Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-25
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Overjoyed but exhausted? Perplexed but purring? Then you may just be a new parent. And if you're looking for practical reassurance and advice then Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect and Communicate with your Baby is for you.

Clearly a remarkable person, Tracy Hogg (the "baby whisperer") has an impressive ability to understand and relate to babies. Herself a mother, she is an experienced maternity nurse and has derived her approach from her dealings with countless babies and their families. Forgiving and sympathetic in style, her book is well written, immensely readable and is full of gems and shrewd observations that even the seasoned parent may not have worked out. She emphasises the importance of showing respect to your baby: "Just try to remember that this is a little human being in your arms, a person whose senses are alive, a tiny being who already knows your voice and even what you smell like." And so the parent is instructed to give the newly returned-home baby an explanatory commentary and friendly guided tour of his or her new home.

Those who enjoy personality quizzes will love the Know-Your-Baby Quiz in which you can "zero in" on your baby's type which, according to Ms Hogg could be "Angel", "Textbook", "Touchy", "Spirited" or "Grumpy". She then provides tips on the best way to handle each type of baby. Advocating a structured routine with the acronym EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) she then demonstrates how it works for the benefit of all the family. The book covers most topics from sex to weaning, but possibly the most helpful, even beautiful, section is where the Baby Whisperer divulges her secrets for interpreting your baby's body language, signals and cries.

If you find The Baby Whisperer helpful, you may well also be interested in Gina Ford's The Contented Little Baby Book, What to Expect: the First Year and the slightly higher brow Babyhood by Penelope Leach. --Rebecca Pickering

Book Jacket
For every parent, somewhere between the delivery room and arriving home, reality sets in. We have a baby! And rarely are these unique little creatures exactly what their parents expected.

Tracy Hogg has seen it all. With more than 20 years' experience tending some 5,000 babies, she has successfully taught parents how to understand what their babies are trying to tell them. Now parents and babies everywhere can benefit from Tracy's expertise.

In Secrets of the Baby Whisperer she:
*reveals the Know-Your-Baby quiz which will help parents determine what their baby needs
*shows parents how to teach babies to sleep
*advises on feeding, bathing, child-proofing, toy buying and choosing or training a carer.
Reassuring, down to earth and often flying in the face of conventional wisdom, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer promises parents not only a healthier, happier baby but a more relaxed and happy household as well.

Synopsis
Tracy Hogg knows babies. She can calm even the most distressed or difficult infant, because she understands their language. Hence, her clients call her 'The Baby Whisperer'. Her incredible sensitivity and ability to read infants' cries, coos and assorted baby noises quickly earned Tracy the admiration and gratitude of high-profile couples, including a host of celebrities. In this remarkable book, Tracy demystifies the magic she has performed with some five thousand babies. She teaches parents how to work out what kind of baby they have, what kind of mother and father they are, and what kind of parenting plan will work best for them. Believing that babies need to become part of the family - rather than dominate it - she has developed a practical programme that works with infants as young as a day old. Her methods are also applauded by scientists: 'Tracy's is a voice that should be heard. She appears very knowledgeable about modern infant research and has incorporated this to a level parents can understand. In spite of all the baby how-tos on the market, this one will stand out.'

Customer Reviews

Outdated and misinformed - badly needs updating
Apart from the interesting section on body-language, I found this technique to be full of misleading, out of date information. The recommendation to put babies into their own room before six months is in direct conflict with SIDS guidelines, and the "pick-up-put-down" technique must be utterly confusing for a tiny baby.

The author also has some strange ideas about breastfeeding, implying that demand feeding leads to a demanding baby (it doesn't) and that women who feed beyond the first year have deep psychological issues (they don't).

It's also centred on the very out-of-date idea that babies form habits early on, which has been proven not to be the case because the brain hasn't sufficiently developed to allow them to do so before around four months. How can it be damaging to rock your baby in the first few months (another thing which has been proven to be beneficial to the brain development of babies) when they have been constantly rocked while in the womb?

The notion of spending your day in cycles of activity seems fair enough, but the book needs to be updated to reflect current guidelines and scientific & psychological discoveries.

Good, but not foolproof!
I got this book whilst still pregnant, and thought that this book would make parenting a walk in the park. Great little charts to help identify body language and crying sounds, different baby types, flexible but sensible routine, what could make understanding your baby be easier?

4 weeks after the birth of my little one, desperately trying to get a "spirited" baby (who I only later realised had colic and did not seem to quite follow the body language signals as described by Tracy) to sleep, I realised that things were not so straightforward, felt absolutely useless, and frequently wished that the late GF could make a flying visit just to tell me what on earth I was doing wrong!!

In short, if your baby is not an "Angel" or "Textbook" baby, or has any kind of physical discomfort, this book is too simplistic and can leave you feeling inadequate. However, it seems that after receiving countless emails from desperate mums, TH realised that EASY is not easy and that there were many pitfalls to her methods and wrote "The Baby Whisperer solves all your problems", a follow-up book which I cannot recommend enough as an invaluable accompaniment.

Even if you don't manage to get your baby onto the EASY routine (I never quite did, 5 months on, my little one seems to change his habits or get into a growth spurt as soon as I more or less seem to get him onto it) the two books combined give you some really sound advice on baby care and psychology, the pitfalls of "accidental parenting" - establishing unwanted habits that are hard to break - and good ideas to help your baby to sleep which have proved really valuable.

Although I would probably not buy this book as a present for anyone, it is definitely worth having as a first-time parent and I would certainly recommend it over Gina Ford. Most importantly, buy it together with the follow-up book, the chances are you're going to need it!

Shocking!
Am shocked at how dire this book is and how many rave reviews there are.....seriously?! Most of this is common sense, and as other reviewers have pointed out - sometimes it is not possible to pat baby on the back and have them follow the sleep eat play routine.....I couldn't bear the patronising tone after page 50....I tried to bear wih it but have more fabulous books to be reading!