On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep

In On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep, author Robert Bucknam and Gary Ezzo present a comprehensive infant management program which they claim will have babies sleeping through the night by between seven and nine weeks. The book emphasizes parental control of the infant’s schedule and sleep, play and feeding patterns rather than letting the baby decide.

The authors promote a routine of eat, wake, sleep which should be followed at all times and can be modified to fit your newborn’s unique needs. They suggest establishing a desired awake time for the day which will set the tone for their entire routine including nighttime sleep. The eat, wake, sleep cycle is important because it allows babies to not depend on food to fall asleep and encourages them to learn to go to sleep without being fed.

They also advocate the use of a dream feed which they say helps to prevent waking during the night for a feed. However, the book does not mention that this is not supported by medical research and can actually be harmful to a newborn. It is also not recommended for premature babies.

While Babywise has a lot of excellent sleep tips and parenting advice, it can be a bit overzealous in its expectations for newborns and infants. Its prediction that most babies will be sleeping through the night by three to eight weeks is a reach and it pushes parents to employ active sleep training methods at inappropriately early ages. The authors also seem to get a little sneaky at times, insinuating that crying is an undesirable part of life and that babies should be left to cry for 15-20 minutes without intervention.