Tempted to Join for Fundie-Watching Potential....

[Beeks]

Just got a notification for a Babywise meetup! Description: "This is a group for moms who use the BabyWise method, E.A.S.Y., ferber method, cry-it-out method, or a similar method of scheduling, parenting and sleep training. This is decidedly not attachment parenting. We are doing our children good by training them in this way!"

I am tempted to join just to see if any fundies show up. =)

[yetanothermeg]

Only if you have your kid wear a "training is for dogs" onesie!

[Mama Mia]

Many of the moms on my facebook list do the ferberize/ cry it out thing. They aren't at all fundie , many of them aren't even religious. It drives me crazy and I have a really hard time not lashing out at them. I know there are the rare ones who have a kid who will cry for ten or fifteen minutes once or twice and then peacefully go to sleep every night ... but most of these babies are screaming their lungs out every night with the mom posting about how hard it is and other mom's encouraging them to tough it out .. awful awful awful in my opinion.

[NurseNell]

Just got a notification for a Babywise meetup! Description: "This is a group for moms who use the BabyWise method, E.A.S.Y., ferber method, cry-it-out method, or a similar method of scheduling, parenting and sleep training. This is decidedly not attachment parenting. We are doing our children good by training them in this way!"

I am tempted to join just to see if any fundies show up. =)

Is this in real life or an on-line meetup?

[Beeks]

Is this in real life or an on-line meetup?

It's through meetup.cOm so you connect online then meet up in real life. It's actually pretty cool...I belong to a few meetups

[chiccy]

Ugh, Babywise makes me so mad.

[terranova]

I'm pregnant at the moment and we discussed the ferber method etc at our ante natal class and it got a really baaaad review from the teacher. We were all encouraged to practice baby led feeding, sleeping etc, atleast for the first 4 months. I can't imagine letting a wee baby cry it out.

One of the other women said she had read a book on it, called it the "Gestapo" method of child rearing.

[itsthatonegirl]

BabyWise is really big at my church. I had my first two kids at 19 and 22, before I had ever heard of it. Friends told me about it a few years later, and I read the book when a friend loaned it to me, but it always seemed too overly structured for my personality.

When I was 30 I had my son, and he would not sleep at night for anything in the beginning. Awake all night, asleep all day. When he was only about a week old, I felt like I couldn't take it anymore. You know how it is when you are newborn-stage sleep-deprived... it feels like it's been going on for months. I talked to a couple of BabyWise friends, and one friend loaned me the book again, and gave me copies of the schedule to fill out. I was so desperate for a normal sleep schedule again that I tried it... for about two days.

My personality just could not handle it. They talk about how you will find freedom in the schedule... I felt nothing but tied down and terribly annoyed by it. Not for me!

[demgirl]

I don't have kids, so I don't really know how these things work in application, or how I would approach child rearing, but just from watching friends and family, it seems like Ferber can work, as can other more attachment methods, depending on the personalities of the parents and the nature of the baby in each circumstance. My neighbors did Ferber-type methods with their son and he got on a schedule like a dream and was a super happy baby. It worked for them. Contrast -- family member who did attachment parenting and ended up with kids who literally were terrified to leave mom's side all the way into 4th grade. Just from observation, it seems like going to extremes is the issue -- smothering the baby into toddler years so that they never have the freedom to become individuals and find ways to self-soothe versus leaving your child to cry for hours on end in a crib when the schedule you've imposed obviously isn't working or making the baby happy and healthy.

[ladypuglover]

I have never read a parenting book and from what it sounds like I'm glad I didn't. I was a lazy mom, if my babies were hungry, I fed them, wet or dirty, changed them. If one of my little guys cried I figured that was his only way of telling me that something was wrong and since I was the adult it was up to make his little world right again. I still to this day can not stand to hear a baby cry and not react to his/her needs and even in public will make a fool of myself by making funny faces or sounds to please a crying baby. I'm crazy but so far no one has been mad at me for helping hush their crying baby. I just hope I never run into those baby wise parents. :? There would be words and maybe even a throw down. :evil:

[koolmom]

I have never read a parenting book and from what it sounds like I'm glad I didn't. I was a lazy mom, if my babies were hungry, I fed them, wet or dirty, changed them. If one of my little guys cried I figured that was his only way of telling me that something was wrong and since I was the adult it was up to make his little world right again. I still to this day can not stand to hear a baby cry and not react to his/her needs and even in public will make a fool of myself by making funny faces or sounds to please a crying baby. I'm crazy but so far no one has been mad at me for helping hush their crying baby. I just hope I never run into those baby wise parents. :? There would be words and maybe even a throw down. :evil:

OMG, I'm that way, too! I cuddled my babies incessantly, didn't like to hear them distressed for an instant...carried them as long as I could just to have them close to me. They're now adults but as very close to me and I'm glad I raised them that way...

[bubbabearzle]

IMHO, letting your baby cry itself to sleep is cruel and just plain wrong. I have two sons, who are now 13.5 and (almost) 11 years old, ad neither was EVER allowed to cry himself to sleep while alone (when sick with his ear infections, DS #1 did occasionally cry himself to sleep, but he was being held at the time).

Was it harder to rock them to sleep/snuggle wit them than it would have been to stick them in a crib and let them cry themselves to sleep? Hell yes! But I'd do it all again in a heartbeat! Those memories are precious and brought about very strong bonds between us all

Kids aren't about convenience! BTW, I totally second the "training is for dogs" onesie for your baby if you happen to go :twisted:

[1004srs]

My 6 year old daughter still co-sleeps. My 8 year old sleeps next to my bed when he's stressed about something.

I'm kind of crunchy about all things concerning the little people that I chose to bring into the world, though.

[genericJname]

That stuff really angers me. When I was a CNA, there was this pediatric nurse who would try to push Babywise advice on patient's parents (NOT normal, healthy babies). :x