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On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep [Paperback]

Gary Ezzo (Author), Robert Bucknam (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (644 customer reviews) |

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Book Description

Publication Date: September 2006 | Series: On Becoming...
The infant management concepts presented in this book have found favor with over two million parents and twice as many contented babies. On Becoming Babywise brings hope to the tired and bewildered parents looking for an alternative to sleepless nights and fussy babies. The Babywise Parent Directed Feeding concept has enough structure to bring security and order to your baby's world, yet enough flexibility to give mom freedom to respond to any need at any time. It teaches parents how to lovingly guide their baby's day rather than be guided or enslaved to the infant's unknown needs.

The information contained within On Becoming Babywise is loaded with success. Comprehensive breast-feeding follow-up surveys spanning three countries, of mothers using the PDF method verify that as a result of the PDF concepts, 88% breast-feed, compared to the national average of only 54% (from the National Center for Health Statistics). Of these breast-feeding mothers, 80% of them breast-feed exclusively without a formula complement. And while 70% of our mothers are still breast-feeding after six months, the national average encourage to follow demand feeding without any guidelines is only 20%. The mean average time of breast-feeding for PDF moms is 33 1/2 weeks, well above the national average. Over 50% of PDF mothers extend their breast-feeding toward and well into the first year.

Added to these statistics is another critical factor. The average breast-fed PDF baby sleeps continuously through night seven to eight hours between weeks seven and nine. Healthy sleep in infants is analogous to healthy growth and development. Find out for yourself why a world of parents and pediatricians utilize the concepts found in On Becoming Babywise.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“From a pediatrician’s perspective, this is a sigh of welcome relief for sleepless, weary parents.”
—David Blank, M.D., Longmont, CO

“Since being introduced to the principles of Babywise, I have been convinced of its effectiveness in establishing sleep patterns and in decreasing the frequency of problems associated with infant feeding.”
—Craig Lloyd, M.D., Brisbane, Australia

“Babywise provides sound parenting advice and common-sense pediatric care to many parents who are confused, frustrated and downright sleep deprived.”
—David Miller, M.D., Superior, CO --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

About the Author

Gary Ezzo, M.A., serves as the executive director of Growing Familes International. He and his wife Anne Marie have authored a number of parenting curriculums translated into fifteen
different languages and utilized by more than two million households.
Robert Bucknam, M.D., F.A.A.P. is the founder of Cornerstone Pediatrics in Louisville, Colorado, where he resides with his wife Gayle, and their four sons. Whether Ezzo and Bucknam
are working with new or expectant parents or pediatric residents in training, they always find a receptive audience looking to Babywise as a refreshing alternative to sleepless nights, fatigued moms and bewildered dads. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 252 pages
  • Publisher: Parent-Wise Solutions, Inc.; 4 edition (September 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1932740082
  • ISBN-13: 978-1932740080
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (644 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Robert Bucknam
Gary Ezzo

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
483 of 556 people found the following review helpful
Didn't work for us September 18, 2007
By Momof3!
Format:Paperback
I would like to respond to the reviewers that suggest those of us who disliked babywise didn't read it, or didn't apply its principles properly. I read, re-read and highlighted the book after a friend of mine recommended it. And for a solid month I faithfully attempted to place my newborn on the babywise schedule, but it just did not work for my son. For example, my son often awoke earlier from his nap than the schedule would allow. Sometimes he would wake crying, sometimes happy. If he was crying, I would allow him to cry because the book suggests if your baby awakes crying he did not get enough sleep. But, he never fell back asleep. So then I would feed him only to find he was starving. But how was I to know he was hungry...babwise never once discusses reading your baby's cues, only "mom, not baby, decides when nap begins, and mom, not baby, decides when nap ends." If he woke happy, then I really was in a bind. He would play awake in his crib (even if I didn't go to him) so now he was having activity before eating (a babywise no-no). But if I fed him, he would be fed before 2 ½ hours (another babywise no-no). I tried putting him to bed for naps earlier, because the book states that if your child awakes early he probably was overtired and needed less activity, but my son would still awake after 45-60 minutes. I was constantly stressed out.

