Unsolicited Book Review

Gearing up for a doozy of a tantrum

Have I mentioned that Chase no longer sleeps through the night? If I didn't mention it before, I will now. He stopped sleeping for any kind of a decent stretch about three weeks ago, and it hasn't gotten any better. According to his Zayde, the pediatrician, we're going backwards here. He should be sleeping longer stretches, but instead, he's waking up every three hours. And that's on a good night. On the not-so-good nights, he wakes up every 2 hours, and often refuses to go back to sleep.

The lack of sleep, coupled with the constant crying and screaming (I do believe I've mentioned that one or two times), has been less than fun for us. And so, in a moment of desperation, I turned to the book section of Borders, hoping for some kind of help (preferably the kind of help that told me how to get my baby to sleep through the night on the very first try). I found Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, MD.

I have friends who have used this book, and some of them swear by it. And good for them. If it worked for them, hey, way to go. But personally, this book is not for me. To put it lightly, I hate this book. I actually want to set it on fire, except that I have a real problem with book burning. So for now it's sitting on my couch and I just keep glaring at it and telling Andrew that I'm going to throw it away.

For starters, after reading just the first few chapters, I felt like a complete and utter failure as a mother. I think, having a baby with colic, you already doubt yourself as being a great mother, because your baby just doesn't seem happy. So to say I've been a little shaky in the confidence department is an understatement. Reading Babywise only made me feel worse. Because of my shortcomings, Chase would never grow up to be like the fictional, well-adjusted "Chelsea," whose parents were just totally perfect and never made a single god damn mistake. I was convinced I had cemented a spoiled, neurotic future for Chase, like "Marisa," who, the authors imply, would ultimately live a lonely existence, never to find true love because of the way her parents doted on her, nursed her when she cried and didn't force her to eat bananas because she didn't like them.

Well, F Chelsea.

And for that matter, F Marisa and her fictional doting parents, and Ezzo and Bucknam.

It would be nice if I could just put Chase down for a nap, and he would peacefully fall asleep. Heck, even if he just fussed for ten minutes, and then fell asleep. I could even handle a half hour of whimpering if I knew it would be followed by a nice nap. But that's not my baby. In any way, shape or form. And I don't believe that putting him in his crib on a regular schedule, and expecting him to get himself to sleep will yield anything other than a terrified, sweaty, red-faced infant. Who may eventually fall asleep, but only because he is utterly exhausted from crying so hard. I probably won't be a Ferber person when the time comes, and I can tell you without a doubt that I am not a Babywise person.

It's just not me. It's completely against my instincts to allow him to cry like that, or to refuse to nurse him just because he may want it for comfort instead of nourishment. Up until now, I have fed Chase "on demand" and it seemed to work pretty well for us. Or so I thought. My milk supply has been great, and Chase is an expert nurser. We've had no problems, for which I'm really grateful. But maybe I'd made a mistake. Reading BabyWise, I started to worry if I hadn't created the colic problem myself? Was I just caving into my baby's demands too quickly and the consequences of this were an extremely fussy infant? Had I done this to myself? Should I have stuck to the 3-4 hour schedule instead?

As I continued to read, I realized we had already violated every major BabyWise rule. We have already embraced every single "negative sleep prop." Drive your baby around to get him to fall asleep? Check. Put your baby in a car seat on the dryer for the same results? Check. Rock your baby to sleep? Nurse your baby to sleep? Allow your baby to sleep in your bed with you? Check check and check. That's us. The Negative Sleep Prop Poster Family.

So I cried. Partly because I'm kind of a cry baby, but also because my nerves are just about shot, and I don't need to feel like I've already screwed up my kid beyond repair. According to this book, Chase is already capable of sleeping through the night, and therefore should be doing so, and if he's not, he will continue to NOT sleep through the night for the next two years. At least. Way to go, Mom.

And so Andrew called Chase's Zayde, to ask him about this. And Zayde, bless his heart, disagreed with everything the book had told us. Telling us that Chase is too young, still adjusting to life outside the womb, and still confused and overwhelmed by his surroundings for us to expect him to get himself to sleep, let alone to expect him to do it on a schedule. Some babies may be able to do it, but some just aren't. And besides, he reminded us, Chase has colic. So for now, we just need to do whatever we can to keep ourselves sane.

Enter sigh of relief.

After the phone call, Andrew and I popped in a DVD that our friend Amy had sent us before Chase was born. And let me tell you, this DVD is my new favorite thing. God bless Dr. Harvey Karp (and God bless you, Amy).

The Happiest Baby on the Block just seemed so much more our speed. For starters, it was all geared toward excessively fussy or colicky babies, and it was comforting just to see other parents with that familiar, harrowed look of crazed desperation. We know that look. We ARE that look.

And also, Dr. Karp is just so NICE. And soft-spoken. And his recommendations -- the 5 S's (swaddling, shushing, side/stomach positioning, swinging & sucking), the cuddling, the soothing -- were so much more in line with my own instincts. At no point did he direct the parents not to nurse their babies to comfort them. He encouraged the so-called "negative sleep props" because they mimic the baby's life in the womb, and really, Chase is just in the fourth trimester. Most importantly, he did not imply or suggest that Chase will grow up to be a lonely, manic depressive mama's boy.

It wasn't that Dr. Karp made us feel like we'd been doing everything right or just said the things we wanted to hear. It was more like we just weren't made to feel like we'd been doing everything wrong. We learned that we needed to try swaddling again, and watching the DVD showed us that we weren't doing it right the first time, and that we'd given up too quickly. For example, even if it seemed like Chase didn't want his arms pinned down, they had to be pinned down in order to calm him. And wonder of wonders, it worked. Andrew is holding him as I write this, and Chase is calming resting on his lap, all wrapped up, our little Burrito.

Overwhelmingly, my gut just says that I can't expect Chase to do what I want him to when I want him to do it. It would be nice if it worked that way, but so far it hasn't. Last night, when I tried to follow some of the BabyWise advice, I ended up with a very upset little baby who refused to go back to sleep. If I'd just followed my own instincts, he would have gone back to sleep right away. It's only been two and a half months, but I do feel like I know the little guy, at least better than Ezzo and Bucknam. And when my baby cries, I want to comfort him, however that may be. Even when I don't want to, I will. Every time.

Well, at least the first part of the shirt is true.

Update: Okay, so unbeknownst to me, Babywise is apparently all kinds of controversial (and with good reason). I didn't know that until I decided to Google "I Hate BabyWise" and got a ton of results. Thank goodness for the Internets.