediatrician in Toronto who seems quite clued up about breastfeeding.

DS (8 months) still doesn't sleep through the night. He needs several feeds, and am just accepting that he will do this.

Oh, and DS will sleep in the big bed, but just not his cot. big bed, small bed. He isn't stupid

I agree the BF advice is total rubbish but some of the techniques for sleeping helped us - Actually what am i saying they didnt work at all I didnt sleep for the first 7 months, but it did help me to understand WHY he might not be sleeping...

TBH most of the books i perused in desperation to get some sleep gave shady advice on BFing. It often seemed outdated, and is guess seeing as BW died it's a possibility it wont get updated in subsequent editions - which is a shame....

My dd did not want to go into an EASY routine. Like a lot of bf-ed babies, she would Eat-Sleep-Eat-Awake-Sleep-etc

My dd also spent up to an hour crying as a newborn in SCBU whilst I roomed in with her to establish bf-ing because of TH's categorical statement that a baby that had just been fed cannot possibly be hungry again. No allowance for comfort sucking then - how was I to know as a first time mother.

All that Pick-Up-Put-Down nonsense did not work for my dcs either.

She stigmatises parents who cannot follow her routines as 'Accidental Parents'.

She is one so-called expert I was glad to see the back of. I never recommend her books to anyone. Hogwash.

DON'T READ BOOKS. That would be my advice! Go with your gut instinct, it's normally correct!

The sleep cues were handy. And the babies-just-have-different-temperaments-and-it's-not-anything-you've-done stuff. And EASY is an OK approach for many babies (OK, mine have been more EAES(Y?), but in combination with the cues stuff it did help me to work out what the #1 thing bothering DS at any given moment was)...

no

get the no-cry sleep solution

(dd was an AH-YES baby - Awake and Happy, so I left her to play and had 'You time', then she'd Eat and Sleep)

Actually i've just been remembering about her "types" of babies.

That was a load of nasty rubbish, what was it - if they didnt cry ever they were "angels" but if they had the audacity to protest to her EASY routines they were described as "bad-to-the-bone-never-be-able-to-do-a-thing-with-that-brat-if-you-dont-show-it-who's-boss" or some such.

I thought it was bollocks, but only really realised how ridiculous it was once I actually had a real life baby. Now I have real life toddlers, I remember her saying something about how she doesn't move the ornaments in her house out of reach, but instead she trains her toddlers not to touch her precious ornaments! She would think my (relatively well behaved) were feral!!! Her ornaments wouldn't last five minutes!

I can just imagine how toss her ornaments were...

Chunkamatic -- well, "Spirited", which I don't see as a bad word (although that may be down to nearly four years of living with a "spirited" baby/child...).

I'm sure I would have remembered had she described him as "bad-to-the-bone-never-be-able-to-do-a-thing-with-that-brat-if-you-dont-show-it-who's-boss". My HV's assistant described DS as "bad tempered" when he was about 4 months old and I positively bristled the first time I caught sight of her after having DD.