Anyone a Tizzie Hall fan?

Oh well I guess I did get what I asked for, I guess I shouod have entitled the post "Any Tizzie Hall fans know the 9 month+ routine?" lol

Anyway all I have to say in Tizzie's defence is that by the age of 6 1/2 months Tommy was still not sleeping through the night despite being on 3 solid meals a day and was catnapping during the day and waking up grumpy. I tried quite a few different things before a friend told me about Tizzie.

I never really left Tommy crying, if anything he cries less now than before and he is much happier, as am I, as I'm not as tired and know what lays ahead for us in our day. The routines work for us but I can understand that it's not for everyone.

Still after the info though if anyone can help out that would be great otherwise I guess I'll just visit the website and buy it. ;)

Oh - we aren't having a go at you!! If you find that her routines have done good things for you guys, then that is wonderful - truly!!
It would be interesting to see though hwo Tommy wuld have one by himself without the routines though, as we have recently round (about 8months old??) that Jenna slipped into her sleep routine of 2 long naps in the day, and sleeping from 7:30 to 5-6am by herelf. I think some of these little tackers just take some time to get there by themselves.

But honestly, if you find that it has helped you - well done!! Thats great!! I just wish Tizzie wouldn't stress out mums with newborn bubs so much.......

I know you're not having a go at me Fi, and to be honest I wouldn't have been ready to use this type of routine on a newborn either. I haven't actually seen what she recommends for that age group but it wasn't until 6 months of age that I felt confident enough in my own ability to know what was going on with Tommy to follow one of Tizzie's.

I really believe the biggest thing to come out of following the routine was that Tommy learnt to self settle and that made a big difference to his daytime sleeps as well as starting to sleep through the night. I don't know when that would've happened if left alone but I knew deep down that his waking in the night was not due to hunger but the inability to put himself back to sleep.

I do agree though that some of these routine type people, Baby Whisperer etc only go so far when explaining a concept and then leave you in the lurch when other issues crop up and it tends to throw the whole thing out. This is where I think a mothers instincts comes into play! I think also I was fortunate that I started the routine at a time when we were both ready for it and it pretty much worked staright away without any major issues. So I think there's a lot of timing involved with these types of things as well. [-o<

Hi:

I am new to all this and often wandered what these sites where all about so thought that I would have a look. I am a little confused however when I got onto the posts regarding Tizzie Hall as to where you have all got your information from. I am certainly not saying I am her number 1 fan, or that I agree with everything she does, but yes I have used a number of her routines for my now 18month old child and he has been sleeping from 6.30pm to 8.30pm since he was around 8months old purely thru routine in his life. He certainly still gets plenty of love and cuddles and whilst following Tizzie's advice was never instructed to leave him to cry for any length of time as this is not what she recommends at all. I just thought that it was a bit strange how I noticed that one of the posts has actually come from the owner of this site as I thought this was inproper use of the site and now realise why I don't use them. I did think that it would be helpful having chats with other mums especially now I have number two on the way but if this is what it is made up of I shall certainly think twice. I undertand that everyone has there own opinions but I cannot understand how you can verbally bash someone when you don't even have the correct information or your facts right. For one Tizzie studied psychology at university and is qualified. Anyway just thought I would voice my opinion as like I said above did think these sites may be fun but if I can't get correct information than I don't think I shall bother.

evovic1,

Firstly, this is a pro-gentle site and secondly, we're all entitled to our own opinions and free speech (myself included and hey, you need a license for a car but not to have a baby, let alone write a book about one or sell their opinions on the matter! So anyone can have unreasonable use of something!) but I think you had another agenda than just to contribute to discussion. ;) I doubt we'd ever see you post anywhere else even if there wasnt a discussion on Tizzie. If you aren't her number one fan or staff / friends / family then how come you are searching through sites for info on her?

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"Also known as the "Baby whisperer", Tizzie Hall has developed a collection of breastfeeding and bottle feeding routines for babies from birth to 3 years.

The amazing thing about Tizzie Hall’s baby routines is that things such as colic, reflux and catnapping can vanish from your life within 24 hours of starting your baby on one of Save Our Sleeps routines. Leaving you with a contented baby."

