Perhaps, it’s just a product of sleep deprivation. Maybe it’s my tendency to use hyperbole. Possibly, it’s accumulated stress of four months with an infant. But let me just say this with a straight face: if there is actually fire in hell, my wife and I have some books about infant sleep habits, and I’m more than willing to let them be the tender of the flames of infernal Hades.
Certainly, there are people who embrace their BabyWise or Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby in the same way they hug their precious child, but I’d be more than happy to spend my Friday watching interstate traffic drive over these books….from dawn to dusk.
While I am sure that these books are written by nice people with impressive educations and that their message certainly intends to help young parents, in our experience, the books encapsulate the Law in its ugliest form. As with all things related to the Law, the seduction lies in the myth that you legitimately have control over your world, that the peace (and quiet) you long for can be attained on your terms by your means.
Every young parent wants their infant to sleep from 7:00PM to 7:00AM without a whimper. These books promise to have the miracle cure for a full night of sleep for parents and baby, if you do all the right things. Some of the myths we’ve bought include:
* Regular naps during the day equate to great sleep at night: sleep begets sleep
* Maintaining a rigidly consistent schedule means baby sleeps better
* Avoiding “over-stimulation” by committing your baby to a monastic lifestyle makes for quiet nights
* Adopting the mindset of a Guatanamo Bay prison guard with regard to letting your child “cry it out” will lead to twelve hours of sleep within a week
On the other hand, you have another corpus of books that say precisely the opposite of these books for healthy sleep habits.
Underneath these “help” books lies the Law’s best friend: Accusation. If you deviate from the plan, your child will experience permanent damage and all sleep progress has been lost. It’s back to square one. If your child is not sleeping twelve hours at three months, then it’s because you’re a failure as a parent. The formula of the Law is pure and transparent in the world of infant sleep literature: control, performance, judgment, fear. It’s a combo as sweet as breast-milk, or so they say.
In four months of parenting, we’ve read the book and adopted the ultimate sleep plan. With all of the methods applied, I am pretty sure you could give seventeen pound Baby Cameron Ambien, chased with a glass of wine, and he still would bring out his 2:00AM (and 3:00AM and 4:00AM and 5:00AM) war-chant without any impediment. Cameron is the cutest, sweetest, plumpest thing in the world, and homeboy is just not ready to sleep through the night. In time he will; that time is not now.
One of the many great blessings Cameron has brought us is the brutal recognition of how little control we have in the world. He has reminded us of the gentle call of the Father, which moves us from the cruel burden of a life of a control to the freeing release of all things to His kind embrace. Christ calls us to the relief of trusting in His wisdom and love. The deepest things we need come, not out of rigid performance but out of humble submission. Thanks be to God that the way of Christ diametrically contrasts the way of neurotic, sleep habit building.
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COMMENTS
33 responses to “Burn, Babywise, Burn!”
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Thank you.
Have you been reading my diary?
…and your son is precious!
I don't think Babywise was written by nice people. But that's just me.
Most babies aren't going to sleep through the night, no matter what you do. They're terribly inconvenient to us adults and our silly schedules and petty biological needs, and the sooner I learned to just surrender to that unpleasant truth, the better able I was to deal with new parenthood.
Your son is precious! And they *do* start sleeping through the night … eventually. (And then they start teething.)
I'm sure that Babywise doesn't work for everyone, and Babywise-nazis be damned….
But this post just left a bad taste in mouth. As a parent who's gleaned some good stuff from Babywise (but not taken everything as LAW), I think this post is irresponsibly written (In fact, I would say this post was written in a sort of anti-law law tone. E.g. "Suits suck. We wear jeans. Stupid suits."). It was really off-putting.
However, I'm sure you're a really nice person with a great education (Please don't ever use this phrase again. I use it in jest, but I would be surprised if you could muster up a more condescending, back-handed compliment).
