Well, I've just read it from cover to cover, and my basic assessment is as follows:
1 - it made me feel like a really useless parent. There's a huge focus on the fact that there's no 'good' baby, and that any baby can be the happy contented bubbling little 'babywise' baby unless you're stuffing them up. So basically, the fact Jakey's not following the nice three/four - hourly routine thing is my fault. Now I'm prepared to believe there's a good element of truth in that, but not to the degree they push it, and if that's the case I'd like some advice to change it, which leads me to point two...
2 - there's not a heck of a lot of advice in there if your kid doesn't fit the mould and conform nicely to the sleeping / waking / feeding schedule they've laid out. I mean, they talk about leaving them to grizzle before they go to sleep for a nap. That's cool, I have no particular issues with that if it's going to help. The book talks about the fact that a baby 'might cry for up to 20 minutes' before going to sleep, or that parents 'might be shocked to hear that a seemingly endless bout of screaming only lasted all of five to ten minutes'. I'm dealing with a baby who will howl for an hour and a half (yes, in desperation I have tried it) or lie in bed grizzling his little head off for two hours. By that time, apparently, he's meant to be having his next feed!
And despite the fact the book mentions that lots of babies wake at 45 mins, it never offers a suggestion that I can find about what to do with them at that point...
Oh, but in it's defense, people who let their babies get too hungry / dehydrated obviously haven't read the book well... it specifically says that "hunger is ALWAYS a good reason to feed more frequently".
I still don't like it much though. Some of the basic principals are good, but I've heard them from plenty of other places and I don't like the tone of the book or find it particularly helpful dealing with babies who don't automatically do as they 'should'.
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