After one month on babywise, my son was still not back to his birth weight. I quit using the system and my son started rapidly gaining weight. We both became happier. I can't say I disagree with the overall concepts of the book...promoting full feedings instead of snacking, frequent daytime feedings to help baby distinguish day from night, teaching a baby to fall asleep on his/her own, and the importance of sleep to both a baby and his/her parents. I just disagree with the presentation. Babywise assumes all babies fit into its schedule, and in truth, they just don't.

This is obviously a very controversial book. I do not think you have to have an MD/PhD after your name to know something about raising a baby, but the fact that the author has absolutely no medical/childcare background concerns me, especially when the concepts are so radically different from what most pediatricians/child psychologists recommend. Just because something works (i.e. gets you baby to sleep through the night), doesn't make it the best thing for your child.

As a side note, I never co-slept or wore my baby in a sling all day long (though I feel if this works for you and your baby then great...this just isn't my style of parenting). I definitely feel babies need parental guidance, but I think parents must take their baby's temperaments into account. Once I started reading other books, I learned how to better read my babies cues, and I no longer had to fight him to sleep, eat or stay awake. I used a combination of several other books (No Cry Sleep Solution, Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide and Baby Whisperer) and am happy to report I have a 9 month old who sleeps 11 hours per night and takes 2 good naps a day...oh and has been sleeping 10 hrs/night since 3 months of age. He is an absolute joy and everywhere I take him people comment on how happy and content he is...in church, restaurants and shopping. It can be done without babywise!
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82 of 93 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I think some of the people who don't like this book have missed the point! The authors take pains to say that Parent Directed Feeding (PDF) should ONLY be used as a guideline.... they say that if your baby is hungry, feed them. They don't advocate that babies are left to "cry it out" although they do say there is no harm letting them cry for 10/15 minutes to see if they will re-settle (I lasted about 5 minutes!)
I devoured this book as a first time Mum, with no idea of how to start scheduling my little one. I used their method of Eat-Activity-Sleep as a guideline and it totally transformed my life. However, I didn't stress if we missed the odd nap or fed a little earlier or later. If you use this method as a framework to base your own instinct on, then you can get fabulous results. Our girl still wakes once in the night, but she's only 4 months old and that's fine by me! She is a totally happy little soul and I'm convinved that much of that has to do with the confidence that this book gave me!
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147 of 173 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am a first-time mom of a now 6 month old baby, and I have read SEVERAL books including the No-Cry Sleep Solution, Baby Wise, The Happiest Baby on the Block, a wonderful little book called N.A.P.S., and parts of Ferber's book. Baby Wise was recommended to me by 3 very good friends. I read the book before my child was born and was ready to put him on a schedule at 3 weeks of age. That was my first mistake. I have come to realize over the past few months that it's easy to say that every baby is different, but the truth of the matter is that no one program could possibly work for every child. If it could, then there wouldn't be so many books and theories out there.

Baby Wise did not work for me. And yet without it, my son slept through the night at 2 months of age. I think I'm just lucky. I don't believe it's necessarily because of anything special that my husband and I did. I do think it might have had something to do with The Happiest Baby on the Block because that book led us to swaddle our baby which lengthened his nighttime sleep and naps dramatically. And yet we dropped swaddling at night at 2 months of age.

Here's my main issue with Baby Wise. It states ideas like "Mom, not baby, decides when the nap begins and when the nap ends." There's also a similar statement about Mom deciding how much comes out of the bottle, not the baby. At the time I didn't think much of it. Now when I think about those statements, it makes it sound like a power struggle between a parent and a baby. An infant does not have an agenda. He or she is not trying to manipulate the parents. That comes later. :-)

I was talking to a friend whose baby is due in 2 months. I told her that what I had truly learned in the past 6 months is that no one technique works for every baby and that what works for my baby one day may not work for him the next. I also told her that it is easier for me to adapt to my son than for him to adapt to me. And that part is tough because he doesn't nap well. And I've left him to cry, thinking I would try that idea that Mom decides when the nap ends. Whatever. I don't want my son sleeping from exhaustion due to screaming his head off for an hour or more. That's not Baby Kind.

