When my oldest daugther was 6 week old, I was so tired. What I lovingly refer to as the "honeymoon stage" of those newborn days had worn off and I was left with dark circles under both of my eyes. At this point, none of my close friends had begun the mothering journey yet, so I felt a little on my own and like I had to pioneer my way around motherhood. Somehow, I stumbled upon the book On Becoming Babywise authored by Dr. Gary Ezzo. I went to facebook to see if anyone I knew had any experience with the book. I was surprised by the reactions I was getting. I had a few people privately message me and tell me they had read the book and either liked it or disliked it, but I had a numnber of people try to lead me far from the principles of the book. Most of them would tell me what aspects of the philosophy they were not comfortable with. It didn't take me long to realize that while this book may work for some, for others it not only didn't work for (which is fine!) but they were passionate in their distate for what the book had to offer. If you do a quick google search for "Babywise" you will quickly see too, a lot of pushback, for a parenting book offering sleep to the tired family.
If you truly dig into the negative thoughts surrounding the book, you can easily assess that many of the people who are critical have yet to read the book all the way through, or they have not practiced/implemented the principles in their homes at all. So many speak without the true knowledge, and many more speak without real experience. You will not find me being critical of parenting styles in which I do not know much about or use in my home. It feels unfair to me to try to convince someone that one way is right when I have little know how regarding the practice.
Today, I am talking specifically about having a consistent schedule (a tried and true babywise philosophy) will actually make your child more flexible when the routine must be interrupted. You don't have to hyper schedule to make Babywise work for your home. In fact, you begin slowly and build. This helps you to know what will work for your family's lifestyle and needs.
When you have your basic day to day living schedule working well for you and baby, baby knows what to expect for his day. There is a sweet, real security created that the baby learns to trust. His body will actually lull at the times where he is used to napping and his metabolism will gear up in times he is used to being fed. This works well for day to day living - but it also benefits greatly when things are a little out of sorts and the schedule is not going as usual. I have found that my baby's cried less when they were tired - even if they were not getting their nap like they were used too - because they knew it would eventually come. Their bodies were not in fight mode because they felt unceratin that they would not get the rest they wanted. This is true for hunger as well. If my child was used to eating prompltly at 11:30 am for lunch, but the trip to the grocery store took 30 minutes longer than anticipated, they were still able to roll with the punches because they had the security to not panic wondering if they would have a full belly again soon.
This is also true for things like daylight savings, or when travel disrupts the normal routine. They are able to bounce right back to the regularly scheduled program! If you spend time, creating for them a day that they can rest assured their needs will all be met, that becomes their normal and that will be their default if a reset is needed.
Over the course of 4 babywise baby's, I have become less and less stressed when the day doesn't go as planned. I have assurance that when life happens and hiccups arise, our family can easily and happily get back on the right tracks with minimal consequences.
So many view On Becoming Babywise philosophies as strict and rigid with no room for flexibility. Everyone has to succomb to the baby's scheduling needs. These have absolutley not been true for me, and even beyond that, the opposite has been my experience. The schedule works great for day to day living and the schedule actually allows my child to become flexible when needed. Babywise has been a gift to our entire family, 4 times over.
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