How Does Babywise Work? 

Disagree I betting you have control issues

So happy to be of help! Congrats on your human baby!!

TheNatalieowens oh I'm so happy to hear this! Congratulations mama, you're going to be amazing 😊 I'll keep posting with you in mind 😊 Thank you for letting me know!

Hell no

Thanks so much Sonja for this! I'm encouraged to carry on with Babywise :)

Hi Erin! Congratulations to you! In all honestly, the first few weeks will inevitably be tough. But with my 3 kids, Babywise has helped us all get into pretty predictable sleeping times. You can even adjust baby's schedule to yours so that you'll all- to the best of your abilities- get as much sleep you need :)

Wonderful! Thank you for watching. Though at that age, the book does encourage that they still have late night feedings until about 8 weeks :) Since my first born wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night for her feeds, I would set my alarm to do that. It also keeps breast milk supply high! Cheers to your babywise journey!

It's one of those things that just so happened to work for us - she would eat a high amount per feeding and she was definitely gaining weight throughout the entire process, too :)

Oh that's awesome!! Hope the rest of my babies would be that easy too haha.

My baby is 6 weeks and he’s on a strict routine. I feed him every 3 hours and he is down for his naps between one hour and one hour and a half. I feed him between 3 and 4 oz. His bedtime is at 8pm. He WAS waking every 3 hours during the night but now that he turned 6 weeks he now wakes up once at 1:45am instead of 10pm and 2am. After that he wakes at 5:30am and I just give him a pacifier and he goes back to bed until 7am.

Thank you Stacy! Parent-directed schedules remains a very touchy and sensitive topic here in the Philippines, and I think anywhere in general. Hence, I respect every other parenting method that in favor of parent AND baby and am always open to share my own style to those who'd like to know :)

Congrats on your baby boy :) You can start CIO and you can begin however you'd like to. The most common question is 'how long can I let baby cry?' and my simple answer is this- however long it takes to get to sleep. BUT there are different methods and you can choose and create your own that would work for you. Here are examples of what I did with my kids: 1. I started CIO cold turkey. Baby cried through entire naptimes for an entire day. (I also cried along with her!!) The very next night, no joke she slept 8 hours. 2. I slowly eased baby into CIO by allowing 10 mins of cry time, then going in and repeating the soothing cycle (carry and rock, sing, pat etc) until almost asleep. Then I'd put her down to CIO again and repeat this every 10 minutes until she'd fall asleep. Hope this helps!

So glad it helped you! With my first baby, it was cold turkey. With my next 2 babies, CIO was gradual from birth up until around 2 months when I did CIO full out.

Hi Megan! I'm so sorry, I don't know how I missed this comment! In those cases, I just stick as close to the schedule as possible, even if baby skipped her nap :) BUT if baby's hungry and is ready to take her feeding before the scheduled feeding time, I go ahead and feed and adjust the rest of the day's schedule. If baby isn't taking a full feeding at 10am, one thing to consider is that perhaps she can go longer between feeding times if she's old enough (at LEAST 3 months). I hope this helps!!

Hi! 1. How long did you wait to see if the cry it out method worked? :) My firstborn would cry through her ENTIRE nap the first day I started. I let her do so. The day immediately after, she was sleeping for her naps on her own :) 2. You can try other methods like rocking them just until they're super sleepy, then putting them down right before they fall asleep. I'm not really sure of any other.. 3. That's great they eventually learned to sleep on their own at 1! You can continue doing that with your 8 month old since that's just a few months away :) I personally prefer training my kids to sleep on their own on a regular schedule because with the demands of my life, it really is more convenient for me and more enjoyable for them! Up to the parents, you know what's best :) Hope this helps!

Thanks so much Faty for your question! Yes you can definitely begin sleep training at 2 months old! I started at almost 3 months with my first baby. You can start in the morning for your 2 month old and feed every 3 hours with a nap in between :) Hope all my babywise videos help!

Hello! Is it too late for me to reply? You can still definitely use the principles on your 6 month old!

Hi! You can give him time and let him cry a little more as he might just be trying to get back to sleep. If it goes too long, you can begin the soothing process again, carrying, singing to, and putting down drowsy but awake.

Hi Kristina! I personally have not but I have heard several of those stories! How old is baby? If you'd like, you can try the method where you go in every 10 minutes to comfort him, then settle him and put him back down again. Repeat it every 10 minutes (or less, depending on you and baby) until he falls asleep. I used this sometimes in the early weeks of training to ease them into the CIO (cry it out) method. Hope this helps Kristina!

Hi Ashley! One thing you can try doing is feeding him right away when he wakes up after 1 and a half hours. If he feeds well and is interested, perhaps he hadn't gotten enough from the earlier feeding and is hungry already. If he isn't hungry or interested, it can be a number of other things :) Best thing is to observe him first as you implement the 50 minute wake time and continuing to make sure he's getting full feedings. Come back to me with an update and let's try to move forward from there :) Hope this helps!

Infinite Mamabilities thanks for getting back to me! It seems like he's getting enough because he wakes up 45 minutes into his nap. I've been trying 10 minutes of waiting before going in to get him. Sometimes he'll fall back asleep and then wake up 5 minutes later but most times he's up and not really interested in eating but he'll take a feeding. Should I maybe wait to feed him until the 3-hour mark and make sure he has a good feeding?

Have you watched my video on the '45 Minute Intruder'? :) Yes I would suggest to wait as close to the 3 hour mark as possible. 2 and a half would be ok too just so he isn't overtired for his next nap time.

You're welcome! I hope this helped!

