Babywise - Book Review

Let me just start out by saying that I am well aware that Babywise, by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, is a controversial book. Some people swear by it while some people hate it. Generally people that prefer schedules enjoy this book much more than those that prefer the attachment style of parenting. In fact, I know a couple attachment parents that absolutely hate this book even though they have never read it. That's just ignorant. You don't have to like this book (because it really is totally against some people's natural parenting style), just don't speak negatively against it when you haven't even read it and don't understand its concepts. Plus, just because someone has a different parenting style it doesn't make them wrong.
While I do not agree with 100% of this book and don't particularly enjoy the writing style of it, I generally really like and agree with the information in it. The main points in this book include: promoting full feedings instead of snacking, frequent daytime feedings and awake periods to help baby distinguish day from night, teaching a baby to fall asleep on his own and the importance of sleep to both a baby and his parents.

The thing you need to be careful about while implementing the strategies in this book is to not become too obsessed about doing everything perfect and realize that every baby is different. This method of parenting will work better for some babies than it will for others. Babywise kind of makes you think that your baby will follow the "routine" or "schedule" exactly but that is definitely not the case. There are going to be ups and downs along the way. Also, I found that I had a bunch of unanswered questions after reading this book. There are some great blogs out there to help answer these questions. Two great ones are Chronicles of a Babywise Mom and Childwise Chat.

Just in case you're wondering, I did use the scheduling principles in Babywise and successfully nursed both my kids past a year. They were also both at the top of the growth charts. I just wanted to point this out since I am sick and tired of all the remarks that babies will be malnourished on Babywise. That's a complete lie. If you are following the Babywise principles correctly this will not happen. Here are some great articles from one of the above blog about Babywise myths.


There are a bunch of other "wise" books out there to help you with every stage of development. See "wise" books here.

Note that many people that like Babywise also really like The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems. This book is similar to Babywise but doesn't agree with ever letting your child cry by himself which Babywise agrees with to an extent. See Sleep Training - BabyWise