Wising up

I have been reading On Becoming Baby Wise because it has been recommended to me by numerous people. Many people seem to swear by it and say it really helped them particularly to get their infants to sleep through the night and follow a routine.

This week, I have been trying the techniques, which involve parent-directed feeding and feed-wake-sleep cycles. And I can honestly say it has not boded well for me. My daughter has been crying more than I can ever remember her crying. And she has not slept through the night at all this week. In fact, she’s woken at least twice every night. Previously, she had been sleeping through about four out of seven nights during the week. I just thought I could help the process and encourage her to start falling asleep on her own rather than rocking and singing her to sleep as we had been doing.  

The book is written for parents-to-be or parents of newborns who are just starting out of their parenting journeys and are looking to establish routines and good sleeping habits. My daughter is 6 months old. We have a loose schedule that we follow, and we let her take daytime naps when she’s tired and not necessarily on a schedule. So, it has been difficult for me to adapt Baby Wise for her. The techniques they use are more of a process that you use from day one or at least the first couple of weeks. You follow them for several weeks with the hope that by ten or 12 weeks your child will sleep through the night and be on a set schedule.