William Sears > Quotes

“How you approach birth is intimately connected with how you approach life”
― William Sears, The Pregnancy Book: Month-by-Month, Everything You Need to Know From America's Baby Experts

“Oftentimes I felt ridiculous giving my seal of approval to what was in reality such a natural thing to do, sort of like reinventing the wheel and extolling its virtues. Had parents' intuition sunk so low that some strange man had to tell modern women that it was okay to sleep with their babies?”
― William Sears, SIDS: A Parent's Guide to Understanding and Preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

“In the first several months of life, a baby’s wants are a baby’s needs.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“Mothers are hormonally wired to respond to, not ignore, their baby’s cries. (Fathers, take note: You can’t argue with biology!)”
― William Sears, The Baby Sleep Book: The Complete Guide to a Good Night's Rest for the Whole Family

“If baby is thriving, but Mom is completely burned out because she is not getting the help she needs, something has to change.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“Maybe in a few generations, we’ll see studies that indicate that babies who sleep with their parents have fewer ear infections, do better in school, and don’t engage in pseudo-science when they grow up.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“Attachment mothering is not martyr mothering. Don’t think that AP means baby pulls Mommy’s string and she jumps. Because of the trust that develops between attached parents and their attached children, parents’ response time gradually lengthens as baby gains the ability to control himself. Then mother jumps only when it’s an emergency.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“AP softens every member of the family. You will find yourself gradually becoming more caring and considerate to everyone around you.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“The parents who are most frustrated by high-need babies have difficulty unloading the baggage of a control mind-set. “High-need baby” says it all. It’s”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“A newborn who is used to this cue-response network learns to trust her caregiving environment.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“the early months, baby’s sleep cycles are shorter, periods of light sleep occur more frequently, and the vulnerable period for night waking occurs twice as often as for an adult, approximately every hour. Most restless nights are due to difficulty getting back to sleep after waking up during this vulnerable period. Some babies have trouble reentering another stage of deep sleep.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“Breastfeeding helps you unwind from a busy day’s work and reconnect with your baby, especially after a tense day.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“There is no such person as a perfect parent, and certainly this book was not written by perfect parents. Do the best you can with the resources you have. That’s all your child will ever expect.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“Consider the source. Criticism from your parents or in-laws can be a delicate problem, as can criticism from anyone whose opinion you value. Feelings run deep, especially between mother and daughter, and gaining your parents’ approval of your parenting style may mean a lot to you. It helps to put yourself in your mother’s place and realize that she may think you are criticizing her when you make choices different from the ones she made. Remind yourself that she did the best she could given the information available to her. Your mother (or mother-in-law) means well. What you perceive as criticism is motivated by love and a desire to pass on experiences that she feels will help you and your children. Be careful not to imply that you are doing a better job than your own mother did. Don’t be surprised if your parents don’t buy AP. It’s not because they’re against it; they probably don’t understand it. If you think it would be helpful, share information with them and explain why you care for your baby in the way you do. But don’t argue or try to prove that you’re right. When you anticipate a disagreement, the best course is to avoid the issue and steer the conversation toward a more neutral topic.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“To your baby, you are the best mother.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“Pills and Skills Model, Instead of asking your doctor what can I take, ask your doctor what can I do.”
― William Sears, MD

