Grand Unifying Theory of Baby

There are dozens of books about how to raise your baby and the only thing they have in common is the author's absolute confidence that his or her way is the right way. Sadly, they disagree on nearly everything else.There's Caring For Your Baby and Young Child by the American Academy Of Pediatrics. Encyclopedic in both scope and dullness, it's a useful resource but dreadful reading.Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and Melinda Blau is a snappier read, but the tortured use of anagrams. (E.A.S.Y. stands for Eat Activity Sleep You.) is just confusing. Not to mention, the authors' faith in their methods seems optimistic to the point of delusional to me.The Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford is popular in England for getting babies to sleep but so specific in its demands (you must have wall-to-wall carpeting lest you trip over a rug edge while holding baby) that it makes parenting seem like an extreme sport.Then there's The Baby Book by the Sears clan. This is where "attachment parenting" is taught. Beloved by its practitioners, ridiculed by its detractors, it seems a bit like parental masochism to me. But I know a few kids who've been raised under this regime and they're lovely and wonderful.For our part, we're sort of reading everything, taking bits and bobs from each and relying heavily on Google and our own quasi-scientific approach. Andrew has already brought his engineering background to bear on improving bottle positioning technique.We're also relying on a lesser known book The New Basics, which is written by our pediatrician, Michel Cohen. Dr. Cohen is just as bullish on his theories as the others are on their own, but we figure in the case of a tie we'll defer to him. That way, if he turns out to be wrong, we'll know we have to switch pediatricians too.It's kind of amazing to me that nobody has truly broken the baby code, given how many people have tried. Sadly, for all of our Googling, reading, and quasi-scientific noodling, I don't think we'll break this code either. But we'll have some fun trying.