This is NOT Gina Ford-bashing, but...

[emeraldgirl1]

AIBU to be a bit put out by a friend (a Gina disciple) who has already declared (I am only 9w pg) that if I don't do Gina Ford method, I WILL have an unruly and impossible child?

She 'did' GF for her DC, now an angelic (if slightly lacking in independence) 5yo. She has always told me I 'must' do GF (even years before I was pg) but now that I actually am pg I feel slightly upset and bullied by her extremely forceful insistence that if I do't do what she did, I am already making a terrible mistake.

FWIW (and knowing little about GF) I have already formed a general impression that it's NOT a method for me but FFS I am only 9w and still just hoping all goes well. But (I am anxiety prone) I am already starting to worry that maybe she is right and that maybe (fingers crossed I get this far) I will rear an uncontrollable monster (like my beloved but terrifying nephews) if I don't become a Gina disciple!! I have always felt that children who are 'well behaved' are that way partly through nature and partly through just general good discipline (within reason), but now I am doubting myself and wondering if my friend is right.

FWIW again, this friend is fundamentally a good person but a bossy and difficult nightmare in too many ways to name... I know I shouldn't listen... especially as am barely a mother yet... but she was so forceful about this that I didn't know what to say or what to think. I just kind of laughed it off the way I have in the past and changed the subject. I think she guessed that I was ignoring her and didn't like it.

Your friend sounds like a pain in the A. Reading your thread I can almost hear her talking loudly, non stop about her amazing parenting methods. I want to cover my ears.

YANBU - ignore. You'll meet more zealots about other things along the magical mystery tour that is parenting. Many of them are on Mumsnet.

Did your friend's Mum do Gina? Is that why your friend is so rigid in her thinking and unable to accept deviations from her narrow routines?

Yes, she does go on about how brilliant a mother she is... I put it down to lack of confidence in a strange way and I do care about her low self-esteem so I just tell her yes she is great and keep my real opinions to myself... which is why I would appreciate her not undermining MY confidence before I've even become a mother!!

I didn't read any books when I had my DS, and just did what I thought was the right thing at each stage.
He has turned into a polite and loving little boy, and his nursery were gutted that he has left to start school in September! They never had to tell him off and he was very helpful and kind apparently.
He does have his moments, but not too often!

Reading these books and subscribing to set methods is overrated IMO. I am far more of the mind that you can just try things as you go along and find your own method that works.

Nah. You will find your own way. Thank her for her advice and tell her to piss off!

"Your way is not the only way. I will do things my way. I am sure you wouldn't like it if I told you how to raise your child, please don't try to do it to me, we can respect each other's methods, even if we don't choose to do it that way ourselves."

Nope, her mum didn't do Gina but another close friend of hers did and I think she just wanted something she could follow to the letter, she lacks confidence in many areas (I realise I do too!) and I think she felt comforted by being told EXACTLY what to do (btw this is only my impression of the GF method, it may be more flexible than my friend has implied)

Oh, HectateHarshPants how I would LOVE to say that. Calm and firm. You are my guru.
However I am shit at that kind of thing. If I were not, I don't actually think I would still be friends with this person as I would have told her this or something like it a long time ago and she would have walked off in a huff and never spoken to me again.

Is her DC a girl? She also sounds like a SMOG! (smug mothers of girls)

Gina Ford is probably good for people who are unable to think for themselves, or who need/ like routine. My DM was very much a Gina Ford type, although it was before her time, as she likes to operate to a routine. I was therefore brought up like this, but it's definitely not for me or my DS!

Nope, a boy, though (by my friend's own admission, and proudly so) he's quite a 'girlie boy'.
Look, I can barely stick to a routine in my own life! My job is a creative one and to me the most fun stuff about being around children (I do know that it is different when you are an auntie and not mum who has to exercise discipline) is the unexpected stuff. This may be rose-tinted glasses but I know in my heart that I am not a rigid person in my normal life so why would I be happy being that way as a mother?

We did the complete opposite of GF - it was more of a flying by the seat of our pants approach - and DS has turned out fine, he is a great sleeper and eater and is generally very lovely and happy!

Your friend sounds like a bit of a knob - who the hell bangs on about their parenting approach to other people? Its wierd.

Never ceases to amaze me how people follow books religiously like this, I have never used anyone else's parenting methods by my own with a but of input from friend and family. Each to heir own I suppose but isn't Gina ford all schedule centred? Never much like schedules because ultimately when they don't work you feel like an utter failure, DD has never ever stuck to a schedule no matter how hard I tried.

Tell your friend to shut her bap and from here on in start growing a very thick skin because everyone will tell you the bet way :)

Congrats on your lovely news.

