hey all mommas out there (and papas)

so i'm reading this book called 'Bringing Up Bebe" by Pamela Druckerman.  i first found out about this book by reading this article. the book is about her life as an american raising kids in paris and the differences between american and parisian parenting.  it's fascinating.  one of the things she talks about which i think is interesting is that when babies are just a few months old, they are taught to be patient, to wait.  this is done first by sleep training---the parisians will generally wait for a few minutes before picking up their crying baby just to make sure that the baby actually needs something and isn't just making noises in their sleep or otherwise.  the french parents like to "observe" their baby so that they can get a feel for its rhythms and also to give the baby a chance to sooth itself and fall back asleep.  the result of this waiting/observing is that a majority of the french babies are "doing their nights" (sleeping through the night) by around 4 months old.  of course there are exceptions, but that's the norm.  versus the american babies that usually don't sleep through the night until much later, even after they are a year old, the author describes.  an excerpt from the book----the author discusses this with a pediatrician and he says, “My first intervention is to say, when your baby is born, just don’t jump on your kid at night,” Cohen says. “Give your baby a chance to self-soothe, don’t automatically respond, even from birth.”  it is described that babies move in their sleep and make noises, so if the parents pick the baby up every time this happens, they will wake the child.  also, newborns are still trying to "connect their sleep cycles", they are still learning to fall back asleep in between one cycle and the next and at about 2-3 months old is when they kind of get the hang of it and sleep longer throughout the night.  parents see it as their duty to train the infant how to sleep (just as it's their job to teach their child how to eat healthy well balanced meals, be well mannered, etc), especially from an early age so that when they are older the parent and child won't have to go through the torture of 'crying it out'.  this concept of waiting is a running theme throughout the book.  french parents teach their children patience through eating dinner together with the children eating what the parents eat (appropriately pureed, etc depending on the child's age) and adhering to a consistent meal/snack schedule, behavioral---such as not letting the child interrupt them when on the phone/in conversation/etc, through activities like baking wherein the children practice motor skills but also the ability to exhibit self control (by not eating the batter and other yummies that go into the cake or bread) and waiting until their established snack time to eat the product and others.  the thing that the author notices is that the french parents are confident in their abilities to parent effectively, they are confident in their child's abilities to listen and rationalize (even at infancy) and they themselves are patient when teaching their children patient.  they know the child will not be patient every time, or will not behave perfectly every time, and so they calmly explain to the child what the deal is and what they are expected to do next time.  the author notices that the children are calm and happy, or sage (rhymes with Taj as in Taj Mahal) the parents are calm and happy and everything runs so much smoother.  of course, i'm oversimplifying it a little bit for the sake of brevity but it's a fairly simple concept to take in.  i'm sure that in practice it's more difficult and takes consistency on behalf of the parent and child.  but it's interesting to note the differences expounded by the author between the american parents and children she observes and the french parents and children.  so.  what do you think?  i'd love to hear your thoughts, personal experiences, ideas, aspirations regarding this topic.  i really enjoy discussing this kind of stuff and cataloging it in my mental parenting filing cabinet for when i have children of my own someday.