Yes! The moment they wake up to feed is the beginning of the wake time/ cycle.

The Babywise method highly encourages sticking to a routine in order to optimize the benefits of the sleep traning. If it is certain that baby really gets a FULL FEEDING each feeding time, she most probably won't need to snack or cluster feed. Of course there are times that baby is going through a growth spurt where she'd need extra feedings, but other than that it's best to stick to the routine :)

Xxx😋😋😋😋❌❌🌕‼️❤️

If baby wakes up at 5:30 or 6 and won't go back to sleep, I just treat it as the first feeding of the day and then adjust the schedule accordingly for the rest of the day :)

Hi Rosemary, I began at almost 3 months with my first baby and for the other 2, I started slowly implementing sleep training methods from birth (starting with establishing feeding) :)

This is totally okay! I’m sad I failed to mention that in this video. If baby can empty each side in much less time and be content after, with consistent weight gain as you’ve mentioned, that’s 100% okay! Some babies can empty each side in as little as 5 minutes. You know your baby best ☺️

@@InfiniteMamabilities Oh great! Thankyou!! Our biggest challenge at 4wks old is getting him to sleep until the next feeding time. If he wakes up 15-30min early do I feed him? He usually follows the schedule with the exception of one or two times during the day. For example, feed at 1pm, wake until 2pm, but then only sleeps until 3:30pm (when he should have slept until 4pm) How do I recover from that? I dont want to keep him awake until 5pm because thats 1.5hr and I worry about over stimulation. Thanks so much!!

@@SychJess Happy to help! At 4 weeks old, a 2.5 hour cycle is perfectly fine :) So if baby wakes up 30 minutes earlier, go ahead and treat it as the next feeding time/ next feed-wake-sleep cycle. Some cycles might be 2.5 hours, the next might be 3, then back to 2.5, or somewhere in between 2.5 and 3 hours. When that happens and if your lifestyle and schedule permits, don't be afraid to adjust as needed for the rest of the day :) Just make sure you're not going more than 30 minutes off schedule. Hope this helps!

Hi Chakrya! So sorry, I must've overlooked your comment.. how did your son do with his sleep while on vacation? We've also been on vacation quite a few times. What I personally did was try to allow baby to sleep wherever we were, but if she really wouldn't, I'd just enjoy and let baby enjoy without stressing too much about the nap times and not co-sleeping! Then once we get back home, I could go full-force and continue the training :)

Infinite Mamabilities we are going on vacation next month hope everything will be ok ... thank you

Sarah Scheenstra I have the same problem/question! 4 month old not eating more than 5 min on each side, plus I have an over production of milk, so he gets pretty gassy and has a difficult time latching

Hi Casey! Sorry I just saw this now. How is your baby doing now?

Siera S fisher price newborn to toddler portable rocker

Hi! Have you tried burping during feeds and putting her back to the breast? How old is baby? :)

@@InfiniteMamabilities Thanks for replying! Yes we burp a lot with different techniques. Try not to do too much since it can wake her/she spits. 12 1/2 weeks now. Last night she wouldn't feed to sleep -wanted to smile and play. Had to be rocked for 20min+ on the lap. We used to be fine before.

No babies do not have the emotional or mental capacity to self soothe. What she is talking about is actually the baby becoming so overwhelmed with stress (and stress hormones) that her mind shuts down causing her to sleep. This is not “self soothing” it is mental abuse that teaches the baby that no one is there for her, which can lead to anxiety and attachment disorders later in life. It isn’t just moms that hate babywise, it is the American Academy of Pediatrics, they call the book dangerous. The original publisher of the book stopped publishing it because of the dangers of the method. No publisher will print the book so the author self published. He and his wife have been excommunicated from two churches and asked to stop teaching their parenting classes at others for falsely ascribing biblical principles to their cry it out methods.

@@JA420love That was my exact point in asking that question :)

I didn't use props for my babies, but all of them ended up thumb sucking to self-soothe.

@@InfiniteMamabilities You should never try to encourage children to suck their thumbs. Then you only have to train them to not suck their thumbs later. It’s not good for their teeth. Babies should not have to start out by self soothing. This is actually lazy parenting, and it’s not optimum for any baby.

Jennifer A Thank you for your input, Jennifer. I know we are all on the same page in wanting to bring our children up in the best way. I respect very much your point of view. While these facts you’ve shared may be true to an extent, what is also true to me is that none of my 3 children had their minds shut down to cause them to sleep. 🙂 Nap after nap, I watched them peacefully doze off to sleep. Sometimes in my arms, sometimes in their carseats, most of the times at home in their cribs. I believe that the best way to show our children that we are ‘there for them’ is to intentionally build strong relationships with them in the older formative years, when their brains are developed enough to create and keep long term memories. The methods of babywise have helped me in practical ways to solidify healthy routines in my household, where each of my children can expect to have my undivided attention. It’s a book of principles meant to work for us and our family’s values- not to make the families work for the principles. 🙂 Again, thank you Jennifer for taking time to give your input!

I absolutely agree. No mother should ever do this to their babies . These “mothers” can smile and act like treating their babies like they are robots is normal but it’s abnormal and potentially harmful. They’re just convincing themselves that forcing babies to go against their natural instincts is OK from the moment their babies come into the world. Talk about starting things off on the wrong foot!

I have 3 that all thrived on its principles, in turn helping me to thrive as a homemaker as well :)

Babywise is the most horrible system I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe anyone would actually recommend this as healthy or bengiyfor any child. It’s just a way for selfish moms to get the baby to adjust to their schedules, rather than doing what they can for their babies!