Muggsy, I understand what you're saying; however, I think if this post left a bad taste in your mouth, maybe it wasn't written for someone like you, but for someone like me. I recently had a baby and I feel like a failure every day, especially at night because my son doesn't seem to be following the schedule these books say he should probably be on by now. I even approached these books with caution because I had heard that you can't follow them by the book or you'll go crazy, but I couldn't help it. I can't help it when I read that my baby should be doing such and such this month and he doesn't, and not feel like I'm doing something wrong. But isn't that what the law really is? It's good in itself (i.e. the authors' intentions were good), but when we (or our baby) don't measure up, we feel like failures…or at least I do.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that this hit an emotional cord in me as I've been struggling with this a lot lately. Cam, as much as I wish you and your wife weren't going through this, it's nice to know that I'm not alone when it comes to the feelings these books produce and I'm very glad you posted this 🙂
Unlike Muggsy, this post left a delicious taste in MY mouth! I laughed, I cried, I remembered 🙂 From the perspective of a mom whose "baby" is now 9 years old, I am both sorry and delighted to inform you kids that it doesn't really get any better…. not in the "law and judgment" department, anyway. There is always a new theory of parenting, a new book, a new trend… and we're all supposed to jump on the bandwagon (and lots of people do). I learned, after the first year of motherhood, to stop paying attention to all that. YOUR child is like no other child, and what works for your next door neighbor is quite unlikely to work for you. (Of course, this doesn't stop all the 'experts' and well-wishers from constantly offering their unsolicited advice.)
The good news is that it DOES get much less physically exhausting. And you WILL have a good night's sleep again. Someday 🙂
I tried not to comment, but I can't help it. I sort of feel like you have included your own assumptions of what some of these books are saying…For instance, healthy sleep habits (a book that saved me from ppd (major ppd)) does not, in anyway shape or form "promise" sleeping through the night prior to four months. In fact the book itself is extremely flexible to those who do breastfeed and breast feed frequently through the night (like my babies did).
The books primary premise is that sleeping is not a 'natural' thing for the baby to want to do. The book walks one through sleep 'training', which is just one of saying: helping your child go BACK to sleep once they have woken up. My infants nurse frequently through out the night and yes I was exhausted, but after a certain amount of time, when they did nurse, they went back to sleep on their own without a lot of activity on my end.
what you are trying to articulate in your post (and for this i applaud you and it is MUCH needed) is that there is no set of rules or laws that will cause you to create the most perfect child. A baby who does not sleep through the night within their first year is not going to wind up being a psychopath or unintelligent. Yes, these books are not "sure" fixes and they do, themselves, cling to some sort of external help that is not the Gospel.
you are right to be angry over something that failed to produce what it promised it would. But, as an avid user of HSHHC, I never once thought that my baby was to sleep through the night before they were ready. In other words, you don't have to throw out the other great thigns that a book offers parents. for me, as i've said before, I suffer from sever ppd (severe) but HSHHC gave me something to work with like a bed time, a way to manage the fact the my children screamed all the time, a chance to walk away and say, "you are old enough and i can let you cry".
i fear that your point (the basic tenets of it) are superb and should be iterated, but that, in the process, the words used came out attacking. i was offended by this post (you did directly insult me a HSHHC book user). So that saddens me because, as I've said, your points are really good and i agree with them wholeheartedly.
I think LRE helps voice what I was trying to say with a hell of a lot more grace and understanding. I co-sign all of her applause and grief with the post.
I see what you're saying, Lauren and I do understand that these books don't promise anything and they are only helpful guidelines that can help as you get your baby/child on a schedule. Maybe it's my inability to hold these examples and guidelines loosely, or maybe the root of my anxieties lies in something other than these books, but I've probably had the opposite experience that you had. Perhaps I'm just in that tough two month old period where nothing helps.
I think the parts I have the hardest times with are the examples the book gives. Henry is about the same age as some of those examples and he seems far, far behind those babies in terms of where he is in sleeping. I automatically think that something is wrong or that we're going to have a tougher time than most in getting him on a schedule when that "magic" three month period comes around.
Anyway, I'm definitely not going to give up on Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, but I just can't help the way it makes me feel. David wants to take it away because I keep saying "well the book says that he should be doing xyz." 🙂 Maybe this book just isn't the best fit for someone like me, but I agree, it doesn't mean that it's not helpful altogether. Hearing that it's helped you gives me hope, but I guess it's also good to hear that I'm not alone in how it makes me feel along the way 🙂
p.s. the breast feeding part is helpful…that may be part of our problem…ugh!
Hang in there, Kari! The 6-10 week period is the hardest part. You're so exhausted and they're out of their newborn sleepy phase and fully awake at exactly the times you want to be asleep. I've often wondered if God times that first smile around 5-8 weeks just to encourage us as parents.
