Baby Whisperer....Anyone read/used Tracy Hogg's Techniques?

[rrrayray]

First timer- due in jan, thinking of the kind of parenting angle i want to take. Plan on trying to implement SOME kind of routine as soon as home from hosp (under no illusions its not going to happen) but think some continuity/routine can't be a bad thing.

When a friend of mine was pregnant i remmeber watching a program called the baby whisperer- a Woman called Tracy Hogg (who has sadly died since filming the series) who helps mothers getting their babies into routines, etc. I have to say she seemed fantastic.... Not too strict, but seemingly great results.

Thinking of ordering one of her books from amazon....

Was wondering if anyone had tried implementing her stuff?

Or recommended anything i should look into?

well it is reasonably gentle but the breastfeeding advice is not very good

the basic premise is EASY (eat, activity, sleep, you time) so it isn't ridiculously timetabled

erm, will not try to shatter your illusions but my DS was around 5 months when he was in some sort of predictable pattern

have left you a comment on the other thread

Yes, I used her baby book and have also read her toddler book (which has very useful points in it, good as reference when at end of tether!).

But to answer your question, I think hers is a good book to read, and certainly the eat, AWAKE playtime, sleep pattern worked well for both my DD's. The alternative is that they usually fall asleep after (or during) a feed and then your baby becomes accustomed to needing a feed to fall asleep.

We used it with both of our DDs. We particularly used the cluster feeding ideas and the EASY based around our own timetable. It worked for us, and we had two girls who slept through, quite early on (6 and 8 weeks respectively). Never did any of that rocking to sleep stuff, as the girls were always 'taught' to get themselves to sleep - so thankfully, we never had any problems in that sense. Whether that is luck or judgement, I don't know - but the two girls had very different personalities (one laid back, other uptight), and it worked for both those personality types. Hth and good luck.

I read the book when I was pregnant and used the EASY "routine" with my twins - worked brilliantly and made so much sense to me. I found the book a bit annoying in some ways (didn't like her tone and didn't think she wrote as well as some of the authors of other baby books I'd read) BUT the E-A-S-Y thing was great.

PS A book I would really really recommend is Baby Love by Robin Barker - I thought it was FANTASTIC.

I think it might depend on who your baby turns out to be. I read it while I was pregnant and thought it sounded like an eminently sensible middle road.

Unfortunately DD had different ideas and I couldn't make any of it work. For starters while the EASY routine sounded great, I physically could not keep her awake or even wake her up again after a feed. And I seem to remember ideas like leaving the baby to cry for a bit because they will cry in waves of 3 and then it will subside. I tried, but that absolutely was not what happened with DD. She just screamed and screamed and it escalated. So I gave up on the whole thing.

But I do have a friend who applied it to her DD with great success.

I love it! Followed it with DS and DD from day 1 and they got into a routine very quickly with no crying needed. DS is now 4 and still has brilliant sleep routines.

It is the one i most closely follow, the other i don;t give a flying fig for.

It is easily adapted to a family's life choices and i have used it with twins and triplets where a routine is needed if anything is to get done especially by just 1 person.

rrrayray- Hi, EPPM from the Jan 09 thread, not on there recently, but anyway...

I didn't discover baby whisperer until DD was c. 7mo- but to be honest her advice saved my life- DD could not get to sleep, and it was killing us! Did 'pick-up, put down', and something finally clicked in DD. It took a lot of work, but has really paid off in the long run- DD goes to bet at 7:30 now and gets up between 7 and 8:30 am depending how tired she is. We loosely used EASY routine from then too. I don't remember her advice on bf... but I was too busy speed reading the sleep chapters and we never had any problems there anyway.

I would stress that all babies are different, and what works as a routine or non-routine for one will be completely unsuitable for another.

As a general approach, the book/expert we liked most was Dr Sears- he is a paediatrician, his wife is a paed nurse, they have 8 children one of whom has DS, so they have met and cared for many different babies/children.

Their philosophy just fitted ours (DH & me) best.

hello ray! I used it for DD, very useful chart on what the babies' cry meant and I did easy, the point being there is always an activity after the feed, even just a nappy change, so that the baby gets used to going to sleep on its own and not on the breast.

thats about it, but just for those bits I found it worth it. first thing I read after giving birth as I knew I didn't want to Gina Ford it (too fond of going to cafes at lunch to want to rush home to give bean a 2 hour nap in a darkened room at 12).

I loved it,definitely worked brilliantly with DD1,with DD2 parts of it worked well.

I read up on this and Gina Ford,and where I needed advice/help I re-read the relevent bits and applied some of the techniques.

One of the best bits is the feeling of control you get,when as a first time mum you sometimes feel out of control and at a loss.....implementing a tip and seeing results makes you feel so confident in your own parenting abilities,which is what you badly need to do,IMO.

