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Rating: 
Summary: Outdated
Review: As a first-time mom, I've read many many books trying to understand my newborn, why she was crying and most importantly how to stop the crying! This book brings up some interesting methods in which a baby is able to self-calm (for example, he writes of placing baby on it's side, facing a white or blank wall). I also remember reading some grossly outdated information such as breast-feeding does not provide immunity, etc... This book may have been "the answer" when it was first published (in the mid-80s I believe), but today there are many more current writings which are far more helpful. Some of those titles are "The Happiest Baby on the Block" By Harvey Karp, MD, "The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" By Tracy Hogg, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" By Marc Weissbluth. Those were the most helpful to me in the early months of my baby's life. As for this book, it's outdated.
Rating:
Summary: Outdated
Review: As a first-time mom, I've read many many books trying to understand my newborn, why she was crying and most importantly how to stop the crying! This book brings up some interesting methods in which a baby is able to self-calm (for example, he writes of placing baby on it's side, facing a white or blank wall). I also remember reading some grossly outdated information such as breast-feeding does not provide immunity, etc... This book may have been "the answer" when it was first published (in the mid-80s I believe), but today there are many more current writings which are far more helpful. Some of those titles are "The Happiest Baby on the Block" By Harvey Karp, MD, "The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" By Tracy Hogg, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" By Marc Weissbluth. Those were the most helpful to me in the early months of my baby's life. As for this book, it's outdated.
Rating: 
Summary: Tremendously useful perspective
Review: I'm prompted to write to rebut the other reviews. This book takes the revolutionary view that one of a baby's major tasks is to learn how to deal with stimuli, and that it is important to identify what is bothering your baby and then set up your baby's world so that she has the best chance of trying to calm herself. It explicitly recognizes that babies are different and so what bothers one baby (being swaddled, for example) may not bother another - and gives lots of suggestions about what might be the problem and what might help your baby feel more comfortable with his world. This was a very helpful approach for me to read so that I could keep experimenting with what I was doing, rather than relying on (and getting discouraged by) the same old tired advice.I completely disagree that this advice goes against a mother's instincts. Every mother wants to help her child. Some mothers may want to try to do this by holding their child all the time. I have no problem with that. What this book says, however, is that some *babies* may not want to be held all the time: in fact, it may be overstimulating to them to be bounced, rocked, sung to, and soothed - so much so that, in a state where they are constantly trying to deal with these stimuli, they never are able to figure out how to settle down. If you have this kind of baby, who somehow persists in being unhappy despite your best efforts, then this book is for you to help you figure out how to help better. If you are offended by the proposition that the baby somehow has tastes of his own that mean that he doesn't happen to like what you are doing for him for moments at a time, then this book is not for you. It is the most compassionate book I found toward the baby and toward the new parents, in the sense that it tries to provide concrete suggestions to help a baby and relieves a new parent of some of the guilt and nervousness that comes from thinking that a baby's happiness depends only on them. Something of a baby's happiness depends on the baby! Far from being detached from research, this book adopted the premise (which has gained even more currency since its publication) that babies know a lot more than we think and start trying from birth to make sense of their worlds. This book takes the attitude that parents can do a lot to help them along. If you can find a copy of this book, give it a try. Don't be deterred by reviews from people who didn't seem to get the message...make up your own tired mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful book, cool theory
Review: Loved it! Like all parenting books, you take bits and pieces and apply your own instinct for success.
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