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?

It worked brilliantly for us, but ds was on a bottle by the time we started using it. Agree re the breast feed ing advice in it - no good. The other stuff is great though, or was for us!

We've used BW for both dcs now and have found it a) really easy to follow and adapt where necessary and b) both dcs responded really well: like others who've already posted, we never had to rock dcs to sleep, both settle themselves brilliantly and are happy to go to bed, and both slept through the night by 10 weeks (both exclusively bf, btw!) and both have/had (dd is 7months so still on 2nd stage routine!) long naps through the day as well as sleeping well at night. The routines are well structured and the table charting baby cries is very useful at 4am !

I would say, get your dp to read it as well, if at all possible. I found that my ability to apply/retain any information at all in the weeks immediately following childbirth was limited, to say the least. DH read the book when dc1 was 3 days old and marked up the useful pages with post-it notes (another good idea!) - and then he took control of getting us into a routine.

FWIW, both my kids were in a very predictable and easy routine (note: not schedule!) by about 3 weeks old

Do you have babies who, when young, wanted activity after feeding? I know my DS was quite badly jaundiced, but I thought new babies were supposed to sleep/feed/sleep/feed for a few weeks?
Does it really work with new babies?
Maybe the jaundiced affected my LO when he was little much more than I thought.. [pondering emoticon]
I agree with Umlellala, and I know babies are different (what makes being a mum great), but ESA seemed better for us with a little baby ...

jaundice, not jaundiced (sorry!)

LS the activity for a young baby can be simply the changing of the soiled nappy, it is an activity then it is into bed, in the early days babies sleep upto 20hours so activity time is in seconds not minutes

I adapt to the baby so we do Eat, Activity , Sleep or Eat, Mini Activity ie nappy, Sleep, big activity and eat

I have always done bath, activity, eat and sleep in the evening.

Elkat, I said that about the baby not having read the book because none of my 3 children did EASY for months. They always fell asleep straight after a feed and the alarmist 'accidental' parenting chapter makes you feel very much as if you are doing it wrong if that happens.

She does have a routine in the book as well. It's not as prescriptive as Gina Ford but saying your baby has to Eat, then have an Activity then Sleep is still a set routine that can leave brand new mums feeling inadequate if their baby doesn't follow it.

A lot of her advice warns of all the 'bad' things that can happen if you allow a baby to fall asleep after feeding rather than staying awake after it. I also find advice such as tickling baby's feet during a feed to keep them awake a little bit cruel. If a baby is tired then surely the most baby centred thing to do is allow them to sleep.

I've had 3 dcs. After a brief foray in BW when ds1 was tiny and being completely unable to follow the EASY routine I've let them set their own routine, feeding and sleeping and playing entirely on demand. Ds1 and DD self settled from just a few weeks and slept through from 4 months. I did the same with ds2 and he still, at 20mo, doesn't sleep through and often still needs someone in the room while he falls asleep. If I'd had ds2 first I would have felt like it was entirely my fault, having read the BW.

Fortunately, as he's my 3rd I'm experienced enough to know that it is purely down to personality and luck.

I very firmly believe that all these parenting books prevent new mums from developing their own parenting style and smother the natural instincts we need to develop as new mums of what our baby needs.

I totally agree with you Olihan 100% (what I was trying to say but much more coherently ).

The only thing I found useful in the book was about identifying sleep cues (like rubbing ears, staring into space etc), which as a first time mum, I needed a bit of guidance with.

I know with any future children, I will be a lot more relaxed than the 'routine chaser' I was with DS in the early weeks.

We did this from when DS was pretty young and for us it did work well, though I would say you have to be careful to use it flexibly/the way it suits you and not get TOO hung up on doing things exactly right, as it's easy to get a bit obsessive about what you "should" be doing! We do follow the EASY routine but if we have something on, we work around it and I don't panic if he misses the odd nap for example and has to catch up a bit later. I do think though that her methods were at least partly responsible for making our DS such a (relatively) good sleeper, he stopped night feeds earlier than many babies I know and started sleeping through after that, and he also goes to sleep well, both for naps and at night. It is also useful knowing when they are likely to be hungry, tired etc. as it makes it much easier to figure out what is wrong when they are upset. But DON'T worry too much if you are still at a loss sometimes, she says a lot about how to tell what a cry means, which sometimes works, but it still isn't always possible to tell!
As for the BF thing, well I am still BFing though I had already got this established before reading the book so I didn't follow her advice particularly. But I did find that BFing while following EASY worked fine for us.

Olihan, re your comment on the foot-tickling thing, that depends on the baby - our DS was so sleepy at first that he would fall asleep when he had only just started feeding, so it was impossible to get a full feed into him but also impossible to put him back to bed, as soon as I laid him down again he would wake and cry with hunger again as he hadn't finished! Sometimes he fell asleep 3 or 4 times in one feed before being full... if that happens during your 3rd night feed there is really not much you can do except try to wake him so he will finish and let you get back to bed. I didn't feel it was cruel though, I tried all sorts of things to wake him but they didn't make him cry or get upset, if anything they often didn't work! (Eventually I found the only thing that would always work was to lay him gently on the floor for a moment, for some reason that always made him wake up and shout). When I did manage to wake him he would quite happily finish his milk and then I could get him back to sleep in his basket and get back to bed myself knowing he wouldn't need more for a few hours, so we were both happy.