But equally,when your DC doesn't seem to respond,then you do need to take a "bigger view" and realise that some babies have their own ideas,and these become plainer as they grow ie. if you have a "headstrong toddler",its likely they have always been this way,in some ways, as a baby.

I had the baby wisperer book and it really helped me. I did follow all of the book work for work but found it parent friendly. She also did a series of shows on tv that followed the techniques she had in the book. I think she only did one series and then died the following year of skin cancer.

I meant i did not follow all of the book...

Sounds like its well worth giving a read then...

As a first timer whos never had any close family or friends having babies, i really don't really know what i'm in for, or what i should/shouldn't be aiming for.

fingers crossed for a healthy baby first of all

The breastfeeding advice is more than 'not very good', it goes against all the decent, research based advice around so if you do buy the book completely disregard all the bf advice.

The bit I found particularly helpful was a chart describing different cries and the body language that goes with each one to help you work out if they're hungry/tired/in pain, etc.

Despite what she says, not all babies will slot into the 'routine' from birth, as some one else pointed out earlier, you may have read the book but your baby hasn't.
By all means use it as a rough guide but don't look on it as a bible or 'must do' because there's a good chance your baby will have other ideas .

Agree with the above - I liked the EASY way of doing things, rather than being ridiculously timetabled like GF...but don't get too worried if you newborn decides not to co-operate. I also read all the stuff about how soon they would be sleeping through the night and got to 12 weeks, only to find that ds had no intention of dropping 2 feeds for another 3 months...He also only slept 1/2 hr at a time in the day (he
definately had not read the book ), so it was easier to follow and it helped me plan the day, so I knew when I could leave the house etc.
I think they the best thing to do imho is read it, use it to help if you need it, especially if you feel you are struggling after a few months and can't see how to get a routine going if you feel you need it. Just don't pin all your hopes on it!

"not all babies will slot into the 'routine' from birth, as some one else pointed out earlier, you may have read the book but your baby hasn't."

I think this is one of the biggest miconceptions with the BW, that it has got some sort of routine that you have got to make your baby fit in with. In actual fact, the BW turns the idea on its head and actually says you have got to make your routine fit in with your baby! She advocates observing your baby for three days and noting your baby's natural rhythms to see when your child naturally wants to eat and sleep etc. The whole point of her book is that you fit in with the baby and not the other way round! The purpose of the EASY routine is that it is based around your child's needs and desires, but gives you both structure so that you both know what is coming next, and that this gives you both a sense of security in that (and avoids bad habits). Thus, your baby doesn't need to read the book, because your baby shouldn't be fitting in with you, but you should be fitting in with your baby iyswim. Read her website for clarification on this. (Oh and I did the 3 day observation, and it worked for us!

Actually, read her website full stop - she explains the concepts much clearer on her website, than she does in the book - I think the interview with her is particularly good at explaining some points. For example, her explanation of the PUPD method is clarified and is very different to what I thought she meant when I had just read the book! And the website is free.

I liked the Easy and the shush-pat worked like a dream for me.

Ignored the BF bit becasue I demand fed for the first few weeks and thereafter DS fell into a fairly predictable feedingsleeping pattern.

I also put DS to bed (ie upstairs to bed, moniter on) at 7pm each evening after about 10-12 weeks. Never had any problems with bedtime with either son.

I think it is a good book from wich to take ideas - but it may need tweaking to suit and I suspect that this is easier to spot for second time mothers.

That said, it is not as prescriptive as some books I have read and IMO, it doeshave some excellent ideas and solutions.

i read the Baby Whisperer before my DD was born, along with various other books. Not Gina F as she gave me a headache. i agree with someone earlier who said that she didn't like her writing style - I find her quite patronising and didn't bother finishing the book, only to find after DD was born that it was the one that seemed to make most sense. DD put herself into the EASY routine to be honest, I just recognised the pattern having read the book. It is baby-centred so you follow your baby's patterns and as I was demand feeding this worked pretty well. I'd recommend it but like others have said I wouldn't expect your baby to follow any routine to the letter - they all do their own thing. Good luck with it all.

I tried to follow easy with DS. But he refused activity after feeding for months. He preferred feeding, sleep then activity (although he didn't fall asleep during feeding, he just preferred to sleep with a full belly .. don't we all!).
So, it didn't work for us. I tried activity after feeding and ended up with an overtired screaming baby.
Trust your instincts though, whatever works foryou.

I think some of what she says makes sense. But I object strongly to her idea that if you don't follow what she does, you are an 'accidental parent' . Nothing wrong in parenting by instinct (I did start writing down dd's pattern at about 12 weeks using her Eating, Awake, Sleeping notation - although dd did ESA - fine by me).

I also disagree with her assertion that babies need to be taught to be independent from day one, as my personal belief is that babies need to feel attached from day one and will grow independent naturally (this has been borne out by dd, now 2). So I knew it wasn't the book for me, know my friends found it great though.