The irony here is that I am very much a control freak. And this book is too controlling for me. It's too much, and I think it expects too much out of an innocent, helpless baby who has no agenda or the ability to manipulate. And guess what? He's a really happy baby, laughing and talking and still sleeping 11 hours at night. I hope every night that it lasts, but I imagine that one night soon, he might wake up. And I'll go to him because I'll know he needs me.

All of this said, I only have the one child. A routine and schedule is more than likely more necessary if you have more than one child. So I can see why friends recommended it. But to expect this rigid routine from a baby whose nervous system is still maturing is just expecting too much. Let your baby be a baby, and enjoy him or her through every stage, no matter how trying.

Bottom line...this book expects too much of a baby. There is a lesser-known book called N.A.P.S. that got me through a trying period of short naps, and like I said earlier, The Happiest Baby on the Block got me through the early weeks due to the swaddling. I also really love the theory that Karp promotes of the 1st 3 months of life basically being the 4th trimester. I think that's what he calls it anyway.

So you see, 2 books helped me along the way,and I'm sure I'll read more as the need arises. Just be realistic if you buy this book and expect your baby to be a baby, not a miniature adult.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
BABYWISE techniques are linked to Baby Dehydration and Failure to...
[...]

Please go to the link above and do your research before fallowing the advice of someone posing as though they know what they are talking about. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Michelle
Best advice ever when tempered with common sense
As a physician who works with children, a mother and a wife, I highly recommend this books general advice. Read more
Published 3 days ago by Lisa H. Lowe
Priceless advice!
I was given the advice to read this book before my daughter was born two years ago. I not only read this once, but several times. Read more
Published 6 days ago by Katie
Does not work for all babies!!
We used Babywise with our first child. I chose not to use it with the following three. My husband and I watched Gary Ezzo's video series and implemented his program from the time... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Lizzalass
Great for first few months
I really like this book for the first few months to help the new baby adjust to eating and sleeping. Read more
Published 10 days ago by hottie
Worked for us!
The concepts in Babywise are wonderful and worked so well for my daughter and I. The book was recommended to me by multiple people in my church, so as a first time mom, I got the... Read more
Published 12 days ago by Cheryl T
Essentail Book for the new Mom
This book has the "why" behind the need for wisdom when helping your infant establish early patterns of eating and sleeping that will have lifetime rewards! Highly recommend.
Published 12 days ago by L. Holt
Author is a fraud
People often incorrectly assume that Babywise author Gary Ezzo is a doctor. He is NOT. Ezzo is a minister in independent, evangelical churches. Read more
Published 13 days ago by AZdesertmama
Use Common Sense-Worked for me-Full Feedings
The basic premise of the book is to follow an eat-wake-sleep cycle that is about 3 hours long. The book says that if you get your baby on this routine she will sleep through the... Read more
Published 17 days ago by Marylynn
Lifesaver!
This book was a complete lifesaver. I followed it completely and had my baby sleeping 11 to 5:30 at seven weeks old, which was great!
Published 25 days ago by RomanticReader
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Introduction (From Wikipedia)

On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep is a controversial book by evangelical Christian adviser Gary Ezzo and conservative Christian pediatrician Robert Bucknam about raising an infant. Formerly published by Multnomah Books, Baby Wise is currently self-published through Ezzo's own publishing company, Parent-Wise Solutions; approximately 250,000 copies have been sold. The book grew out of a church-based parenting book written by Ezzo and his wife as they raised two children. Baby Wise presents an infant care program which the authors say will cause babies to sleep through the night beginning between seven and nine weeks of age. It emphasizes parental control of the infant's sleep, play and feeding schedule rather than allowing the baby to decide when to eat, play and sleep.

