Secrets of the Baby Whisperer should be a book I hate. It should be a book I hate because Tracy Hogg’s attitude is totally my-way-or-the-highway, and as I’ve already told you, I really don’t have any patience for that when it comes to parenting advice.
Maybe I’m just ornery. Maybe I’m just lazy. Mostly, as I’ve said before, I am a firm believer in pursuing whatever parenting practices make you least nuts.
That said, I really do believe that the Baby Whisperer system is designed to save you from the crazies.
Here’s why:
What’s most crazy-making about caring for an infant is not the days and weeks and months and years of sleepless nights you may / will experience when you start having babies. Sleeplessness is something most of us can adapt to. You can just up your coffee intake and keep going, promise. And honestly, sleep is relative. Before baby, you think you need 8-10 hours of it. After baby, you’ll be shocked at how well you can function on a nice 4-hour stretch of uninterruped zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzs.
Also, there’s tons of things you can do to handle baby sleep problems — and I’m going to blog about that sort of thing tomorrow, promise.
But there’s a lot less you can do about the fact that your baby can’t talk.
Especially since, at least for the first few weeks of her life, all her crying is going to sound the same: pitiable, angry, and loud.
How on earth, then, are you supposed to know if she’s hungry, or tired, or achy, or what?
Tracy Hogg’ll tell you how! And with a catchy acronym, to boot! It’s incredibly easy to remember, too — so easy it’s called EASY, which stands for:
Eat
Activity
Sleep
You-Time
In Tracy Hogg’s opinion — and mine — EASY should be the basic building block for every baby’s daily routine. Yep, I said it — and I mean it:
YOU GOTTA HAVE A ROUTINE.
Here’s why:
Imagine you have a 3-month old baby on an EASY routine. Here’s what your day looks like (this schedule is based on a 4-hour eating routine):
7 am Wake up and EAT
730 Change diaper and play (ACTIVITY)
830 Baby naps (SLEEP)
YOU TIME!
11 am Wake up and EAT
1130 Change diaper and play (ACTIVITY)
1230 Baby naps (SLEEP)
YOU TIME!
2 pm Wake up and EAT
230 Change diaper and play (ACTIVITY)
330 Baby naps (SLEEP)
YOU TIME!
5 pm Wake up and EAT
530 Change diaper and play (ACTIVITY)
630 Baby’s bedtime
YOU TIME!
Now, imagine it’s 815 in the morning and your kid is sobbing. He ate at 7. It’s almost naptime. He must be tired! Swaddle that sucker up and put him down!
Or imagine it’s 145 in the afternoon, and he’s woken up a little early from his nap. It’s almost time for his 2 pm bottle — he’s hungry! And just like a man, all you gotta do is feed him to make him happy.
Can you see the magic? And by magic, what I mean is, can you see the FOUR SEPARATE TIMES EVERY SINGLE DAY YOU GET A FEW MINUTES TO YOURSELF?!? (Just in case you missed them, I BOLDED THEM FOR YOU!)
Enjoy that YOU TIME. Catch up on Netflix. Do some dishes. Read a magazine. Surf the web. Shower daily. Seriously. Shower daily. Do it while you can, because when Baby #2 comes around, deep-conditioning is a thing of the past.
To recap:
The power of leveraging ROUTINES to better care for and understand your baby — and creating YOU TIME to care for yourself — are really the main take-away from this book, and Hogg’s slew of others. Which is not to say she doesn’t have a lot more to offer new parents — she does — so do yourself a favor and buy one of her books.
That said, ignore her advice on juggling twins, which in my opinion is patently absurd … but we can talk about that later. And take with a grain of salt her breastfeeding advice, which is completely outdated. Not that you can really blame her for that, seeing as she’s dead.
technically yes, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Since I’m eetfpcrly okay with her waking up at those times, I’m not going to have her cry it out because it’s not worth it to us.Oh and I use the Baby Whisperer’s EASY routine (eat-activity-sleep-you time). Used it for my first DD and now my 2nd. it works great for us. We don’t have a set schedule, but because of EASY I can estimate a nap or a feeding time.
This is the ONLY book I recommend to expecting parents. What spoke loudest to me was Tracy’s idea that you as the parent, CAN figure out what your baby needs, and can have a happy baby who lets you have alone time. Too many parents toss their hands up and act like they don’t have any control over how their baby behaves, which ends up continuing until they have 13-year-olds who “they just can’t control.” Also, her idea of “start as you mean to go on:” if you want to co-sleep, do it! If you don’t, don’t do it! Decide what you want and stick to it, even when it’s tough. Great parenting advice, and not just for getting kids to sleep well.
Used this with my first. Plan on reviewing our and using again for my second. I agree…fantastic planning advice!