Less Stressed Without Babywise

I would have said that we were happy following Ezzo, but I can honestly say that we are much happier now. I am so much less stressed out! I didn't realize how much stress Babywising put on me until I quit.

So many people had told me how wonderful a program Babywise was to get babies to sleep through the night and get order into your day. I think that was a large part of the appeal, not so much the sleeping through the night, but the orderly day. I like structure and order.

I also knew that it was the secular version of a "Christian" program and I remember thinking at one point how wonderful it was that the author published this in a secular format...kind of a backdoor into Christianity type of thing.

The other appeal to me was the "end result" of having a baby who people would comment on how happy, how well behaved, etc. An appeal to my PRIDE!! And, guess what, we DID get comments about how happy my DS was, but since we stopped using Babywise about a month ago, we STILL get just as many comments about how happy he is...he has a great personality and is just a heck of a lot of fun!

Quitting the program made me really nervous...I didn't like losing "control" of my day and knowing what to expect from day to day. For the first couple of weeks it was very hectic and chaotic--it didn't help that we moved at the same time! Our son wasn't sleeping well, it seemed like I was feeding him all the time, or conversely that if I waited for a clear cue that he was hungry, we went too long between feedings (because at his age of 10 months he was very busy exploring!).

In a lot of ways, it was like starting over with a newborn, learning my baby. Well, I was starting over and learning my baby!

After a couple of weeks, I learned what to watch for, what to expect. I discovered that our day does still have a pattern to eating and sleeping, and that my son can eat a whole heck of a lot more than I ever thought, and that I still get comments about how happy he is. And now there is no more watching the clock, saying "just 20 more minutes and we can eat, let's play a game to distract you", now we just eat!

Another place I have found so much less stress now that we no longer follow Babywise is in eating in public. My son is so curious and interested in the world around him that he has never eaten well when we aren't at home. While following Babywise, this caused a dilemma: either stay home for all his meals, or go out at a scheduled mealtime knowing I would either have to go off schedule for his next feeding--and Ezzo warns of all sorts of dire consequences for being off schedule--or have to distract my grumpy and hungry baby an extra long time to get closer to our scheduled feeding.

Now that I am no longer following Babywise, I don't mind being out when it is time for him to eat. I know that he won't eat much (he'll probably just take the edge off his hunger), but when he is hungry again, I can simply feed him without worrying about breaking the schedule.

by K. P.
submitted 8/11/03

Stories of Former Users and Supporters

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  • Young, Naive, Pregnant with First Child +

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  • A Forgiven Mama +

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