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-- 24 hours?! What about those who try and it doesn't work? No routine is guaranteed to work for every baby - my own daughter was in Mitcham Mother and Baby Unit for TWO WEEKS and we were sent home with no result! They had no idea what to do with us next. Tizzie's site also says she can help babies get to sleep without music or rocking - I would never take that away from a baby - some of the most soothing things you can do!

If she has a psychology degree, then does that teach her that routine is not recommended for newborns by many reputable organisations and real experts, and does she know about the studies on cortisol and the newborn brain and things like that? Does that qualify her for the title of "International Sleep Expert"??! If she had the baby's interest at heart and /or had her own children, maybe her advice would be different.

But I think she's cashing in on the fact that parents have no support, are buggered as hell and are trying to tell parents there is a way she can 'make' the baby sleep. And also, how come she pulled out of a debate on controlled crying on the Today show? Would have been good for business you would think if she had a good thing going. And as for all the complaints to Practical Parenting - even the parents are complaining!

I don't normally go on like this but I don't think you are a neutral member. Tell Tizzie we said hi!

Sorry can't help it, for me the following is one of the reasons I have issues with Tizzie (not just the ethical issue of paying for her to advertise)


Apologies in advance if this has been entered incorrectly and Kelly feel free to remove if you think it is going to far, but I really do not like being compared to a cow.

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Sleeping on demand:

Many people falsely believe that a breastfed baby will not sleep through the night until he starts consuming formula or solids. This is not necessarily the case. I have found that a breastfed baby using my routine will sleep through the age from a very early age.

When a baby is unsatisfied and not sleeping, the general conclusion is that the baby is hungry and therefore, the introduction of formula is recommended. When the baby is put on formula, before long he tends to become contented, and this reinforces the mother’s perception that it was her breast milk that was the problem. However, the introduction of formula at regular intervals establishes a feeding routine in the baby, and consequently poses several questions. Was the breast milk really insufficient for the baby in the first place? Or did the baby simply need a routine? Would the baby have been more contented if the mother had breastfed to a routine? My experience leads me to believe that he would.

Why Routine makes a difference.

Routine alone does not make a baby feel more secure or a abetter sleeper, It is a combination of factors that will help to settle your baby.

Firstly, putting your baby on a routine gets him into the habit of filling up when you offer the breast, because he soon learns it will be the some time before you make the offer again. You will find that he will feed longer when on a routine, which means that he will have a very full tummy which will in turn help him to sleep better. Conversely, a baby who knows he will be offered a snack every couple of hours will never feel the need to have a full feed.

Secondly, I believe that the quality of a mother’s milk changes when she puts her baby on a breastfeeding routine. Forgive the comparison, but let’s look at cow’s milk, which is the closest to human milk which is why we drink it and feed it to our children.

Dairy farmers stick to a strict milking routine because the cow’s at a set time regulates their metabolism according to when and how much milk to produce, If cows are milked earlier, later or ore often that scheduled, the milk suffers in quality, which leads me to the conclusion that this must be the same for a breast feeding mother’s milk supply.

Finally, if your baby is tired and is used to falling asleep every time you feed him, he may refuse to feed if he doesn’t want to fall asleep - a problem that I have frequently observed in babies not on a routine.

If you are concerned that your baby is not eating and sleeping well, and cries frequently, I recommend that you try putting him on one of my set feed and sleep routines before you give up on breastfeeding.

