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I was always under the impression that "babywise' in general was...not ideal. Linked to too many abuse things. That being said, I'm not familiar with it aside from rumors:

1) we fed on a schedule because E was in the NICU for a week and that's what they established, so that's what we kept doing. It was easier with bottles. Doesn't work as well with breastfed babies.

2) Yep, you want to keep the baby awake. Tickle their feet, strip them to a diaper, etc.

3) Eh, good luck. We all end up in this boat. It's really hard to not keep going to the one thing that works. For us, the swing was something we had to wean off. Also an incline sleep. that's what worked for us with reflux.

4) I'm a fan of this last one. Not always easy to implement--and we certainly didn't always do it--but we tried when we could!

Not sure what is considered a long stretch, but I think E was down to two night wake ups at 2 months, which is pretty good. She was going for a full 5 hour stretch by 6-8 weeks, I think. It all went to shit at 4 months, though!

I could have never implemented this with either one of my boys. Three hours between feeds would have been way too long. They're piggies.

I'm in the "do whatever works" camp. All babies are different and not everything works for all kids.

I'm pretty sure there was some type of warning against babywise because of its connection to failure to thrive cases.. you can Google it. There are tons of people who get lucky and those who don't, those who try to do something and those who don't. No matter what anyone tells you there isn't one solution, babies are little people and not programmable

My kid was fed on demand and only ate when he was hungry, never comfort nurse and never nursed to sleep. Still woke to eat until 9 months once a night even when falling asleep on his own. Our first pediatrician stressed putting him down while awake and we thought we were brilliant when he would fall asleep until he was about 3 months and "woke up" out of the fourth trimester. It's a developmental thing that seems to iron itself out closer to 6 months in my anecdotal experience and crowdsourcing.

Good luck!

I think all of their concepts are goals you can work towards, but in reality may be easier or more difficult than you expect. Babies need what babies need - personally I am not ok with stretching out baby's feeds until they're ok with it. Babies know when they need to eat, and they know when they need comfort. I'm also not going to put down a newborn wide awake and expect them not to cry, and ignore if they do. But that's where my comfort level is.

Like most other parenting methods, I think you can take what you like from this one and see if it works for your kid. I did read the book, and things we tried to do were: make sure LO ate a "full meal" every time she nursed, did our best to follow the eat-play-sleep routine, and planned to feed every 3 hours so not just assume that she was hungry immediately if she started crying. The things I found not applicable for LO were: 30 minutes to eat a full meal (I had a super-fast letdown and she rarely ate for longer than 10 minutes!) and only feeding every 3 hours during a growth spurt. FWIW, we ended up doing some sleep training, and she didn't officially STTN with no wakings until 10ish months.

I remember reading the Baby Whisperer book when I was pregnant and thinking that many of the ideas made sense. Then LO was born and it all went out the window. "On demand" feeding was the only thing that made sense for us. The "sleep prop" thing is easy to talk about before you have a baby, but seriously when you are so tired that you can't even stand, it is impossible not to give in to the paci or swing or swaddle (or all three, as we did!). Unfortunately, you really cannot know what type of baby you are going to get, and I think that luck plays a huge role in whether your baby sleeps well at the beginning. FWIW, I know people who did some sleep training at 2 months and it worked for them. But for our baby, it would have been too early.

I believe pretty strongly that baby wise is safe for babies. A lot of the stuff circulating on the Internet just isn't true.

That said, we did follow the principals, except we had a really hard time getting a strict schedule (mostly because I was at home and didn't want to stick to it). Unfortunately for us lo didnt sleep all night (12 hours) until recently at 17 months, but that is just because it doesn't work for everyone.we had one middle of the night wake up every night consistently...at first for an additional feeding, and then due to hard core teething. Lo has always been able to fall asleep on his own, and I honestly do believe it was partially because we followed these strategies (loosely) from the beginning. We never had a need to sleep train because we formed habits from the beginning. Lo was on an eating schedule from the beginning due to being in the nicu, and so we continued this pattern as well.

Chronicles of a baby wise mom is a great blog with an incredible amount of info on how to implement if you are interested in learning more. I think the biggest thing to know though is that a lot of experts make promises about getting your baby to sleep through the night, and a lot of them are very helpful, but none of them are magic and none of them work 100% of the time.

That said, I will be loosely following baby wise again with baby number 2, and am hopeful it will be even more effective next time!

ETA: baby wise does not advocate withholding food from a hungry baby. Ever. It does say parents should try to encourage full feedings instead of snacking all day, and also not to immediately assume every whimper is a cry for food, but also says very clearly that if your baby is hungry you should feed them. Every time.

We did EASY from the Baby Whisperer books and Xander was sleeping 7 hours at night by 10 weeks (but Xander was also a very easy baby, so no guarantees this will work for yours).

