2023-07-28

Deeper review of Babywise

This is a deeper review than my typical book report, because I believe the content of this book to be just the right combination of simple enough, short enough, and important enough to warrant a little extra explanation.

PHILOSOPHICAL TENETS

• "Great marriages produce great parents." Harmony in the marriage infuses stability in the family. Keeping the marriage a priority (when intact) is the starting point for successful parenting; the husband-wife union is necessary for child-rearing.

• Child-centered households erode the fundamental family structure. Before the child existed, the husband-wife family was the family. Therefore, parents who forsake each other for the supposed sake of the new child are actually destroying the original family. Instead, children should be welcomed members of the pre-existing family, integrated into the existing structure.

• "Virtues are not inherent in any new life." Both moral and pragmatic/logistical characteristics must be nurtured into the heart. Children are not born understanding and exuding structure; the parents must set the pace in the child's life and insist upon compliance.

• "Infants are born with both the capacity and need for warm, loving, and intimate relationships."

• "How you choose to feed your baby will have a profound effect on your child's hunger patterns, sleep patters, and basic disposition." A discontented child is more lilely a reflection of the parents' parenting style and beliefs than an indication of hunger. "Stable sleep patterns are based on stable feed/wake patterns."

• "Parents who love their babies give them what they need; young children need a good night's sleep."

• "The goal of the Babywise routine is to have a strategy designed to meet the baby's needs for structure in tandem with nurturing his development."

PARENTING RULES

This section may look a bit long, but that's only due to the explanatory text following each "parenting rule," listed in bold. If you focus on the bold segments only, it's actually pretty impressive that Babywise develops a parenting structure able to be condensed down into only 10 short rules.

1. A full feeding at every feeding. No snack, partial, consolation, or pacification feedings. When it is time to eat, the infant must be kept awake if necessary to fill his belly and achieve a complete feeding.

2. Feed, wake, sleep. Infants should be on a 2.5-3 hr. cycle of feeding, followed by non-feeding awake time, followed by a nap or nighttime sleep. This order should never be broken, with the exception of the last feeding of the day and middle-of-the-night feeding(s), after which no "wake" period is necessary before sleep. The nap should average 1-1.5 hr. of this cycle prior to the last feeding of the day.

3. Feeding Time = [Hunger Cue] + [Clock] + [Parental Assessment]. Every time an infant fusses is not an appropriate time or signal for a feeding. In this equation, "Clock" refers to the expectation that your infant should be feeding every 2.5-3 hr., regardless of other cues. (This results in 8-10 feedings per day.) "Hunger Cues" and "Parental Assessment" can cause you to feed before the "Clock" requires. "Parental Assessment" is the idea of using your brain to assess why your child is fussing and what he is fussing about, instead of lazily and assumptuously feeding him without further thought. As for cues, babies display two broad categories:

   1. • Immediate Need Cues. These include hunger, needing sleep, messy diaper, etc. Hunger cues may include sucking on fingers, making sucking noises, certain "I'm hungry" signal noises, etc. I've posted more information about baby noise interpretation here. Immediate need cues are objective, fact-based, and descriptive. E.g. "It is 11 pm. My infant is crying. I believe he needs _____."

      • Parenting Style Cues, or as I like to call them, Meta Cues. The Meta Cues are more subjective, reflection-based, and prescriptive. Being "meta," these cues indicate something about your parenting style. E.g., "My infant seems to cry repeatedly around 11 pm. I believe he is hungry. Why is he always hungry at this time?" These cues may be indicating that something is not working in your parenting style.

4. Establish the first feeding time of the day. This sets the tone for the following 24 hr. cycle. This feeding should be consistent to within a 30 min. window.

5. "When naptime comes, the baby goes down. It is that simple." The baby does not need to already be asleep.

6. The [routine + parents], not the baby, decide when naptime starts. The [routine + parents], not the baby, decide when naptime ends. If the baby wakes up cranky, it's most often the result of not enough sleep. Try starting the next naptime 15 min. sooner in the cycle.

7. "If you want a fussy baby, never let him cry." "Some crying is a normal part of a baby's day... When settling for a nap, crying for 15-20 min. is not going to hurt your baby physically or emotionally." Babies can cry as part of a normal 30-45 min. sleep rhythm; and interrupting them in attempts to stop the crying can disrupt or postpone healthy sleep. "Many babies cannot fall asleep without crying and will go to sleep more quickly if left to cry for a while." Furthermore, "some babies actually need to let off energy by crying in order to settle into sleep or rouse themselves out of it." (Last 2 quotes in this rule attributed to AAP.)

8. "Any two consecutive days of deviation from what is listed as normal growth indicators should be reported to your pediatrician." Lists of healthy growth metrics (e.g. length, weight, number of soiled and wetted diapers per day, etc.) are provided in the book and possibly here.

9. The infant does not sleep in bed with its parents. The so-called "family bed/co-sleeping" increases the risk of SIDS, decreases quality of the parent(s)'s sleep, hinders the development of trust, and does not prevent separation anxiety. At the same time, there is nothing wrong with the occaisional nap with mom or dad.

And finally, 

10. The routine is designed to serve the parents; not the parents to serve the routine. Be flexible with your routine when needed (e.g./especially in public) to maintain a proper respect for others (e.g. strangers and family/visitors). Returning to the routine after flexing is perhaps the most crucial element of successful flexing.

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