A free lunch?

We had our first What Were We Thinking (WWWT) skype session when L was 6 weeks old. It was amazingly helpful! A and I just kept wondering how we got such good advice for free! There were two main benefits to WWWT.

The first was—is—that it is simple advice to follow. I imagine that all new parents have a similar experience of receiving lots of advice, which often seems to be conflicting. But the sleep—feed—play routine is really easy to follow. It’s also not draconian advice—ie we didn’t feel like we were forcing our baby to do anything he wasn’t ready for; rather, we are giving him the best opportunities to have good sleep and to develop well. We found this particularly useful with grandparents and, eventually, our babysitter. I just handed them the easy-to-skim booklet, which got them on the same page as us in a very diplomatic way!

The second benefit of WWWT was the remarkable skype time we were able to have with Jan. Particularly since we live overseas, we had no other way to access sensible, evidence-based, Australian advice. Our meetings coincided with L going through a very fussy period, so Jan could see just what we were dealing with! And give us tailored suggestions—specifically, about how to space his feeds out a bit, so that I got a bit of a break, and L had more time to sleep in between. It had felt like we were going round in circles, trying to balance his sleep and feeding, so it was great to get some straightforward information about how (and why) to prioritize his sleep (given his age, and the fact that he was growing well).

I have been recommending the WWWT website to all my friends who are new and prospective parents!

Posted in: Baby 5-8 weeks