Setting the Record Staight
Matthew Aney’s 1998 “Babywise advice, linked to dehydration and failure to thrive,” - Dismissed by FAAP Membership
We will not rehearse every historical detail surrounding the 1998 article referenced above. However, because the claims within that piece continue to surface from time to time, a brief and measured clarification is warranted. Parents deserve accurate information, particularly when past assertions have already been publicly addressed and put to rest.
Summary: Time is the most impartial witness to illegitimate claims, and time has rendered its verdict. What remains decades later? Babywise has reached its 110th printing, with four major updates, translated into 26 languages, and is recognized as the number one sleep training book around the world. Mr. Aney’s 1998 article rests in the stillness of old archival shelves.
However, for those who are interested in the details that dismantled the Aney article, please read on.
Babywise is widely used and internationally recognized. Translated into 28 languages and utilized by millions of global parents who have entrusted those principles with the most precious lives in their homes. However, when a parent chooses Babywise, they are making a public statement that they are not choosing other parenting views. And when that happens, those who champion those “other views” often feel a loss of influence.
Disagreement is understandable. A most vivid example of this condition is found in a 1998 AAP Article authored by Matthew Aney.
Background: Who Wrote the Article?
In May 1998, Matthew Aney authored an opinion piece in AAP News titled “Babywise advice linked to dehydration and failure to thrive.”
It is important to clarify:
Mr. Aney did not write on behalf of the AAP or for the AAP.
Mr. Aney was not a member of AAP. He could only list himself as a candidate.
FAAP (Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics) is a designation granted to board-certified pediatricians who have met specific educational and professional standards. A “candidate” designation indicates that those standards were not met.
When the Aney article's opinion piece was published, it did not go unscrutinized. Licensed pediatricians and Fellows of the American Academy of Pediatrics responded promptly, questioning both the conclusions presented and the evidence used to support them. Within days, Joseph Zanga, then president of the Academy, personally invited the authors of Babywise to submit a reply. Their response appeared in AAP News the following month (May 1998), ensuring that readers could separate fact from nonsensical claims within the same forum.
The discussion did not linger unresolved. In July 1998, Executive Director Dr. Joe M. Sanders Jr., M.D., formally concluded the exchange in print, effectively closing the matter within the Academy’s publication. The concerns had been aired. The rebuttals had been published. The record was complete.
Notably, the Academy did not issue a policy statement condemning Babywise. Instead, it reaffirmed its longstanding guidance that infants should be fed when signs of hunger are present—a principle consistent with the protocol described in Babywise.
Bias or Confusion? Examining the Claims
ONE: The Aney Article Opposed AAP Feeding Recommendations
Mr. Aney, in his article title,attempted to link Babywise with rigid fixed schedules, a feeding methodology that Babywise warns against. Yet not only did he fail to provide a cause-and-effect link to the feeding recommendations in Babywise, but he also failed to provide a single case study.
To the extent that Mr. Aney actually read Babywise is in question, since the Babywise feeding recommendations reflect those of the AAP.
AAP recommends: feeding newborns when they show hunger cues — which typically occur on average every 2–3 hours.
Babywise recommended: 1) Feeding breastfed infants every 2½–3 hours in the early weeks. 2) If hunger cues appear sooner, Baby should be fed.
AAP advises against strict feeding schedules.
Babywise advises against strict feeding schedules.
AAP cautions against allowing newborns to sleep excessively long stretches without feeding, generally advising waking after 4 hours.
Babywise similarly instructs parents to wake infants during the day if necessary and not to allow more than 4 consecutive hours at night during the first 4 weeks.
The guidance offered in Babywise, when read plainly, overlaps substantially with AAP recommendations. To assert causation between such guidance and dehydration requires documented evidence — case records, data, names, dates, and clinical findings. No such documentation was ever publicly or privately provided.
Two: Pediatric Experience Contradicted the Claim
Prior to the 1998 article, Babywise had been reviewed by a multidisciplinary committee of 25 physicians, including pediatricians, neurologists, psychiatrists, family practitioners, obstetricians, and lactation consultants. One advisory board member also served on the AAP Work Group on the Family.
In July 1998, AAP News published a third concluding article that welcomed a variety of opinions. The voices advocating attachment parenting, like Mr. Aney, share their opinions, and the AAP members who actually used Babywise in their practice provide reliable data. None of the Babywise practitioners or colleagues, who collectively represent thousands of babies, had a single case of infant dehydration or failure to thrive in their populations after implementing Babywise protocols. To the contrary, Babywise eliminated these common problems.
In addition, in an AAP correspondence cc to the author’s staff, (August 6, 1997) — nine months before Aney’s article — Dr. Lawrence M. Gartner, Chair of the AAP Work Group on Breastfeeding, stated to an Aney cohort, that “no member of the Work Group had personally treated patients harmed by the Babywise method.”
Three: The Demand Feeding Mischaracterization
Mr. Aney asserted that the Babywise authors opposed demand feeding and considered it harmful. The authors were careful to distinguish between Mr. Aney’s version of “demand feeding” and the AAPs version. The Babywise authors spoke out against the attachment parenting philosophy that discouraged time awareness altogether and, in some instances, contributed to maternal exhaustion and feeding inconsistency. What the authors opposed is the fatigue-driven parenting philosophy that removes all structured assessment from mothers at a time when nutritional clarity is critical.
To be clear, a mother feeding her baby fifteen to eighteen times a day is what Dr. Aney calls “demand feeding.” In contrast, the Babywise authors suggest that feeding that many times in 24-hours only means a mom is missing other important cues beyond hunger, and this is no small thing when it comes to the health of a newborn.
Babywise repeatedly emphasizes that a baby’s hunger cues take precedence over the clock, but if the baby is hungry all the time, then the baby is not receiving full feedings, just snack feeding, which produces nutritional deficiencies.
Conclusion:
In hindsight, Mr. Aney’s 1998 article could not withstand scrutiny. It was refuted by credentialed pediatricians, all Fellows of the Academy. It was addressed within the pages of AAP News (the same abstract in which Aney wrote his personal opinion in April 1998), and all future discussion was formally closed. Over time, pediatric policy moved closer, not farther, from several of the practical recommendations Babywise had long emphasized.
Science moves forward.
Responsible practitioners adjust to truth.
That is as it should be.