When the men returning from the war found wives, they cut to the chase and formed families. That meant babies and plenty of them. Between 1946 and 1950 20 million babies were born in the USA. But what to do with them? How to care for them? What to feed them? How to raise them? Why wouldn’t they just sleep through the night more?
The new parents had questions and American publishing and one good doctor were right there to help them.
In 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock published his book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, which became a bestseller. By 1998 it had sold more than 50 million copies. It has been translated into 39 languages.
Spock advocated ideas about parenting that were, at the time, considered out of the mainstream. Over time, his books helped to bring about major change. Previously, experts had told parents that babies needed to learn to sleep on a regular schedule, and that picking them up and holding them whenever they cried would only teach them to cry more and not to sleep through the night (a notion that borrows from behaviorism). They were told[citation needed] to feed their children on a regular schedule, and that they should not pick them up, kiss them, or hug them, because that would not prepare them to be strong and independent individuals in a harsh world. Spock encouraged parents to see their children as individuals, and not to apply a one-size-fits all philosophy to them.
