Jay, this sounds like Dr. Ferber to me in many respects, although for the
most part his book for parents, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems," (I
think) doesn't address babies under 4-6 months.  I'd advise everyone to be
familiar with this book as it's widely recommended to parents, because after
all it's written by a *doctor* (apologies to the wonderful docs on our list!
:-) ) and so it must be right!

Ferber makes a lot of medical claims about the health importance of "good
sleep" that are scary and, as far as I could tell, totally unsubstantiated.
 As you go through Jay's list of prescribed behaviors, did you find yourself
saying, "Or else WHAT will happen?"  This is what I did all the way through
Ferber's book.  He makes claims that someone will have "lifelong sleep
problems" if they don't "learn to sleep well" as infants.

Well, you know, I recognize that there are such things as sleep disorders but
I don't know very many people who have them and the problems are of varying
etiology....  I don't think rocking or nursing babies to sleep has been the
cause.  (Probably one cause of an increased incidence of sleep disorders is
the increased incidence of sleep clinics!  Tee hee!)

Contrary to a lot of impressions, Ferber does NOT recommend his methodology
for babies under six months and is at least aware of the young baby's need to
eat around the clock, although he would define that "need" in much more
"clock-aware" terms.  One danger I remember observing some years ago, when
his book had just come out, was that parents were using his methods with very
young (2 mos or less) babies.

But it's still a crock!  He uses a LOT of pseudoscientific language to make
his methods sound like THE medically prescribed regimen for a healthy life.
 The wonderful, inquiring, skeptical minds on LactNet will have a fine time
reading through his claims.

Mary Renard