Attribution: The information appearing above in this tab is from Wikipedia: On Becoming Baby Wise. Amazon is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: CC BY-SA. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

Summary (From Wikipedia)

Baby Wise describes an infant management plan built around feed/play/sleep cycles. The authors term their approach to feeding "parent-directed feeding", or PDF:

"Our conviction is that a baby should be fed when he or she signals readiness. With PDF, a mother feeds her baby when the baby is hungry, but she takes advantage of the first few weeks of life to guide the baby’s hunger patterns by a basic routine. This is cooperative parenting."

The book includes instructions for the care of babies from birth through six months. It primarily covers infant sleep and feeding practices, and emphasizes parental control of infant training. The infant is presented not as the defining center of the household but as a "welcome addition", subject to larger household order. The material presented in Baby Wise is not radical or new, it is simply a re-articulation of various practical methods which are reminiscent of parenting styles advocated by other Evangelical child-rearing advisors.

Ezzo and Bucknam describe their stance as a middle ground between feeding the baby on demand (when the baby indicates hunger) and feeding based on a strict clock schedule. In contrast to advice given by popular pediatrician William "Dr. Bill" Sears, the Baby Wise authors do not condone co-sleeping; Ezzo wrote, "The most serious sleep problems we've encountered are associated with parents who sleep with their babies."

The sleep advice given by Baby Wise is similar to Richard Ferber's advice given in his popular book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. The Ferber method of getting a baby to sleep includes putting the baby to bed when awake; the same as Baby Wise. The baby is expected to learn how to fall asleep alone. Both methods warn the parents against using aids such as a pacifier to ease the baby into sleep, and both methods describe putting the infant to sleep without prior rocking, cuddling or nursing applied for the sole purpose of calming the child into sleep. "Crying it out" is expected from the infant during the early training periods, until about eight weeks of age.

A foundation of the book is that "great marriages produce great parents." Ezzo and Bucknam recommend that the new parents continue with their lives much as before the baby arrived, scheduling dates with each other and having friends over.

Buyers of the book include mothers wearied by the demands of attachment parenting, in search of more time for their careers and pursuits. The book promises that following its plan "will not leave mom ragged at the end of the day nor in bondage to her child. Nor will Dad be excluded from his duties."

Attribution: The information appearing above in this tab is from Wikipedia: On Becoming Baby Wise. Amazon is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: CC BY-SA. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

Criticism (From Wikipedia)

Baby Wise has been criticized by mainstream health care professionals for giving dangerously wrong information regarding infant growth, feeding, sleep and development. Critics include, for example, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, MD, FAAP, Professor Emeritas, Harvard Medical School, developer of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale; and Arnold Tanis, MD, FAAP, Past President, Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The Baby Wise program has been associated with infantile failure to thrive, dehydration, malnutrition, problems with milk supply in breastfeeding mothers, and involuntary early weaning.

Ferber method founder Richard Ferber, MD, Director of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children's Hospital Boston, concurs with Baby Wise regarding some of its sleep advice, but he warns against expecting too much. Baby Wise predicts that the 8-week-old child will be sleeping 7 to 8 hours in a row at night, and the 13-week-old child increasing the nighttime sleep period to as much as 11 hours. Ferber said, "Parents shouldn't expect babies to sleep that long that early, although a very few will on their own". Ferber says that the book may frustrate parents of babies that are not sleeping so much; the parents may wonder what is wrong with the infant. Ferber says that if a baby sleeps through the night, the parents may actually need to wake it for feeding.

In 1998, "Dr. Bill" Sears, evangelical author, pediatrician, and clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, best known as the foremost proponent of attachment parenting, said of the Baby Wise book, "People began calling me about the stuff in this book several years ago, but I basically ignored it, thinking that it was so far out that it would just die out." Sears regretted not speaking out earlier against Baby Wise. He said about the book that it was "probably the most dangerous program of teaching about babies and children that I have seen in my 25 years of being a pediatrician."

After noticing the controversy surrounding the book and investigating complaints about the medical advice it gives to new parents, Multnomah Books stopped publishing the text in September 2001. They returned the book rights to GFI. Subsequent printings have been produced by Parent-Wise Solutions, an imprint formed by the Ezzos to publish their books.

