Secrets of the Baby Whisperer

This book should be given to ALL pregnant ladies! I have twin girls who were born 7 weeks early. I had gotten into the habit of nursing them to sleep and CONSTANTLY holding them, which worked until they started gaining weight. I knew I wanted to sleep train them, but our doctor said "No, they don't weigh enough" (at 11lbs). I didn't intend on ferberizing them. Then 2 other twin moms suggested this book. I followed it, and in 3 days I went from being a human pacifier with a bad back to a lady who has time to write a review, AND shave my legs! I like that I can sleep train without crying it out. My girls are 5 months, but I wish I had this from day 1! Buy this for all of your friends. This book, a bottle of wine, and a gift card for coffee.

I read the book and there is some helpful advice. Like tips in how to learn what your babies cries mean. It helped me to identify gas and also helped me decide to get my son on a schedule as it discuses why it’s important not only for them but for the parent. But it does not give. Step by step process into implementation. My son is an eater and I can give him 4 oz and he’s still crying to nurse a couple hours later so three hours in between feedings has been difficult and she also doesn’t give a good example of a schedule to follow. Not nursing a baby to sleep has proven difficult because it’s all backwards. He wakes up I feed him change him and play time then he’s ready for more good and then nap time. I do like that she is not about the cry it out method and I followed the guidelines for repeating the soothe and release to get my son to sleep on one of our difficult nights. I think it’s a good book with good advice, just needs example schedules and a step by step process to follow for the method in each area.

I work as a postpartum doula (aka 'Baby Nurse'). This book is my textbook and I recommend it to all my mommas and have used its principles for the babies with consistent success. In a nutshell, Tracy Hogg's recommend a simple routine that begins with eating, followed by activity (playtime), and then nap. This routine is repeated every 2-4 hrs. You will know what baby is crying for if she is on a routine and you know that since you just fed her, what she is crying for is not more food, but probably sleep!Tracy's mantra is 'Start as you mean to go on.' If you want your 8 month old baby to sleep only in mommas arms, do it when they're 1 wk old! But if you want to be able to lay baby down in the crib and leave him to peacefully fall asleep for naps and bedtime, you've got to get them used to doing it from the beginning.There's no crying-it-out or heartless rigid schedules, but neither is there a 'baby's running the show' and momma's surviving on 2 hrs of sleep at night. When it's bedtime for baby, Tracy recommends a simple technique called 'Pick-up-put-down', where whenever baby cries, you pick her up only until she stops crying, then put her back in bed immediately. After doing this enough times, baby gets tired and falls asleep. In just a few days of doing this consistently, baby need less and less of this, until she is contentedly soothing herself to sleep in her own crib.I will say, not only does this stuff make sense, it works. And for me, it pays! People will pay $200 a day to have me stay in their home and sleep train their baby! (Of course they could just buy the 1 cent book off Amazon and read and follow it themselves... But some people can afford to pay someone to help, and I'm happy they hire me!)One baby I helped was a 7 month old, breastfeeding baby boy. He was nursing on demand, sleeping only 20 min max at a time during the day. During the night he was up 4-7 times in an 8 hr period of time. His momma was ragged and exhausted as she tried to satisfy his needs while keeping up with a 3 yr old and helping with the family business as well. He was a chubby 21 lb bundle of smiles, so there was not an issue of hunger going on. He just didn't know how to self soothe himself to sleep. He knew only how to nurse himself to sleep. Then the slightest disturbance would wake him back up and he didn't know how to drift back to sleep. Well, using the pick-up-put-down methods to put him back down in bed, combined with a good routine as outlined by Tracy Hogg, by the end of a week, this little guy was taking 1 long nap (2.5 hrs) and 2 shorter 45 min- 1 hr naps during the day and sleeping a solid 11 hrs at night! And he was so much happier--no more fussy, fussy. And he had a rested, happy momma.

Where do I begin! I wish I read this book before our first child as it would have saved us from months and months of sleep struggles! I bought this book before our 2nd child arrived but didn't actually read it until he was about 5 weeks old. We were exhausted with a newborn who we saw was heading in the exact same direction as our oldest with the same signals of sleep issues. Nursing constantly and wouldn't sleep anywhere but in our arms or on our chest at night (we had to take shifts just to get 3-4 hours of "interrupted sleep". After realizing what type of child we have according to Tracy's descriptions and gently working with him, he is now sleeping in his crib for naps (1.5+ hour each), and sleeping there at night (only getting up 1-2 times for feeding). It only took 3 days!! I know this will only get better for us as he grows older and can't be more thankful for the sanity this advise has provided our family!! With our oldest son, we reluctantly decided the "cry it out" method after months of no results and even though he is now sleeping great, we could have avoided it all together if we started MUCH earlier and encouraged good habits. The methods described in this book are painless and worth the time and energy to read and practice. HIGHLY recommended to any parents-to-be (first timers and on).

Occupies the middle ground between strict routines and leaving the baby in charge! Probably the most useful baby book I've read, particularly on sleep. Had some real insights which I hadn't found elsewhere, even after much trawling of the internet!I really like her philosophy of treating your baby with respect and recognising (s)he is an individual little person, but at the same time recognising that the baby also has to fit in with the family it's born into.The EASY (eat/active/sleep) routine is really helpful for the first 3-4 months. However, she advises switching to a 4-hour routine when the baby is 4 months old, and at this point starts to sound more like Gina Ford (not a criticism, just an observation). A 4-hour cycle isn't realistic for every baby - they may need to feed more frequently than this, and their nap times may well still be 30-45 minutes, which would make them struggle to stay awake for a 4-hourly cycle. Hopefully by this stage though, you'll have the confidence to do what's right for you and your baby. I would still recommend this book.

This book won't teach you anything of you already believe in routines. I found it incredible frustrating as you're constant being 'teased' that the secret is coming up, but there is no secret, just endless talk of the EASY acronym (eat, activity, sleep, you) without practical approaches. In a bid to appear more colloquial and familiar the author also uses (mild) swearing throughout which I find very unprofessional.

Good book. Easy to read. Helps you to understand and respect the baby and see him as a little person. However, the easy thid not work out for us. Maybe I needed to try harder, maybe it is not for everyone. I noticed that sadly the author passed away in 2004... God bless her. This broke my heart as I always imagined there might be more of her books with the latest information. This book felt like 2000's so that would be the only down side.

Her advice on sleep is amazing. She is very pro whole family and pro respecting and listening to baby. Loved the part on body language and cries too. The most helpful parenting book i have read. She is a little anti breastfeeding but i can take the good and leave that. Day 2 of her sleep advice and my baby slept 11 hours straight. Amazing! Just bought all her other books too.

Bought this book expecting a manual to help me look after my baby. Was quite disappointed sadly. There are definite good elements to this book, but lots of it felt unnecessarily waffly, and when I first red it I felt like I was basically failing as a mother because I was misreading my baby's cues. I've since gotten over that feeling, and can see that she makes a valid point about taking time to understand and observe how your baby communicates with you, and the EASY routine idea is good. However there's very little actual practical help in this book. She talks about creating a routine but doesn't give any guidance on how to do this.Maybe some of the later variations are more practically useful, but if you're expecting to receive a guidebook to help through the unknown world of parenthood, then adjust your expectations. Would probably be mkre useful if read before baby arrives