Bringing Up Bebe

When I returned home from France I had 3 different people talk to me about the book "Brining up Bebe" and so I had to get my hands on a copy and see what this book is all about.

Essentially the essence of this book is about an American who is living in Paris raising 3 children that were all born there.

After a horrible dining out experience the author realizes that French babies in the restaurants are all behaving.  This lead the author on a mission to find out why French babies are better behaved.

The book covers topics such as almost all French babies sleeping through the night by 4 months, eating habits, and parenting style and focus.

I find the book to be enjoyable to read and don't see it as a parenting book, but more as one woman's observations.  A lot of what she writes about is usually something that I think would be worth thinking about.  Here are a few of my thoughts on her three main points in the book.


Sleeping through the Night

The author describes how French women don't rush right to their babies side when they start to cry.  They wait for a minute or two to try and decipher why the baby is crying and what needs to be done.  Something the author terms "La Pause".  Because of La Pause, babies are given a few moments to try and resettle themselves when they wake in the middle of the night.  This then teaches the baby to transition between sleep cycles.

I have been very very lucky to have a baby who loves to sleep.  Little R first slept through the night around 3 months.  I learned that when we was waking in the night he wasn't hungry because he would fall back asleep whilst eating.  This lead me to allow him to cry for a few moments before going in and volia! I had a baby who was sleeping through the night. ..

Of course that only lasted for a couple weeks, because then I had a baby who was teething, and then I had a baby who was going through separation anxiety.  It was around 7 months when R was consistently sleeping through the night.

Eating Habits

The author claims that the solution to having babies eat everything is to just keep offering them foods over and over again until they like it.  Really a very simple concept.

While I do agree that this practice probably does work, the reality is slightly different.  Sure I feed R the same food over and over, but I also have to make sure that my skinny little guy eats.  When we returned home from France, R would only eat fruit.  We offered him lots of other food, but he would just throw it on the floor.  As a desperate parent who wanted to make sure that my baby ate, I would then offer him fruit or rice cereal.  After all I didn't want my baby waking up hungry in the middle of the night!

 Parenting Style and Focus

This section was probably one of the biggest differences in the book between what the French parents are doing versus the American parents according to the author.  The American parent is the helicopter parent who is always there protecting and/or cheering on their child.  The French parent is more relaxed and has no problem dropping their child off at an activity and not needing to sit through the whole thing and encourage their child.

Already with day care we have seen a "helicopter parent" and are finding that this isn't good for their child or mine.  This child is also new to day care and tends to spend a lot of the day crying and wanting to be held by the staff.  Meaning that this child is monopolizing the staffs time and leaving them with one less hand to take care of all the other babies.  It all makes sense ones you learn that the child is co-sleeping with his parents and still breastfeeding multiple times a day, even though he spends all day at day care.