Being proud of a girlie boy .
Routine makes me morbidly depressed. Just ignore, OP. Or better yet, laugh at her.

doublevodka thank you, that is really reassuring, I think I have always just assumed (maybe stupidly so) that because DH is quite laid-back and because I am always polite, think of others and have a sense of humour (albeit I am neurotic) that we will do an OK job of bringing up a child who knows how to behave itself and treats other people nicely. I don't expect or want an 'angel', good manners and consideration of others as they get older and I think you've done a pretty ace job. Oh, and happiness too :) I just started to doubt all that when my friend was going on at me and had a vision of some sleep-deprived demon destroying everything in its wake!!

Just tell her that you're going to be following Dr Sears far more child-friendly methods and talk at length about co-sleeping, on-demand feeding and baby-wearing and your friend will probably implode, leaving you in peace.

Alternatively, tell her there is no way you could leave a baby to cry or force it into a ridiculous regime and that GF is a childless spinster who has no experience of raising her own children so you wouldn't dream of following her ridiculously restrictive regime.

Whatever you do in life somebody somewhere will find a reason to criticize it, twice as much for anything relating to parenting. Don't worry about learning how to parent, what you need to learn is how to tell people to mind their own business. Your hormones go a bit loopy after you've given birth so you might not be at your strongest so train your partner to tell people to mind their own business for you. Dealing with a newborn can be really tough and you can be desperate to find the "right" way to parent that will solve all your problems but it just doesn't exist. Keep reminding yourself that you were a perfectly capable human being before having a child and you still are afterwards, your way of parenting is just as good as anybody else's. Congratulations on your pregnancy.

lljkk well yes, the girlie boy thing is an odd one - each to their own of course. The thing that annoys me is that I don't sit there and tell my friend she is doing 'wrong' by being pleased her son is the way he is; I get all huffy and resentful when she feels she can tell me that I will be doing 'wrong' if I don't do as she says, and then I get annoyed with myself for being too wimpy to tell her to eff off.

I'm sort of puzzled as to how she thinks the feeding/sleeping routine of GF has any impact on how well behaved and polite a child is?

I'm on the fence about GF as it is, you do what works for your family. I do think, generally, that babies are their own little people and they will do what they want to do. I figured I would be very laid back and not a structured routine kind of parent. DS, however, had other ideas, and likes his routine. I just went with whatever pattern he fell into.

Your friend sounds very annoying, I would just smile and nod.

so easy for the mother of one feminised boy to bang on about what a great mum she is, isn't it?

YANBU. you need to find your own feet as a parent.

I don't 'do' GF [restrained emoticon] and my 6 and 2 year olds are both very well behaved within the bounds if normal childhood behaviour. DD slept through at 10 weeks, DS not til he was about one. DS would not self settle until 18m, DD self settled from the get go. Both now self settle and sleep through, they also adjust their own wake up time, we had a few late nights over the weekend and both slept till 10 on Sunday, giving us a delightful lie in, no crankiness and back to normal bedtime Sunday night.

I maintain that if you have a child that is agreeable to the GF routine, GF will work for you. If you don't, it won't. Those who continue with the method and sing it's praises will be the ones with routine-friendly children, so yes, I don't doubt it works very well for them, but there's often reluctance to accept that it won't work out for others, or done insistence that you're JUST NOT DOING IT RIGHT when really, it's just not right for your child.

EasilyBored - THANK YOU!!! You have just made me feel instantly better just by questioning why she thinks the GF method has an impact on behaviour. I was starting to wonder if she was right. Until then, the way I have always seen it is that children are what they are (within obvious bounds of giving them guidelines on behaviour) and one child is NOT the same as another. You have as much chance of having a well-behaved child by using whatever method you use as you have of having a tricky one, the method is irrelevant and it is more about their own personality and whatever discipline you can enforce yourself when needs be. I am relieved to hear that maybe I was right about this all along...

MelanieSminge - I honestly don't think she has any idea how easy she has it, she also has a lot of money and an incredibly supportive family so she just doesn't have a clue what pressures other people have that might mean they don't always have a scrupulously polite and clean child...

WelshMaenad - yes it has occurred to me before that the GF method is self-selecting in that the ones who find it works will stick with it and that this is probably just because their child is wired a certain way and likes the method; the ones whose children don't like it just give up the battle and so are not evangelical about it.

Can I say this to my friend?

Do you wear the same clothes as your friend? Do the same job as her? Eat all the same food? Of course you don't. Why would you even entertain using childcare principles you don't believe in because she told you to?

YABU to even give this headspace. If you're old enough to have a kid you're old enough to handle a bit of well meant but unhelpful advice. There will be lots more to come, from countless sources.