On Becoming Baby Wise: The Classic Sleep Reference Guide Used by Over 1,000,000 Parents Worldwide...

On Becoming Baby Wise: The Classic Sleep Reference Guide Used by Over 1,000,000 Parents Worldwide | Gary Ezzo, Robert Bucknam | Should be a pamphlet, not a book

books:

On Becoming Baby W...

	On Becoming Baby Wise: The Classic Sleep Reference Guide Used by Over 1,000,000 Parents Worldwide Gary Ezzo, Robert Bucknam Parent-Wise Solutions, 2001 - 238 pages average customer review:based on 1001 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Highly recommended!

I have seen lots of negative publicity regarding the Baby Wise books that are unwarranted. The book does not tell you to only feed your baby at certain times and ignore the crying, nor does it tell you to leave your baby in a playpen for an hour at a time. What the book does tell you - is to feed on a "schedule" BUT to also be watchful of cues from your baby that they require more feedings (ex/ # of pee/poo diapers). It also tells you to introduce the playpen for 10-15 minutes at a time, 2 times a day - gradually increasing the time to what you feel comfortable with. The book helps you see the common sense in parenting. It is great! I got lots of huffs from people who didn't agree with what I was doing but anyone who meets my daughter says that she is one of the happiest and most contented babies ever. My baby is about to turn a year this month and has done awesome under the philosophies I used from BabyWise I and II. My pediatrician (who didn't know that I was doing BabyWise) said that I was doing a great job with my daughter. Read the book for yourself and decide if it is what you want to do - it is worth it to look into!

for more information click here

Should be a pamphlet, not a book

Baby wise offers some useful advice, but Ezzo shoots himself in the foot with his arrogant, negative, manipulative tone.

I had to force myself to finish reading this book so that I could write a complete review. I lost patience within the first 50 pages; the author spends as much time and effort railing on attachment parenting as he does explaining and defending his own theory. He blames attachment parenting for almost every problem in society: obesity, learning disabilities, even postpartum depression and child abuse. His hatred of this parenting method seems totally irrational, and oftentimes he doesn't even have his facts straight. He repeatedly asserts that attachment parenting is rooted in Freud's birth trauma theory, but I have read a great deal about it and have never come across anything mentioning to Freud or birth trauma.

Ezzo calls carrying one's child in a sling an "extreme" behavior. He spends a paragraph arguing for circumcision with incorrect and unreferenced "research." His comparisons between "Chelsea," a baby raised on the babywise method and "Marisa," a baby raised on attachment parenting's principles, are so exaggerated that I couldn't take them seriously. Clearly not all attachment-based children turn out like the nightmare child Marisa- if they did, attachment parenting would have disappeared long ago.

The book is also poorly edited. I found numerous spelling and punctuation errors, not to mention common typos. Not only does Ezzo lack any real credentials, but he also didn't bother hiring even a freshman English major to check his writing for common errors.

If you choose to buy and read this book, keep in mind the fact that you will just be reading 211 pages of some guy's opinion. Ezzo is not a doctor, nor a qualified childcare expert of any kind. If he would have left out his ultraconservative, arrogant views and simply published the essence of the babywise method, this book would be 50 pages long and maybe a worthwhile read.

for more information click here