Regarding this post on Babywise: I know people really hate the book and it is easy to hold the suggestions as standards, but I would hope that we can be open enough to recognize that all babies are different, as are all parents and some things might work for some families that don't work for others. I'm not sure we can just poop on a method and declare it as such for everybody else.
Babywise was extremely helpful for our family. We like structure and both being working parents, decided it was best for our family to nurture our children toward a routine from the very beginning. It was also helpful because we didn't have much experience being around other babies so it provided a framework for our parenting. That framework made it hugely freeing and less frustrating than figuring it out on our own. It also saved me from going crazy in that at the appropriate time, it allowed me to train my babies to sleep.
The values outlined in Babywise of establishing routine, nurturing sleep patterns, play time, eating time, and time for parents, continue to be a foundation to our parenting and I suspect is part of the reason all three are happy to go to bed at 7:30 each night and sleep for eleven hours. This worked for us and we are glad for it. It was really really hard at the beginning, especially before the 10 week mark. And each baby was different. But for us it wasn't the law, it was actually quite freeing.
Great discussion on all sides. Mugsy and LRE elucidate a great point: the problem isn't so much the books as it is what we do with the books. Nowhere does Babywise explicitly condemn people who can't get their baby to sleep. However, in our flesh, we take any hint of Law and fly down the hill of fear, control, and accusation.
by the way, i wrote this one instead of Breastfeeding and the Law. As a man i probably wasn't going to rock out with much credibility on that one.
I really appreciated this post. Thanks, Cameron.
The other side of this (which is just as toxic) is when your baby does sleep, and you feel like you can congratulate yourself for "getting it" when in reality you've done close to nothing (in my personal situation) to get the baby to sleep.
We are so quick to take personal responsibility for a tiny human being's supposed failures and successes.
I thought this post conveyed well the experience of "bottoming out" as a parent.
PS Baby Cam is the cutest little guy around!
So I guess you don't want to hear the story about how Mary Frances slept through the night on Christmas Eve when she was ten days old, nor how she slept 12 hours per night consistently by the time she was one month… Well the conclusion we drew at the time was that God is indeed merciful, since at ages 46 and 42 Daddy Charles and Mommy Donna could not have survived a colicky baby. My takeaway from all this is that -in God's omniscient eyes – you are young enough and strong enough to withstand this! (So be of good cheer…)
Now that our son is 2 1/2, my wife and I often find ourselves still falling into the same trap of over-diagnosing whatever his newest quirk or inconvenience may be. I call it "sign reading," as in "is this a sign of…" It gets frustrating because it always makes you feel like a crappy parent. We keep telling each other to not do that and to let Colin be Colin, but just hearing it from each other and not so much from all our peer-parents often isn't enough. All that to say I really appreciated this post.
I'm just mesmerized by the "sleeping baby" arguments. My babies are all adults now, but I rocked them to sleep every night of their infant life and enjoyed holding them and feeding them in the middle of the night. To think that I was a bad parent that deprived my babies of the ability to fall asleep on their own!!
My next confession: We watch one of our grandchildren one day a week. Every nap that 4-month-old has taken at our house has been in the arms of a grandparent. We. like. to. hold. him.
It's good for families to do what works for them. It's bad validate one's own parenting by pointing fingers at others and declaring them subpar.
I guess my comment is meant primarily for the moms of new babies out there…
Taking care of a newborn, ESPECIALLY when it's your first, is just plain hard, ESPECIALLY when he/she doesn't want to adhere to what the parenting books and/or other well-meaning people advise. You live in a perpetual state of fog from lack of sleep and you are consistently second-guessing yourself about every little detail. And, add to that, the loneliness and frustration you often feel at 3:30 in the morning, when you've just worked for 45 minutes breast-feeding, only to have her projectile vomit all of it up when you go to burp her!
All of this is to say that parenting is not easy! Parenting books are helpful as guidelines, but end up being convicting when you REALLY are hoping for them to work. (And who needs another source telling you you don't know what you're doing!)
I found out (the hard way) that the best course in living through the fussy baby, newborn phase is to greatly lower your expectations. Don't expect too much from you or your baby. Sleep WILL come at some point; the laundry WILL get done some time or another; and so what, if you don't get around to getting a shower today! This season will pass. And in the meantime, know that our Father in heaven loves that baby more than you even do, and He WILL help you when you call to Him. ESPECIALLY at 3:30 in the morning!
