I was totally convinced that Ezzo was the way to go. In fact, before my daughter was born, nobody could convince me that Ezzo was bad. I was very determined to have a "good" kid.

However, I was an extremely uptight, frazzled Babywiser. I was always aware of what time it was, when the last feeding was, when the next one was due. I had a huge notebook and I took tons of notes, trying to figure out what worked to minimize the crying.

I remember one time my baby was screaming her head off and she wouldn't settle down, and I gave her my breast. She took two sips and immediately fell asleep. I remember feeling so ashamed and like I had failed because I had nursed her to sleep!

We used Babywise for 2 1/2 months, so our story is not as drastic as some others out there. But I did suffer terrible guilt. I lost 2 1/2 precious months of holding, rocking, and attending to my newborn. My sweet baby had to do so much unnecessary crying!!

She's much better now, but at the time we stopped using Ezzo's methods, she did not smile for me, would not be held, and gave no eye contact. By that time, she actually cried in our arms until we put her down! I actually stumbled across the ezzo.info website as I was researching Reactive Attachment Disorder due to these worrisome behaviors.

My husband and I were MUCH more relaxed and happy when we switched to attachment parenting. Peace had come over our home again. There was no more crying, screaming baby with a frantic mother. I became so confident and happy in my mothering. Also, we started to actually enjoy parenting!

One thing that I never realized until I ventured away from the Babywise book is this: Many (not all) babies will eventually put themselves on a schedule. You can have a degree of predictability with a lot of babies. It's funny to me because I didn't even think this was possible unless you did Babywise.

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by K.
submitted 6/2/04