I remember the urge to read this kind of book before the birth of my first child, and during her early weeks of life. I remember the desperate need for reassurance that order can be imposed on the expected chaos, and expect this is especially true for those of us without prior experience with babies. It did feel comforting to be told what to do. I read the Babywhisperer as well as part of Gina Ford, and treated their pronouncements as gospel, since I didn't know anything.
Upon re-reading with more experience of my own, they both sound unbearably opinionated; they are right and everybody else is wrong. The worst part for me is the predictions of dire armageddon if you don't follow their advice, that your baby will become a demanding little horror who makes your life a misery. If that were the case, how did generations of people cope before the publishing of the book? How about people in other cultures which are not as clock-obsessed as our own - are their babies less contented than ours?
The one piece of information that I obtained from such books that I found valuable, but many people may find obvious, is that very young babies do need naps very frequently, and it can be hard to get them to sleep if they are overstimulated and have been kept awake too long. (Gina Ford puts that in a less kind manner, that "babies under x age must *not be permitted* to stay awake for more than x hours"!) This can be achieved by many different ways that will probably not scar your child for life. I was determined (on advice of books) not to rock or feed my baby to sleep, and had a lot of trouble getting her to sleep in the early months as a result, which drove me to despair at times.
I am expecting my second baby in a few weeks and intend to go with the flow a bit more to make my life easier in the early months, and work on changing habits that I don't like later when I have more energy. I also intend to waste not a second pumping milk or washing/sterilising pumps and bottles until it is really necessary, as I know this is not the best way to stimulate milk supply, so I would prefer to take the opportunity to nap instead!
Upon re-reading with more experience of my own, they both sound unbearably opinionated; they are right and everybody else is wrong. The worst part for me is the predictions of dire armageddon if you don't follow their advice, that your baby will become a demanding little horror who makes your life a misery. If that were the case, how did generations of people cope before the publishing of the book? How about people in other cultures which are not as clock-obsessed as our own - are their babies less contented than ours?
The one piece of information that I obtained from such books that I found valuable, but many people may find obvious, is that very young babies do need naps very frequently, and it can be hard to get them to sleep if they are overstimulated and have been kept awake too long. (Gina Ford puts that in a less kind manner, that "babies under x age must *not be permitted* to stay awake for more than x hours"!) This can be achieved by many different ways that will probably not scar your child for life. I was determined (on advice of books) not to rock or feed my baby to sleep, and had a lot of trouble getting her to sleep in the early months as a result, which drove me to despair at times.
I am expecting my second baby in a few weeks and intend to go with the flow a bit more to make my life easier in the early months, and work on changing habits that I don't like later when I have more energy. I also intend to waste not a second pumping milk or washing/sterilising pumps and bottles until it is really necessary, as I know this is not the best way to stimulate milk supply, so I would prefer to take the opportunity to nap instead!
And here I thought in the beginning that she was a fussy baby, of course not ! She was just having needs that wasn't met, and didn't understand anything about routines or anything else.