Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and Communicate With Your Baby

Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: Highly recommended. Read it before your baby is born. It calms you and prepares you for baby life. Then you can really enjoy it

Rating:
Summary: Not as corny as you're expecting...
Review: This book had some fabulous advice and insight in the first few chapters. After that, it got to be a bit much and I did stop reading. However, there are some key points that are very helpful to deciphering why your baby is crying. Once you can do that and understand your baby's needs, your anxiety around the crying will diminish. I had a few pages that I bookmarked and continuously referenced, and made those first few months as a new mother a lot more comfortable for both of us.

Rating:
Summary: Use common sense, too!
Review: I think a lot of the reviewers here fail to understand that life cannot be lived exactly as described in a book. Books can offer good advice, but you cannot rear a child exactly as described in any book. You try a few things as described in a book, take what works for your situation and leave the rest. That's all any book is. Advice. Not an instruction manual. Babies (unfortunately) don't come standard with one of those. :)

I think that this book offers great advice for my personal parenting style. I refuse to become part of the "cult of the child" that is so prevalent these days. Babies are babies, little people with NO experience, so they can't call all the shots. However, you do need to let them provide a bit of input in the decisions, since they do affect the child.

I didn't demand feed, and this practice was vindicated for me by reading on Dr. Greene's website that allowing your baby to snack (i.e. eating more than every couple of hours) does not allow your baby to get truly hungry and does not allow mommy to replinish her milk supply, so it becomes a cycle. So, I think this is advice from a pretty knowlegeable LC. You can't get anything done around the house if you're constantly breastfeeding! I breastfeed. When my daughter was younger, we were on a 3 hour schedule and it worked perfectly. BUT I WAS FLEXIBLE! Sometimes, she'd be hungry again in 2-1/2 hours and I did not make her wait until the clock said she could eat. Other times, she wasn't hungry, and since I wasn't watching the clock, I'd forget. She wouldn't be fed until she was acting hungry.

And, can I say for the record that the "experts" change their mind on what's best for baby all the time? My sister, who started having kids about 10 years before me, followed the recommendation to put her babies to sleep on their stomachs. Now, "back to sleep" is all the rage and totally recommended. IMO, do what works best for your child, and as long as you don't think that it's best to put the child to sleep in the fireplace with a blazing fire going, I think you'll probably be ok.

I also think that this book goes to the other extreme in trying to make mothers who choose to formula feed not feel guilty about their choice. It touts formula feeding a bit more heavily than breastfeeding, probably since breastfeeding is all the rage. I think that this book is going out of its way to make formula feeding moms feel ok about their decision.

And FINALLY! I don't want to be my baby's sleepmate! And I am so sick of reading so much literature which describes sleeping separately as something tantamount to child abuse, lol. Again, same thing. I think that the authors of this book want people to know that choosing to sleep separately from your child--even though it is currently trendy to co-sleep--is okay, maybe even best for baby in some cases. I know it's best for me. My baby is a very active sleeper sometimes!

Ok, I've rambled enough. Again, don't expect any book to perfectly describe your parenting situation, and don't read a book expecting that you'll be able to perfectly follow what it describes. If you take advice as a general guideline rather than a mandatory requirement, this book offers good advice.