She Who Should Not Be Named.......AIBU to accept this book?!

[M0naLisa]

So im not quite sure on the etiquette of this parenting 'expert' on this forum. But on past forums i have been on, the name 'Gina Ford' has been forbidden to be mentioned.

I was walking to school this morning and got talking to a mum whos little girl is in my DS2 reception class. She was talking about her 10mth olds sleeping habits and explained that she tried the 'Contented baby' on him from the Gina Ford book. She did it with her daughter and from 8 weeks she was sleeping through. But its not working on her son. She offered me the book as she was getting rid of it (i have a 9 week old) i have accepted as tbh i dont boycott parenting experts as i dont feel the need to.
Sometimes they say the wrong things but then other times they have good routines and some things do work.

So was i being unreasonable in accepting this Gina Ford book as i dont know why people hate her so much??

I have her book. Gave me a vague outline of what I might expect (I looked at food rather than sleep). I didn't follow it to the letter as it seemed like a lot of hard work keeping baby awake, forcing sleep (I am too lazy).

I have 2 friends that followed her routine successfully. I have one that sleeps, one that doesn't.

Read it, do it if you like it, recycle it if you don't.

It's good for a laugh!

It's like all books read it for interest don't use as a bible. I read it, but the only thing I ever did from it was giving a dream feed at about 10.30pm DD still didn't sleep through till she was 14 weeks.

It might be handy if you have a table with a short leg.

It worked for us. Both slept through the night at 8 weeks and were very contented babies - and are now very contented children.

BUT...it is only worth trying if it works for you. I like routine and it fit in with my thinking. I know friends who got so stressed by it that it made the whole situation worse!

Personally I think that contented mum makes for contented baby.

My 2 both like routines now at 9 and 11!

Obvious things like abuse aside, there is no right or wrong way to parent, only opinion. Gina Ford's is just one. Her approach will work for some children and not for others. Much depends on your own personality and that of your baby's. It can't hurt to read it, but like all 'guru' advice should be taken with a significant pinch of salt.

What you have to bear in mind is that the author does not have children. She is a nanny, and as such her only experience is of taking care of kids that are not her own and not have any other domestic responsibilities at all. She has little knowledge of and no (as far as i know) experience of motherhood, so she would be the last person to take advice from, in my opinion.

Personally, I have been to a talk with her. And seen her neck down glass after glass of wine during the talk, to the point she was quite drunk at question time, which was hilarious.

She said stuff like:

"If you want to have a lie in, you just go into the babys room and turn the radio on, so you dont hear him crying"

"Taking a buggy to a bar is perfect, as you know, nannies on holiday with the family also need holiday time, and you can steady yourself on the pushchair going back to the hotel."

But, the worst, and most insulting part, one in my company had twins with reflux, and she raised her hand to ask a question, to which Ms F replied:
"Honey, with that hairstyle you can afford to hire me full time, you dont need to come here and get my advice for FREE!"

We had paid £20 per person for the tickets to see her.

To be honest, it was money well spent, as it was a better night on than a visit to The Comedy Store!

There are Gina Ford babies. If their parents follow Gina Ford, either unintentionally or deliberately with the book, the method will work.

When people say GF worked for them, I think it is lucky they tried the right method for their baby first.

But some babies are Tracy Hogg babies, or Elizabeth Pantley babies.

The rage comes when parenting "experts" claim their method works for all babies.

GF attracts extra bile because she doesn't have children of her own. My gynaecologist doesn't have a vagina.

Pure. Fuck! Advice from a pisshead!

Cross posted with Pure.

Hating her because she proved to be a cow, and a drunk one, is quite different

Paper is compostable and great for improving soil texture. HTH.

And not to mention rude!

My friends friend (the one with the twins) burst out crying, and Ms F just smirked!

All she asked was if the routine would work on baby twins with reflux. She did not deserve the response she got.

Horatia - agree completely. It worked for us as my babies were like that, and so the routine was what I needed to do. Most people I know threw it in the bin.

It's always a mistake to rely on the dictates advice of one single parenting guru. Especially if they are unprepared to accept that their methods may not be infallible. Best, in my experience, to read a bit more widely and then take the most useful bits from whichever guides to parenting echo your instincts.

I like a bit of routine but equally, I hate the sort of routine that comes across as bonkers and very hard work to impose. I also can't leave babies crying. So while I'd be quite prepared to read opposing opinions I wouldn't feel under any obligation to impose them.

Deletion? will this get deleted! Im gunna have a read see if theres anything i can take from it.