Grace isn't void of the structure of healthy living. My life, free in the blood of Jesus, still has boundaries. All boundaries are not law and judgment.
I agree, becoming a Nazi of structure is wrong. That is law and unhealthy for our children, but being a rebel from structure isn't healthy either.
Like Lauren, I tried to stay quiet but I felt compelled to jump in here. Though I am a father, I don’t want to comment too much on the methodology of rearing a child. Instead, my concern is that in a very noble effort to see how elements or shadows of the law creep in to every facet of our lives, it seems that this post (and occasional other posts on this blog) treats something that is only a shadow of the true law as the Law itself. It isn’t so – while books and blogs on how to raise a baby can be very frustrating and defeating, the simple truth is that for many, many people they are wonderful resources. And properly contextualized (as Lauren noted), they are simple helps that do not provide ultimate fulfillment, but work in a particular time and place.
As Kari and Margaret noted, different things work for different people and certain methods can be self-defeating if you find that they don’t work for you. But the simple fact that these methods end up proving that there are often “different strokes for different folks” means that these matters make it difficult to draw Gospel applications, because they become rooted so strongly in personal experience that the Gospel is only clear to those who can relate to that experience. That may be a blessing in some cases, but in others, I would worry that the Gospel gets lost in the details.
Dear Matt,
I'm intrigued by your comment: treats something that is only a shadow of the true law as the Law itself.
What, if anything, does the true Law have to say about parenting at all, if not that fear and frustration about our inability to control a child is part-and-parcel of the transgression of the 1st commandment? If there is a God, surely He is bigger than my parenting mistakes, but when we are tempted to despair and forget this, that is the true Law and every other shadow of it doing its proper work.
Having children is to experience a total loss of control coupled with a most intense love that desires to control for the sake of the beloved child. This produces fear of the present, fear of the future, fear that "I am doing something wrong that will harm this little person that I love more than life." This fear will sell a lot of books that offer some relief from this fear and some promise of control. I need a plan, any plan!
There certainly is a place for helpful, practical tips that sometimes do and sometimes don't "work" for various children. But I think that where we get into trouble with these things, and when they turn into "law" answers that make us feel inadequate, is when we look to these "techniques" to produced the control and the semi-perfect child "results" that we are after. When the control doesn't come, or the results are non-existent, then we must have "done something wrong." But the thing that has led to the problem is not so much the books and their methods, etc., but in our false hope that they will offer the control we so crave if we just follow their advice.
The thing about being a parent, and I have been one for 20+ years, is that you are going to screw up, and screw up multiple times and in major ways, but if you love your children, well, that covers a multitude of sins. And being a forgiven parent, by God and by my children, is far, far better than being a perfect one.
JDK – well said and a helpful clarification. I think of a "shadow of the law" in these terms: If I despair over not getting into law school (as I once did), I am indeed hounded by a law of sorts. But my true issue goes deeper, and it is a failure on my part to find true fulfillment and completion in the Cross of Christ. So my despair at a shadow of the law leads me to deeper despair over the true Law, which l in turn leads me to the Cross and repentance and true fulfillment in the Cross, which then leads me to no longer despair over things like law school, fashion, parenting missteps, etc. because the Gospel has given me hope and fulfillment beyond the things of this world, however important they might be in a particular context. Hope this clarifies my thoughts.
Great GREAT post by Michael just now.
Having had quadruplets and then a single 10 years later I don't see what all the fuss is about.As michael said you loose control and whether one or four they demand all your time and you might as well be a slave to the love of parenting rather than to our selfish nature.I found the whole thing a gift even the depravation of all kinds.We didn't let having children change the normal trips, vacations, dinners out whatever.We just took them with us.I never understood friends saying they couldn't do things because of the kids.In my "judgement" I just thought what a bunch of whiners.
Lastly I must confess that after a year of the breathing monitor going off at all hours of the night,I finally said "let him die!"
Michael, I think this is spot on:
"But I think that where we get into trouble with these things, and when they turn into "law" answers that make us feel inadequate, is when we look to these "techniques" to produced the control and the semi-perfect child "results" that we are after. When the control doesn't come, or the results are non-existent, then we must have "done something wrong." But the thing that has led to the problem is not so much the books and their methods, etc., but in our false hope that they will offer the control we so crave if we just follow their advice."
