There is nothing new under the sun.  Women have used different methods for raising children for several thousand years.  My great-grandmother wrote in her journal "there were no books back then to tell me how to raise a baby but all the Old Folks agreed on one thing-you should never let a baby cry!"  When I asked my grandmother (who kept me as an infant) if she demand-fed or schedule-fed she said "Lands, Honey, I don't know.  I fed you when The Price is Right came on every day."  My grandmother, great-grandmother, and each of our ancestors did things differently when it came to caring for babies.  A great difference today is that we have so many books on childrearing. 

Here I share what we found that has helped our family bring "order to our days and sleep to our nights."

The first 8-12 weeks of our babies' lives we closely follow the feeding and sleeping routine outlined in "On Becoming Babywise" by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, M.D.  There is some crying those first weeks as the baby learns to settle himself to sleep and adjusts to the feeding routine.  After those first few weeks we have babies who sleep and eat on a schedule that makes our family of seven run smoothly.  Once the routine is established we bend it as we want to, but we stick closely to the schedule the first few weeks.

Some benefits for us include everyone sleeping all night and the predictable times each day to homeschool while the baby and toddlers nap.  Also, our children all go to bed early which gives my husband and me time together in the evenings. 

We are very thankful for the friends who shared this method with us.  Some other books friends have recommended to me are "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" and "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems."  Applying the methods in Babywise has been a tremendous blessing to our family.