Excerpt from the article “Don’t be so demanding” Practical Parenting Magazine May 2004 pp. 60-61. Tizzie Hall

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Ha - this thread rears its ugly head again!!
Look - I know Tizzie through a friend, in fact she is my mates SIL, and I have been out to dinner with her etc. Lovely girl, she wouldn't know me, but I know her.
I had an argument with my mate at work who was telling me all about how wonderful Tizzie is, and it just amazes me that he doesn't have kids, yet he thinks she is the bees knees.
He told me that she gets really angry because people think she endorses controlled crying - which she apparently doesn't.
I explained that she does believein letting a baby grizzle depending on the type of cry, and parents are encouraged to learn the sort ofcry etc. He then asked me ifI knew what sort of cry Jenna has. WTF??? Like I haven't learnt when my baby cries through hunger/ tiredness/ anger/ hurt etc. Most mums can figure this out after not too long :)

Anyway - I think its great to use somelike like Tizzie if you are far down a stressed out road and you are looking for help. What I object to is her advise on breastfeeding and sleep routines for newborns in particular. She has major spreads in a major Oz magazine every month, and how can new parents not help but read what she says and wonder. I would be far more impressed if she didn't mention "going to her website for more details " every single week, and I can't wait to find out how she goes when her first child is born. She married recently, so I'm sure its not too far down the track.

Anyway - just wanted to add another 20c and say great if Tizzie's routines have worked for you. Thats really wonderful. But how about letting new parents figure things out for themselves before resorting to routines where common comforts are removed.

Fi

I have never heard of Tizzy Hall but we had a similar "expert" in the Uk....Gina Ford, and as a doula and breastfeeding counsellor there, I have helped many women repair the damage done by her books and advice, she too gets published in baby mags etc.
The thing is, there is no ONE way to parent, we all have to find out own way., and promising the world by buying a book and following a routine so regimented that a lieutenant in the army would struggle to maintain.,.is setting a mother up to fail.
T.H may have a degree in psychology, but it means nothing. A nanny, sleep advisor nurse whatever, is PAID to help sort out the problems, is not exhausted , driven by primitive hormones to protect, nourish and nurture...and goes home at the end of it. Its very easy to enforce routines if a child isnt yours.

For babes that these routines work for, fantastic...lucky you, I wish my kids slept, but none of them do, and thats my choice because I dont have a routine...chaos rules in our house. Once I accepted that, I just got on with it.

For everyone else, put the books away and follow what feels right for your family, any book that claims to cure babes in 24 hours with routine, would be used as toilet paper in my house...there are no quick fixes with babies or children, its a life long, learning and loving (and exhausting!!)process.
Lisaxx

Hmmm. evovic1, Can't say I agree with anything you've said I'm afraid and like Kelly I'm a little suspicious as to the motives behind your post. I think Kelly is well within her right as a mother and not JUST the owner of this site to give her opinion. I also don't think any degree qualifies someone to know how to "parent" a child. It comes with having a loving bond, it comes with having experience (as a mother not as a nanny) and EVERY child is different.

And ROFLMAO Astrid can't say I like that comparison much myself!

*hugs*
Cailin

okay can i just share briefly something i was told after my 3rd child. i too was sleep deprived and looking for a way to get my bubs to feed and sleep by the "book" i read every single "parenting book" and brought the magazine to read tizzie hall's latest getting baby to sleep articles - i had routines drawn up everywhere, of when and how much my baby should be having sleep wise - i was quite anal about it and she was as i said my 3rd child. i mentioned how frazzled i was about all the different "sleep experts" and wasn't sure which routine to follow - when i was told to get rid of all the books and stop reading all the articles by all as quite frankly nobody has ever written a book about your OWN baby.

i did follow the advise and i became a much more relaxed mother to not only my new baby but also my older son - and i just went with the flow each day and i became a better person as i figured out the demands of my child on my own.

okay off the soapbox now - just thought it was a great piece of advice

Wow looks like I have really hit a nerve with you guys. Just for the record I am not an employee, friend or anyhing you have referred to me as, just a decent person who doesn't believe in verbally abusing people without having all my facts straight. Sorry if I have upset anyone as this certainly was not my intention, nor was it to be attacked myself, I was kind a hoping that I would get a reasonable response that would make me want to participate in further topics, having just moved to the country, how wrong I was.

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I’m trying to get my 15 week old baby into your routines, but he’s breast-fed and wants to feed every 3 hours. How can I stretch out his feeds?
Changing a baby’s habits can be hard at first. However, after the first four hours the rest of the feeds should fall easily into place. Get your baby up at 7:00am for his first feed of the day. Then when he wakes up and wants a feed, try to distract him by going for a walk or looking at different things in the house. If he gets very upset, try swaddling him, cuddling him, or even singing to him. Some parents use a dummy to get their baby through the first four hours. At 11:00am, you’ll find your baby takes a bigger feed and gets to the 3:00pm feed with little or no fuss.

