The Baby Whisperer

"Pardon me, Mum, your guilt is showing." (The Baby Whisperer, p255)

When I first read that line, I laughed out loud.

You see, I hadn't felt at all guilty about my parenting until I started reading this book. I was confused, certainly. I felt I was just muddling along, and probably doing lots of things wrong, and I was looking for new ideas.

The moment I picked up this book and started reading, I felt like I was under attack. Everything I had done up to that point, every strategy I had for dealing with my son seemed to be classed as "accidental parenting". I began to get depressed, and even seriously considered jumping in to the cycle of screaming for two weeks that Tracy Hogg said would be necessary to get Wombat (who was then 10 months old) on to the E.A.S.Y schedule (p43).

[E.A.S.Y stands for Eat - Activity - Sleep - You.]

After I had thought about it for a while, I realised that my son DID have a settled daily routine. It just wasn't exactly the same as the routine which Tracy Hogg suggests is the ONLY ONE WHICH WILL WORK. She is selling her methods, and she is very successful. She even has some very good ideas and I have learnt a lot from reading this book. However, she herself does not appeal to me. I find her "celebrated sense of humour" to be patronising and if she called me "luv" in person, I'd be tempted to break her teeth.

I can see what she's on about. If I had read the book before Wombat was born, he would have been straight onto her schedule from birth, and it might have worked. I don't know. What I do know is that I would have missed out on some of the most precious moments of Wombat's babyhood. I would never have spent those months sleeping with him cuddled up between me and his daddy. I would never have had the wonderful experience of suckling him to sleep, and hearing his satisfied little giggle in his dreams.

Babies change and grow. What is appropriate today may not work tomorrow. Parents need to be adaptive, and to explore a range of different ideas for child-rearing - not necessarily testing them all out on the child - but borrowing ideas and techniques from each to create something that suits them best. Tracy Hogg's comments about consistency and some of her settling methods for getting baby to sleep are very useful. However, I first had to wade through my resistance to her attempts to pigeonhole me and my beautiful Grumpy Spirited Touchy Textbook Angel baby.

This review is written in hindsight. It is several months since I last read any of the book, and I must admit I didn't finish it. I took away some techniques which I put into practice. I also took away a number of her "don't do"s which I DO do - for example, I feel a touch of guilt every time I encourage Wombat to finish his last mouthful of porridge - am I setting him up for future obesity??? While she makes positive comments, I find her overall attitude to breastfeeding to be dismissive and unhelpful as well. Then again, I am admittedly a "subjective parent" (p309) and probably take the book too personally.

To sum up, I think this book will either work for you, or it won't. My final impression of Tracy Hogg is as The Baby Nazi... but when I look back through the pages, I find that I am forgetting much of the positive advice I read, and only remembering the negatives which annoyed me. I have very limited experience with parenting advice books. Perhaps if I read more, this one would take its proper place in the big picture, and I would be able to keep what I needed and discard the rest. I will probably want to read it again next time I am pregnant.

In the meantime, I will return it in a much dilapidated and Wombat-chewed state to my sister (who lent it to me) with my thanks and blessing! (and just hope I never have to meet Ms Hogg in person...)