EASY is Eat, Activity, Sleep, You. Basically when your baby wakes up, you feed them, followed by an activity so you aren't nursing to sleep. When they are tiny, that activity might just be changing their diaper to keep them awake before they fall back asleep. But if you keep up with it, they'll (supposedly) get used to falling asleep on their own and not nursing to sleep. While they sleep, you have you time. When they wake up, you just start EASY again, no matter how much time has passed. You also don't let them sleep longer than 2 hours at a time during the day (after 4+ weeks) so that they don't get nights and days mixed up and will do their long stretches of sleep at night.

That being said, Xander could always self-soothe and we never really did anything in particular to teach it to him. I started EASY at 3-4 weeks and it just worked for us and him. No guarantee it will work for you.

@pmrlady: i found this comparison between aap recommendations and actual quotes from the babywise book. I think the controversy comes from a lot of misinformation, but this may clear some of that up.

https://www.gfi.org/java/pdf/AAP_BWise.pdf

@pmrlady: i dont think there is anything controversial about feeding babies every 2-3 hours...i think some people heard through the grapevine that babywise means you only feed baby when the clock says to, and that simply isnt the case. I think it has become controversial mostly because of misinformation.

We followed Baby Whisperer and tips from a research paper (that unfortunately I can't find right now) starting around 2 weeks. I'm not familiar with BabyWise, but the tips from those encompass all of the key concepts you've listed above. At 9 weeks we get at least a 6 hr stretch, often 7 and occasionally 8 hrs. We followed the idea of a routine, and not a schedule.

Here are the notes I copied down from that research paper:
- avoid holding, rocking or nursing children to sleep
- establish a scheduled focal feed between 10pm and midnight
- high stimulation during day, low stimulation at night
- light during naps, dark during night time sleep
- delayed reactions to night wakings (make sure they are really crying, not just wimpering)
- once confident baby is gaining weight steadily, try responding to first night waking with soothing such as reswaddling or a pacifier. If baby still cries, then offer a feeding. (we've only done this a handful of times, cause if I don't feed, my boobs pay the price :-/)

@pmrlady: yeah I mean, it worked well for E, who was bottle fed. But it wasn't conducive for nursing. I understand not wanting a baby who snacks, though. It's just easy to BF every time a baby is upset since they're working to establish supply

But yeah every time someone says schedules are the devil, I'm like....well hospitals do it, so it can't be THAT bad, lol

@Mrs. Lion: ah that's good to hear! I did well with a routine/schedule-helps me keep my sanity-so I'm hoping to implement one this time: if not, I tried

I'd wait to see what your baby is like before implementing any kind of schedule. Also, just fyi Ezzo (author of Babywise) isn't widely respected: most professionals in the pediatric, breastfeeding and child development communities vehemently oppose his methods. Check out ezzo.info.

Eh, if you're interested and think you and your partner and baby would benefit from more of a routine-based approach, give it a go. Honestly, people freak the f out about Babywise but if you are a normal, sensible and educated person (which it seems you are) then you will use what works/ not bother with what doesn't.

I never read Babywise, but I did sleep train my daughter at 3 months when strangers on the internet all but told me I was condemning my baby to a life of misery and guess what? She took to it wonderfully and is a contented child and good sleeper to this day (aged two and a half).

My point is, trust your instincts and go with what feels right for you and your family - even if it isn't the popular choice. You will be great!

We did Babywise and loved it. Like Mrs. Lion said, I think a lot of the negative associations come from misinformation. Babywise does not say to starve your baby or anything of the sort.

Our LO is 8 months old. We've been laying her down awake but drowsy since we sleep trained at 11 weeks. I had to exclusively pump from the start. She was always above the 50th percentile--in fact, she actually got up to the 92nd percentile and the pedi was a little concerned about her weight, but said that breastfed babies usually come back down...which turned out to be true, she's now staying steady in the 62nd percentile (we didn't change our routine or the amount we fed her, she just slimmed down on her own). So for us, one might draw the conclusion that BW made our baby fat.

I felt that the Babywise books were a little too vague on the feeding time and amount recommendations. For that reason, I really loved Moms On Call (it's an ebook written by two nurses, has been recommended here on HB before). They lay everything out very clearly, and you can tweak the schedule to suit your baby's needs.

I have zero regrets about doing BW. Our baby wakes up happy every time. She goes down for her naps without a fight. She doesn't wake up in the middle of the night. She's well-rested and healthy. I honestly think that it helped me as much as it helped her, because allowing me to get a good night's sleep so early has helped me become better able to be the kind of parent I want to be.

Every baby is different-

My first was on a schedule for the first several months (due to NICU and weight gain problems) didn't sleep through the night until over a year old.

My second was fed on demand and slept through the night most nights right off the bat.

No matter what, you will definitely have sleepless nights despite everything you try. You just have to be open to find a technique that works for your baby.