On Becoming Babywise, Anniversary Edition

Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep

By: Robert Bucknam MD, Gary Ezzo MA

Narrated by: William Crockett

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Distinguished pediatrician Dr. Robert Bucknam and co-author Gary Ezzo are two of the world's leading experts on baby sleep and feeding patterns. Millions of new mothers across the globe are embracing this new brand at an increasing pace, as they find and share the life-changing success they are achieving with their newborns. This updated anniversary edition celebrates 30 years with Bucknam and Ezzo's groundbreaking approach, which has found favor with over six million parents in all 50 states and has been translated into 20 languages around the world.

For 30 years, On Becoming Babywise has been the de facto newborn parenting manual for naturally synchronizing your baby's feeding time, waketime, and nighttime sleep cycles, so the whole family can sleep through the night.

In his fourth decade as a licensed pediatrician, Dr. Robert Bucknam, along with co-author Gary Ezzo, demonstrates how order and stability are mutual allies of every newborn's metabolism, and how parents can take advantage of these biological propensities. In particular, they note how an infant's body responds to the influences of parental routine or the lack thereof. Early chapters start with explorations of everyday aspects of infant management, such as the three basic elements of daytime activities for newborns: feeding time, waketime, and naptime. Practical discussions then focus on broad and niche topics including feeding philosophies, baby sleep problems, baby scheduling challenges, nap routines, sleep training multiples, baby sleeping props, colic and reflux, and many other dimensions which impact breastfeeding schedules, bottle feeding tips, and baby sleeping training.

These principles have worked for millions of parents and, when applied with common sense to your unique situation, can work wonderfully for you too!

©2021 Dr. Robert Bucknam and Gary Ezzo (P)2020 Hawksflight Publishing, LLC

It works!

By week 10 baby is sleeping through the night and we didn't start the babywise method until week 6

Single parent

I’m so interested and motivated to get my baby to sleep through the night. She is already such an easygoing little one but with returning to work from maternity leave I really wanted to maximize our rest and routine. However I’m struggling on the first chapter with the whole marriage part. I agree with what the author was saying about marriage and unity. However I also kinda felt like the author was also saying that my child won’t be as put together as the children with married parents. It definitely seems to be catered towards married couples which of course is “traditionally” the case but for some is not. Perhaps a version of this that can be a little more encouraging for people without the luxury of a “whole” family. I felt like I should apologize to my child further for not being able to provide her with the visual and example of a marriage. Still looking forward to the content. Just getting through the first part was a bit bumpy.

Great New Parent Read

Not only does this book teach how to train your baby to sleep regular hours at night at an early age it also covers issues in general for baby health and wellness. Definitely a book new parents should read and anyone planning to have a baby.

Great content—annoying voice

Great content, but the voice sounds like AI and can be difficult to listen to.

Religious drivel that experts warn harm kids

After a couple of hours of listening, I was thoroughly disappointed and turned off from this book. Among other concerning issues the book is homophobic and blames parents (and the health of their relationship) if their children don't sleep through the night. This book is not based in any science, and in fact the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) warned against the book, stating that its advice could result in infant development problems such as dehydration, poor weight gain, slow growth, delayed development and failure to thrive, as well as lack of milk supply in the new mother and involuntary weaning of the infant.

Do not waste your time and money with this book, and more importantly, do not put your children in danger by following its advice.

don't buy

don't buy don't buy research more don't buy.. babies need love, reliability and flexibility

Only useful before delivery

This book probably has good ideas on scheduling of feedings and sleep, but gives no tips whatsoever for babies that are not following that schedule. My 8 week old was eating every 1 3/4 hours (book wanted 2 1/2 - 3 hours) and only taking 30 minute naps (supposed to be 1 1/2 to 2 hours). This book went into great detail about how bad this was, but gave no advice for how to improve it! It kept saying "a Babywise Baby will be napping 1 1/2 to 2 hours. A Babywise Baby will be sleeping 8 hours at night. . . " So I guess if you didn't make your 1 week old into a Babywise Baby, you're out of luck. Save your money and read "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Weisbluth, which is science-based, gives helpful tips, and is compassionate to the babies that don't toe the line!