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This is from Tizzie's web site and I personally think its a dreadful advice on a few levels. Firstly if I'm hungry I want to eat and if someone thinks it doesn't fit thier routine and tries to distract me by taking me for a walk or showing me the contents of thier display cabinet I'm going to be one ****sed off hungry mama. Just because a baby is smaller and less articulate than me why should it be condemned to waiting an extra hour or two for a feed. Which brings me to the next point once bubba gets ****ed off s/he is going to start sooking which is going to make any normal mother stressed and unhappy. Why would you do that to yourself?
Finally, from a pysiological point of view advising people to schedule breastfeeding is really quite irresponsible. Breastfeeding works on a supply and demand system. As a baby grows the amount of breastmilk it needs will increase. In order to increase the amount of breastmilk available a baby needs to stimulate the supply. Any mother who has breastfed for a while will tell you that thier baby has gone through phases of feeding very often (ie every 2 hours) - the reason that a baby goes through these phases of frequent feeding is to increase the supply of milk available (increased demand --> increased supply). Denying a baby the oppurtunity to increase the supply of milk available to it is likely to lead to insufficient milk supply and mother's giving up breastfeeding far earlier than nessescary.
Tizzie's ideas aren't very new - Ferber was sprouting the same kind of stuff 20 years ago. Interestingly enough after all this time he's recently admitted that Ferberisation isn't really all that its cracked up to be and he may have been a bit mistaken. I wonder if tizzie will be singing a similar tune in 20 years or so.

Also evovic1. There are many different forums with their different focuses, it just a matter of finding one that is more in tune with how you like to parent. I do not like controlled crying and have stopped going onto sites that actively promote it as I know there are other sites out there that I can go on. That is not to say that I agree with everything that is said on BB, but if I don't like it I don't read it or reply to it unless I can add real value to the conversation. If I left a forum every time I read something I didn't like, then I wouldn't be a member of any.

I'm sorry but I cannot see the "Bashing" that you mention. Just a conversation by mothers who have different parenting techniques to those that Tizzie promotes. We are allowed to have opinions and have every right to question an expert's qualifications especially when we are paying for her opinions just by the fact we purchase PP. Even after your post I still struggle to see how a degree makes her an expert. Feel free to post to clarify.

Also I think you will find this conversation is quite tame in comparison to what I have read on other forums. Not just in regards to Tizzie, but parenting styles in general.

Of course you have stirred debate in a sensitive topic, but don't give yourself all the credit - just like circumcision, babies and sleep always is a touchy subject amongst mums no matter who you are. It's also a topic close to my heart after all I have been through, which was a motivator for starting this site. I am appalled at the amount of people these days cashing in on being sleep experts (ahem, parents ARE the experts) and they have no children and / or no training and /or neither!

Of course, anything that questions ability or methods upsets parents, at such an isolating time when we should all be supporting one another, supporting our own decisions and getting on with it, not fighting over who's better at it and what method we've used. We merely had a discussion on what methods haven't worked and what we don't like. If you were a regular member this would have been just like a normal discussion you would see everyday, but for an individual to register and immediately post IN THIS TOPIC for the sole purpose of sprouting promotion, then that's a different kettle of fish.

If you can tell me where I was bashing I would be interested to know - in fact I barely linked up Tizzie with most of my comments except about the nanny and training thing. If you think this is bashing, clearly this is upsetting you more than it would a normal person, why are you constantly defending her and why do you care so much? As you keep saying, you don't like it here, but you keep reading and posting?

I am afraid you don't make sense and you keep making excuses not to come back, which I think is only because you never really planned to come back and just want to stick a knife in to try and make us feel bad (sorry wont work) - you've only posted with the intention of promoting, how much more obvious do you want to make it? Sure you have success with the 18 month old, great! But as everyone has said, this is about newborns, and even with my own secondborn who is 17 months, teething and night-weaning, I would still never follow her advice and that is my right to do and say so. He doesn't go to sleep without touch.