I ended up hospitsalised (briefly) for pnd after trying to follow the routine. That was 13 years ago. We ritually burned it when I got home.

Turns out some babies have their own routine Ms Ford doesn't know about!!

I nearly lost my mind trying to use her routines with ds1. The sleep routine saved my sanity with ds3 - but trying to apply the feeding advice left me with a hysterical, starving baby. You need to know what you're reading so you can screen out the nonsense.

Have you SEEN the price of bog roll recently?

The things I dislike about GF:

1. Her method is just one of many methods you can try with a young baby. However at no point does she acknowledge this. If you read the book, be conscious of how many times she states or implies that her method is the only / best method and that you or your baby will suffer if you don't follow her rules. This is untrue and counterproductive. I think - ironically - this is what much of her success is based on. New parents can find it reassuring to hear that if you do x, then y will happen, and your baby will sleep through / be happy / fit in to a routine. However, that's simply not the reality for many people, and she doesn't acknowledge this.

1. She sets herself up as an expert, but she has no serious childcare qualifications nor is she a mum. Her methods are not based on any evidence, other than her own observations from her job. She is not an "expert" anymore than any other nanny - and they certainly don't all agree on how to deal with babies!

1. Her routines are so prescriptive. GF mums IME are very tied to the house. Babies can happily sleep in a buggy, and getting out and about to meet new mums is so important IMO. However GF advocates you put them down for a nap in a totally dark room. It's hard enough getting out of the house with a young baby, but GF mums are on a strict time limit. I grew out of having curfews when I was a young teen, I don't need one (in the middle of the day too!) now I'm a grown woman!

1. Many new mothers feel a sense of failure when their baby doesn't respond to the routines in the way GF says they will.

1. Following the GF routines makes BFing much harder IMO. She's certainly not a BFing expert.

1. She threatened to sue mumsnet. (Google for more info). This thread may well go poof for that reason.

I have held on to my own copy of her book btw. I don't want to infect any one else's early experience of motherhood by passing it on!

I also think it'll be a curious item to look back on when we're old. It'll seem so outdated and old fashioned I imagine.

I have to say I very strongly dislike Gina Ford, but it comes down to your own parenting styles. I pretty much disagree with everything about Gina Ford, what she advocates, her methods, her knowledge base.

I followed her routines with both DCs from about 3 months and they worked really well. I wasn't that bothered about getting them to sleep through the night; I just needed some structure and as I have the maternal instincts of er, somebody not very maternal, this really helped me. With hindsight, I was perhaps a little bit too strict with it (to my detriment, not the DCs) but overall, it was good for my babies and me.

Just don't tell any HCPs that you're following Gina Ford, though - I was looked at as though I said I locked her in a cupboard 24 hours a day. Not one of them (3) asked how I was getting on with it. They'd collectively decided it was a Bad Thing For All Babies, ergo I Was Doing The Wrong Thing.

I doubt this thread will go poof, Gina Ford is not a banned name anymore.

I used her with both of mine. For me it worked. I was a first time mum with dd, I didn't have the first clue about babies and it wasn't as if I was getting any kind of constructive advice from anyone. My life revolved around dd sleeping and waking and I was in a constant state of exhaustion.

I liked Ford's routines. For once the day started to slot into place and I started to feel a little more in control.

I liked that I did things at certain times. For me that was comforting and it restored order to a chaotic house.

dd soon settled into the routine and so I finally started to have hours of unbroken sleep at night which helped me to feel whole again. I could cope better because I was less tired, I had a routine to follow and I felt in control.

The afternoon nap also gave me the freedom of a couple of hours to do what I wanted to do. Whether that was to go shopping with her in the pram, to read a book, do the housework, whatever.

I can understand that some people hated it precisely because the routine was so rigid, but that's exactly the reason I liked it. Once I started to feel more confident about being a mum, I found I could tailor the routine to fit around our lives a little more.

ds didn't take to it in quite the same way but still the night times were better and I still got my couple of hours in the afternoon.

I think if you are a fan of the Baby Whisperer and want to follow your baby's lead in everything or you already have a good idea of what you are doing, then the book is not for you. But if, like me, you are feeling out of your depth and just wish you could hire a nanny to sort it all out for you then it's invaluable.

The OP sounds like she has it pretty much sorted anyway so she might take some things out of it and she might not.

I would never completely trash a book because you might just be dissuading someone to try something that could completely change their lives (and following that book more or less did that for me).

It's rather selfish to tell people to bin a book based purely on the fact that you did not like it. I would tell them why it didn't work for me and would advise that they try it.