I liked this better than the other books but I think all of them should be treated as advice rather than gospel. BW is much better for advising you to listen and respond to your baby than people with timetabled routines.

Our DS was jaundiced at birth so we were advised to change his nappy before feeds to wake him up enough to eat. He always fell asleep afterwards but this doesn't seem to have stopped him learning how to fall asleep on his own. IMO spending much of the early days with a baby asleep on you is one of the great pleasures of life and shouldn't be missed just to set up a routine.

I read a variety of books and probably fall somewhere between attachment parenting and baby whispering. DS is currently asleep in the sling and although I'm sure the BW wouldn't approve we're both very happy

"She does have a routine in the book as well. It's not as prescriptive as Gina Ford but saying your baby has to Eat, then have an Activity then Sleep is still a set routine that can leave brand new mums feeling inadequate if their baby doesn't follow it. "

I agree that it is not well communicated, but her website does make it clear that they are only to be regarded as samples, not as routines - because you should be following your baby. This is from her website...

"E.A.S.Y. is not a schedule. A schedule is more about focusing on the clock, whereas E.A.S.Y. is about focusing on your baby and his cues and needs. Rather than following time slots, E.A.S.Y. follows a daily pattern of events. By doing so, we guide our children and teach them by repetition. "The most important aspect of E.A.S.Y. is to read your child's signs-of hunger, of fatigue, of overstimulation-which is more important than any time slot." (page 20) "

I agree that this should be made clearer, that the samples are to give you a clue to building your own routine, not for you to follow. Also, she could clarify what she means by activity... for example, on her website she talks about activity being like "Infants entertain themselves by cooing and gooing at their caretakers and staring at the wavy lines on the dining room wallpaper." People misinterpret that as the baby having to play etc, when that is not what she is saying, so it gets misinterpreted, because I don't think she is always clear.

I also agree that her explanation on accidental parenting is badly explained, but I did not read it as you said - I understood that chapter to be saying that what a baby needs is to have a steady guide, for parents to be consistent (on whatever 'philosophy' you follow, obviously she'd prefer hers!), but what she was against was the chopping and changing of philosophies. For example, I have read on another site, where a parent had started out with a cot, fell into co-sleeping, but wasn't getting enough sleep and then decided to do controlled crying. If that is what she is saying, then I have to say I do kind of agree. I think the best thing for a baby is consistency - not using this method this week, and trying that method next week. One week sleeping with your baby and attending every whimper, next week removing yourself completely and no cuddles at all. Surely that must be disconcerting for a baby?

But again, I think it comes back to the fact as I said in my pp, that many points of her book are very badly explained and may give off the wrong impression. For example,in her interview she does not recommend the PUPD until 18 months for the method described in the books, and she also gave a simpler version for children from 6 months. Yet none of this is clearly explained in her book. As a result, I think it often gets misunderstood and she is accused of doing things, like enforcing a schedule onto a baby which she has blatantly said (on the website) that she is not trying to do.

I used The Baby Whisperer with my DS and to be honest, although I liked Tracey Hogg in her TV programme (she seemed very sensible and nice) and her ideas are nowhere near as regimented as in some other baby books, I still think it was a mistake.

If you have rules to follow, you inevitably end up breaking them. If you have a routine, you inevitably get stressed out when it doesn't go to plan. I wouldn't ever use another 'baby routine' book, and will definitely be going with the flow more this time around. Much more relaxing if you go in with low expectations, realising how short this baby period is, really (although I appreciate it's easy for me to say that, not being a first timer!)

I agree with some of that, Elkat, but it is still prescriptive in that the baby must have some awake time after a feed, whereas I, and many others, have found that it is impossible to keep a baby awake after a feed. It's irrelevant what 'activity' means - if it involved taying awake then it wasn't happening in our house!

I vividly remember trying to keep a 3 week old ds1 awake during feeds so he could have his 'activity' time and completely failing, then feeling as though I was doing it all wrong because he was eating then sleeping. All his cues were saying that he was tired but according to the book, he should be awake. So what are you supposed to do as an overwhelmed first time mum who has no experience or knowledge about babies?

It's a complete contradiction for her to say you have to follow your baby but also do things in a particular order.

I just think, as I said before, that trying to impose any kind of routine set out in a book, written by someone who has never seen or met your baby completely undermines your mothering instincts.

BW was a godsend to me - I read it when DS was about 12w and the table with the different crys and what they meant was brilliant. DS is 2.5 now but he still sleeps in the 45m cycles she talks about so I know when he is really waking from his nap for example and when to just leave him to settle. The advice confirms your instincts to my mind and does away w the need for a time based routine although there is an event based routine instead. I gave my copy to a friend who was going mad because her dc was not settling at all. Within a week or so they had got into a routine that suited them both perfectly. I reccommend it to everyone now.

I think her advice is very poor for breastfeeding and unrealistic regarding potty training. I would look at www.kellymom.com re: breastfeeding and Elizabeth Pantleys No Cry Sleep Solution or Sears' baby books for more realistic takes on being a new parent. Read old Gina Ford aswell but bear in mind that she has never had children and therefore the emotional aspect of parenting, for example, feeling really distressed when your baby cries is absent in her book. Both Sears or Pantleys books have heaps of useful emotional and soothing advice for parents as they both have large families themselves so have been there.

At the end of the day you and your baby will do what's best for you both.

Oh, I forgot about the accidential parenting thing...that is a really nasty underminding description of how real parents and normal babies behave in real life.