“Sleep cycles are shorter for babies than for adults, with more light than deep sleep. Babies have more vulnerable periods for night waking than adults; they have difficulty getting back to sleep. The medical definition of “sleeping through the night” is a five-hour stretch. Babies usually awaken two or three times a night from birth to six months, once or twice from six months to one year, and may awaken once a night from one to two years.* Some will wake more. Babies usually sleep fourteen to eighteen hours a day from birth to six months, fourteen to sixteen hours from three to six months, and twelve to fourteen hours from six months to two years. Babies’ sleep habits are more determined by individual temperaments than parents’ nighttime abilities. It’s not your fault baby wakes up. Stuffing babies with solids at bedtime rarely helps them sleep longer. It’s all right to sleep with baby in your bed. In fact, sharing sleep works better than other”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“So when Mother goes away, baby feels that the one person who can make him feel right has completely disappeared, perhaps forever. Baby just can’t hang on to a mental picture of Mother to reassure himself, and he can’t understand the concept of time, so “Mom will be back in an hour” means nothing to him.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“As a practical guide, music you can carry on a conversation over is safe. If you have to shout over the noise, it’s too loud.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“The second month is baby’s social debut—the coming out of herself. She opens up her hands to greet people. She opens her vision to widen her world and her mouth to smile and make more noise. The feeling of rightness and trust developed during the first month opens the door for baby’s real personality to step out.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“In the second month you are, in the words of surviving parents, “over the hump.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“One of the jobs of the birth partner is Chief Water-Bottle Pusher.”
― William Sears, The Healthy Pregnancy Book: Month by Month, Everything You Need to Know from America's Baby Experts

“More changes occur in the first month after birth than at any other time in a woman’s life. It’s no wonder that 50–75 percent of all mothers feel some degree of baby blues (the incidence would be 100 percent if males gave birth and fed babies).”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“After years of watching newborns smile, we wish to deflate the gas bubble. Newborns do smile, and not because of gas (unless after passing it). As veteran smile watchers we divide smiles into two types: inside smiles and outside smiles. Inside smiles, occurring in the first few weeks, are a beautiful reflection of an inner feeling of rightness. Some are sleep grins; some are only a happy twitch in the corner of the mouth. Relief smiles occur after being rescued from a colicky period, after a satisfying feeding, or after being picked up and rocked. During face-to-face games is another time to catch a smile. Baby’s early smiles convey an “I feel good inside” message and leave you feeling good inside. Be prepared to wait until next month for the true outside (or social) smiles, which you can initiate and which will absolutely captivate all adoring smile watchers. Whatever their cause, enjoy these fleeting grins as glimpses of the whole happy-face smiles that are soon to come.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“The gentle motion a baby experiences during babywearing stimulates the vestibular system, and scientists are finding that this stimulation helps babies breathe and grow better, regulates their physiology, and improves motor development. This is especially true for premature infants. Some babies recognize on their own that they need vestibular stimulation. When deprived of it, they often attempt to put themselves into motion and develop self-rocking behaviors.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“YOU ARE YOUR BABY’S BEST EXPERT Whenever we are asked advice on any topic, a favorite question of ours is “What do you think?” For example, if parents ask us if they should co-sleep with their baby, instead of simply saying yes (because that’s what felt best for ourselves and our babies), we like to first hear what the parents’ intuition is telling them to do. We may then share our personal thoughts on the matter, which may or may not be in line with how the parents feel. We would rather help parents build on their own intuition than try to shape their ideas to fit ours. And the same goes for you, our readers.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“You can’t wait until your son is old enough to throw a football to become an involved father. If you want him to enjoy playing catch with you when he’s ten, you have to start enjoying him when he’s a baby. (The same goes for girls, including the part where they’ll need a baseball glove.)”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“Attachment is a special bond between parent and child, a feeling that draws you magnetlike to your baby. For a mother, it begins with the sense that baby is part of her, a feeling that starts in pregnancy. As the attachment develops after birth, the mother continues to feel complete only when she is with her baby. When separated from her baby she feels as if part of herself is missing.”
― William Sears, The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

“in the early months enter sleep through an initial period of light sleep lasting around twenty minutes. Then they gradually enter deep sleep, from which they are difficult to arouse. If you try to rush by putting baby down during this initial light sleep period, he will usually awaken. This fact of infant sleep accounts for the difficult-to-settle baby who “has to be fully asleep before I can put him down.” In later months many babies can enter deep sleep more quickly without first going through light sleep. Learn to recognize your baby’s sleep stages. During deep sleep you can move a sleeping baby from car seat to bed without baby awakening.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two

“TIRING FACTS OF INFANT SLEEP Babies enter sleep through REM sleep; they need help to go to sleep.”
― William Sears, The Baby Book : Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two