Why I Babywise

I love babywise! Micaiah is a babywise baby. We'll "use" it for Caeden. It works for our family.

I am super aware that babywise is a magnet for debate. If you're here to debate, you need to go elsewhere. Certainly you need to do what works for you and your baby, so if that's not babywise, then by all means do something else!

I read Babywise twice while I was pregnant with Micaiah and referenced it almost daily for several weeks after he was born. It's now on my reading list to skim once more before Caeden is born.

Without having read it, I'm not sure I would know how often to feed my baby. I wouldn't have known to how help stabilize my baby's hunger metabolism and sleep cycles. I would have had no clue what babies are capable of eating and sleeping-wise at various points throughout their first months and years. No one really taught me all that.

Sleeping through the night is a nice by product, not the goal, of babywise. The point is so that I, as the parent, can have a framework with which to manage my infant. I am to be flexible and watch my baby and his cues. Sleep is so very important for babies, and I never realized prior to having Micaiah that babies don't just automatically know when they need to sleep. Oh, they get sleepy, and they will crash at some point, but they don't instinctively know their "optimal waketime." They need help learning how to sleep and how to sleep well. I didn't realize how sensitive babies are to overtiredness and how that can affect a baby.

With babywise, I learned all of these things. Micaiah was on a routine of full, complete feedings and naps that brought predictibility to his day....and mine! We both knew what to expect and when. It helped me determine why he might be crying since I knew when he was getting adequate milk and sleep.

And as a super sweet perk, he has indeed been sleeping 12+ hours a night since he was 14 weeks old! I'm just a little bit excited to implement it again with our second baby boy! :)