If you have a problem with a gentle forum and what we support, there are plenty more to choose from! :) People join at their own free will because they like what a forum stands for, I have built this site up over three years of bloody hard work, bad sleeping experiences with my first following Mother and Baby Units and 'experts' when all along my instincts worked best - everything was fine when I followed my own lead and did what I had to do. My second is sleeping MUCH better now that I have ignored all that crap. He has times where he sleeps really well, but I dont know one baby who is put into a routine and stays that way. If you really are keen on being helpful to mums, give free advice on a website, start your own forum - but this is mine and I am happy with what everyone has said here.

If you have any further problems or wish to discuss this further, you can email me directly at info@bellybelly.com.au and discuss this offline, this topic wasn't posted to incite debate or bashing and if you feel so, we don't want to upset any of our members, no matter if they have posted 1000 or 2 posts! So you can contact me offline in future.

I don't believe you were referred to as an employee or friend of Tizzie and it does seem to me as though you are being a bit attacking of the opinions of others, shared here. As Kelly has said, this is a gentle parenting site after all and whilst discussions on Tizzie and her methods are fine in this particular forum (and as you will note, the original author of this post has not been offended by previous comments as she understands where we are coming from), I do believe there is a 'right' and a 'wrong' way to voice your opinion.

Hi All:

I have to say I feel a little strange as I have never felt it appropriate for me to go on a parenting site and voice my opinion. But I have received a call from a client who pointed this thread out to me. When I saw that the owner of the site was posting I felt she would not have a problem with me coming on.

I would like to point out I am not a childless nanny. Also the bit about having no medical or psychological training is incorrect. Normally when something is posted in a forum the site is held responsible. It is up to the moderators to decide if they feel what has been posted is fact or fiction if it is left up it is seen as the site is agreeing with the post. If I decided (which I am not going to do) to take legal action against someone or something it would be the site I would take the action against not the poster. I would appreciate it if you could go back and change your incorrect statements.

I would also like to point out I do not recommend controlled crying in fact there is new evidence coming out to show it can cause emotional damage to babies and parents. Save Our Sleep offers lots of settling techniques none of which are controlled crying. I really feel a lot of your opinions will change when you have a copy of my book and you can read the whole picture.

Fiona it was lovely to meet you that night in Geelong at my BIL’s work function at Tony’s I am pleased to hear you and Jenna are doing so well.

Tizzie I have already openly apologised for the incorrect education comment and no I don't mind you posting. In fact I actively take part in many conversations not just this one. Legal action for what exactly, btw? I don't think that you can sue people for expressing an opinion or not agreeing with you? You don't see people like Gina Ford on here complaining either - we don't agree with her, in fact people disagree about all sorts of things, but do we go around suing one another?

If you could also clear up too, you say you aren't a childless nanny, can you update us - have you had children or are you no longer a nanny?

Isn't it funny, you write posts like "Victoria" writes her emails!

Hi:

Hi all:

Hmmmm.... you too must be a busy girl taking calls from clients late on a Saturday afternoon too, how nice of you to be available and there for those you teach.

Perhaps we could have a healthy debate about routines then? I am up for it. I know plenty of people that would be too? Happy to have a respectable exchange of opinions.

I don't think we need to buy answers from anywhere, I believe it all comes down to loads of support, extra hands in times of need and what's already in your heart.

Hi Kelly:

The : after the Hi is what I was taught you put when you are adressing somone. I am not sure who Victoria is you are refering to? But she must be well educated.

The legal action I talk about is for the lies and misquotes you have up on your site about me. It is not up to me to point them out to you it is up to your moderators to find them and correct them. For example it says I am a childless nanny this is fiction and Save Our Sleep could take legal action out for this. However at this point we are not going to.

As for the calls from the clients I get them 24 hours a day 7 days a week Saturday is not unusual. The only time my phone is off is when I am at church on Sunday mornings.