Many of Ezzo's former Christian allies turned into detractors of Baby Wise. Others hold different positions. Evangelical Christian author James Dobson, founder of the Focus on the Family ministry, commented on the controversial book, saying "I've never attacked it, but I don't endorse it ... I'm not out campaigning against the Ezzos; I'm just not their greatest fan."

Attribution: The information appearing above in this tab is from Wikipedia: On Becoming Baby Wise. Amazon is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: CC BY-SA. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

Editions (From Wikipedia)

Religious

In the late 1960s, Gary Ezzo studied at Mohawk Valley Community College in New York state, but he did not earn a degree. In 1983, Ezzo enrolled full-time at Talbot School of Theology in a program aimed at giving a Master of Arts degree in Christian ministry to people who did not hold a lower degree, but had been active in ministry for two years. In 1984, Ezzo and his wife Anne Marie Ezzo began teaching parenting classes at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California; a 10,000-member megachurch for evangelical Christians. Anne Marie Ezzo was raising two children at the time and for a short while trained as a nurse in a hospital pediatric unit.

In 1984, Anne Marie Ezzo wrote a four-page paper titled "Parent Controlled Feeding". In 1985, Ezzo received his Master of Arts degree from Talbot; the degree emphasized Christian Education. Subsequently, the Ezzos continued to research early parenting and with five other couples formed Growing Families International (GFI), beginning as a non-profit in 1987 and becoming a for-profit in 1989. Based on the earlier paper the Ezzos wrote a Christian parenting guide for GFI: Preparation for Parenting: Bringing God's Order to Your Baby's Day and Restful Sleep to Your Baby's Night. The book was published in 1990. Grace Community Church was initially supportive of the Ezzos and their parenting ministry but in 1997 after four years of concerned discussion, the church reversed its official position, criticizing the Ezzos for creating a divisive atmosphere between parents who followed the book's practices and those who favored demand feeding for infants, sleeping with their infants, and sling-type carriers for babies. The church elders banned the GFI books for "stifling the mother's desire to comfort her children", for ascribing Biblical qualities to the concept of scheduled feeding, and for failing to address the church's concerns regarding theological issues such as human depravity (the belief that all people are born in slavery to the service of sin) and regeneration (the belief that people can experience spiritual rebirth in Christ). The Ezzos left the church along with a few sympathetic families.

The infant-rearing research the Ezzos conducted was performed by GFI and not published or subject to peer review. In training the infant to follow the book's recommended eating and sleeping schedule, it was expected that at certain times the infant would be left alone to cry when hungry or wakeful. The book justified the act of leaving a baby to cry alone by comparing that choice to the crucifixion of Jesus: "Praise God that the Father did not intervene when His Son cried out on the cross." The Ezzos wrote that leaving the infant "crying for 15, 20, even 30 minutes is not going to hurt your baby physically or emotionally." To counter the book's conclusions, Laura Bassi Zaff, PhD, an expert in childhood cognitive development, wrote that careful research has shown that leaving a baby crying may result in emotional harm, perhaps manifesting as "attachment disorder, or anxiety disorder, or crippling problems with self esteem and interpersonal relationships".

Secular

To create a secular version of the book, Gary Ezzo partnered with Robert Bucknam, a pediatrician from Denver, Colorado, to write On Becoming Babywise: More Than a Survival Guide which appeared in 1993. Ezzo and Bucknam wrote a new edition published in 1995: On Becoming Baby Wise: Learn How Over 100,000 Babies Were Trained to Sleep Through the Night the Natural Way—this edition used the single word "Babywise", later split into two words: "Baby Wise". Further editions of the book were published in 1998, 2001 and 2007. Changes in the later editions include removing the assertion that the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is not heightened by placing the baby to sleep on its belly, and removing the notion that feeding the baby whenever it appears hungry will give the mother "an abnormal hormonal condition" which could lead to postpartum depression.

Attribution: The information appearing above in this tab is from Wikipedia: On Becoming Baby Wise. Amazon is not affiliated with, and neither endorses, nor is endorsed by Wikipedia or any of the authors who contributed to this article. The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: CC BY-SA. Additional or other terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.
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