As I've thought about this post over the weekend, I've tried to figure out what the real issue is. I think these books are great and I'll definitely keep trying the methods or maybe a loose version of the methods because I know that structure is healthy for children. I do think that the issue lies mainly in myself in that I really want to control my little world and make our lives as easy and convenient as possible. As I attempt to do this, I desperately cling to any advice or guidelines so that I can have the easy life I lived before we had the baby. But the reality is that I can't control it and as a friend of mine reminded me, if nothing else, this lack of control definitely keeps me on my knees and dependent on God, which is the best place to be 🙂
As the new father of a seven day old little boy, can i just add that there is something so comforting, healing, and hope-giving in just the knowledge that this conversation is occurring, that we are not ALONE in this parenting madness, and that God's grace and love covers a "multitude of sins" (thanks MC).
this post and this conversation is SO timely in my life right now, as fear lurks behind every thought, midnight cry, and suspected virus in the air. once again, Mockingbird brings the gospel to the "real" and to my life.
Thank you.
It's also interesting to note that Baby Wise has gotten into some trouble with the medical community. Many children "fail to thrive" under that system.
The creator's medical credentials are also questionable.
Oh, you poor, sweet new parents. It really does get easier! I promise. Just hang in there. It's the ride of a lifetime!
Oh this post. I guess I’ll give LRE some props for her post. Camcole, you have clearly experienced these books totally differently than I have. We’ve used Babywise and Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. We found both helpful for 2 reasons.
First, they more or less worked for us. Using their techniques helped our daughter get into a sleep pattern that many parents envy.
Second, and more importantly, they gave us something to do. When we didn’t know what to do and we were going crazy getting up 6 times a night to give our daughter her pacifier, they gave us some sort of plan to follow.
Now if someone would just write a book like this for whining!
Babywise is shunned by MANY medical professionals. In fact Ezzo was blocked from giving a seminar in New Zealand (thankfully). His own children have disowned him. I really wish more parents would do a bit of background research on what leaving their babies to cry does to their long term development. There is plenty of information readily available.
You can get a baby to develop healthy sleep habits without leaving them to cry. Don’t fool yourselves that anyone using CIO has done their baby a favour.
co-sleep, breastfeed on demand, no crying… my daughter is so happy and well adjusted. she started sleeping regularly at the age of 15 months. Shocking right? The thing is, she didn’t come into my life to crash my adult party. I invited her, just like most other parents. Not sleeping is just part of it and there’s no way out when you have a child who doesn’t sleep well for the first year or so. She woke up every hour on the hour for those 15 months and never took naps. I just accepted it. She needed me and her father. She is one of the happiest, most well adjusted kids I know at 17 months. I have no regrets. Anything that says ignore your baby when they need you because your adult needs are more important… what a crock. If you don’t want the sacrifices involved, don’t have a kid.
To Camcole – hang in there! it WILL get better and you’ll look back and laugh one day. The hardest part is letting go of those rosy expectations of a sweetly sleeping baby who never disrupts a thing.
“6 times a night for a pacifier”?? I wish! My daughter slept 20 minutes in 24 hours for 2 years. She yelled and screeched most of the rest of the time. Was I going crazy? Yes. Did I want to have the noise stop ?? Yes. Did I want to be ME instead of being attached almost all the time? Sometimes yes. Did I leave her to cry it out ..??? The HELL I didn’t !!! As Christa said, she didn’t appear in my life to annoy me the parent. She came because my husband and I wanted a child. I am almost 57 – and believe me, I thought that CIO had died a death when I was a baby – because it was all ‘feed on demand’ when I was still bfing … and as a nurse, there is nothing on earth that would have had me leave my child to cry it out … for 3 minutes…. let alone any longer.
Guilt is ascribed from all sides for parents. A friend posted this article from Psychology Today about the “Dangers of Crying It Out”, linked at the bottom of this post.
In it we are told that crying kills neuron connections and are warned of future deficits because of it. We are told that a good caregiver meets all their baby’s needs before they are experienced, thus preventing crying, the ultimate evil.
You can’t read the article without any other response besides “I will totally fail. I am a total failure. Who can live up to this?”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out