To be baffled by Gina Ford...

[Writerwannabe83]

My neighbour just leant me her copy of "The Contented Little Baby" book and after scanning various chapters all I can think is WTAF???

I really, really want to laugh at her shit but I'm too Gob Smacked!!

Oh dear - I didn't realise she was not be mentioned on here, lol.
Whoops!!

It was the media storm around swmnbn and mn that brought me to mn :)

I used the book first time round, in fairness ds followed the routines anyway and I used them like the pirates code in Pirates of the Carribean - more like guidelines!!

Ds 2 is a different kettle of fish and won't follow any routine at all

Those links are quite shocking actually. Incredible that she wanted the whole site shut down. Incredibly heavy handed response to a thread. Think about what happens on twitter now - it's like a different era.

Link to Justine's article in the Guardian about the saga taken from mn press page.

V funny quote at the end from the MNer who made the WMD quip

.

To present the other view, GF worked very well for me.
I am the kind of person who likes to have a plan and not just go with the flow, so it suited me. My children all slept through from about 3 months and did 12 hours a night from about 5 months. All the people I know who did it beyond a quick try for just a week, also have great sleepers and contented children.
I contrast this with a significant number of people at know who struggled for years or continue to struggle with being sleep deprived, even after their children have been at school for a couple of years. Some of them are so tired and embedded in their troubled sleep patterns that they just don't know where to begin. Long term sleep deprivation is bad for adults, for relationships and for childrens too. Some of the children I know who continue to wake in the night several times and start their days at 5am, struggle at school, because they cannot concentrate.
The number if threads of MN from people begging for help with sleep issues make me more convinced than ever that some kind of routine from a reasonably early stage is really important. It does not have to be immediately. And. Counter to many people's misinformation about GF, controlled crying is not part of it....you see, you don't get to the point of needing to do that. Little babies cry in the night for food and are fed. They learn to sleep throug once their tummies can hold enough food so they do t need to wake up. So there is no need for controlled crying when the routines are followed from early on.
Now, for my friends with 4 year olds who have never slept a night through and for whom 3 wakings a night is considered a great night, I suspect that some kind of crying might be needed.

Oh dear I can hear the klaxons at mnhq rom here.

I used her book with my 1st DC when I was desperate because I didn't know what I was doing. Within a week I had a blissfully happy baby who didn't cry EVER (unless hurt), and who slept 2.5 hours in the day and 11 at night. No cruelty to babies was involved. I don't know what all this "goes against my instinct as a mother" stuff is, it's just basically "if you put your baby in the cot awake they will learn to settle themselves to sleep and everyone will be happier."

I followed it again when I had DC2. I had 2 perfectly happy DCs under 2 and I had 2.5 hours to myself every day.

I also followed it with DC3.

I understand why it's not for everyone but it is stupid to say it is nonsense when it works for some people - like me - like a charm.

I like MorningPaper. I wonder if she bothered to hang around after all that.

I think the whole thing was pretty terrible but it's how I found mumsnet so lots and lots of PR for the site I suppose.

I didn't need the main book because my children arrived already in a super routine (adopted ).
But her potty training book was great for my younger one.

I nearly bought this book, but luckily dd slept through on her own

Well, I knew sweet FA about babies before ds, and had no pre-conceptions about "natural instincts" or anything else. My mum gave the That Book, and I just remember it said things like "at 9.37 put Baby in the cot. He will sleep for 1.3 hours"
I was wild eyed and on the verge of PND with a reflux baby who cried a LOT, and wouldnt be put down. I put him in his cot at 9.37. He screamed. It was 10.23. I panicked as we were failing to keep to the routine.
After about 3 days I threw the book out, but I still felt like a total failure, as the book made it sound so simple.

My DDs tried to make a SIMs (computer game) baby follow the book.

The programming is far too accurate, it point blank refused to nap when told.

I wasn't here for all of this but that Justine article that was linked to is mind boggling. Quite funny too!

Totally agree with ChocolateWombat & Balloon - I followed it, roughly, and my DS has never had any sleep problems. You constantly read about sleep issues here on Mumsnet, some mothers are clearly besides themselves with sleep exhaustion but any mention of GF or similar is considered child abuse.

It worked for us .

It's nonsense to suggest that her methods will work for all babies, or even most babies.

I could not put my DS down awake - every time I tried he would almost immediately scream blue murder. None of this gently self settling to sleep stuff. If I had tried to follow any kind of GF style routine it would have driven me to despair.

My instincts were to stop trying to put my ds down awake, and instead to hold him and let him sleep on me. All the things these "gurus" tell you not to do. He is now a perfectly contented toddler who sleeps through the night and can self settle.

It is irresponsible to scaremonger that if you don't follow a routine you will end up with a non-sleeping 4 yr old who will have to endure unpleasant sleep training. It's just not true that this will follow.

IMO each baby is different and needs different handling. Some sleep, some don't. Any baby guru who claims that one method will work for all babies is severely misguided.

You are allowed to talk about her here. You weren't for a while, while the court case was still pending, but it's all fine now. And you aren't allowed to say... umm... that thing that morningpaper said, but then it's rather unlikely to come up in casual conversation.

SauceForTheGander, morningpaper hung around for ages, used to write the Friday roundup before Aitch, but then got a Proper High-Powered Job so didn't have time for us any more (she may well pop in occasionally under a nc, though, I don't know).

If we could I would 'like' exbrightonbelle's post.

Certainly some babies find their own routine and sleep through pretty young. And some parents without a routine from a book find they drift into one which works too.
The thing I feel strongly about, is that people have enough information to be able to choose. Feeding on demand, feeding babies to sleep and lying in bed with toddlers until they fall asleep are all options...but the longer term problems which CAN come from a child not learning to settle himself should also be made clear, so people can make an informed decision. I think it is wrong not to explain the downsides of feeding on demand and feeding to sleep, along with the upsides. Likewise (and this is not a Gina thing at all) I think people need to be told that if they want to bottle feed at some point (for example giving expressed milk when they return to work) that there is a window of time to introduce bottle feeding which can be missed. I have known lots of people who followed advice to only breast feed and not use a bottle, to find when they tried to introduce one at about 9 months when returning to work, that the baby would just not have it. They could have been told that was a likely reaction, but those keen to promote breast feeding just don't mention this issue.

My point is that everyone must choose. Gina Ford is not for everyone, and to be honest, I think it's more about if the approach chimes with parents rather than babies. Knowing about different approaches gives people the chance to make informed choices.
I accept that many people don't like GF and do to follow her approach. Fine. But to deride it as rubbish which doesn't work is nonsense, because it clearly does work for many many people.

One thing I think which would be interesting, would be to ask all those with serious long term sleep problems, what they would do differently (if anything) if they had another child. I think the answers to this would be very interesting and telling.
I totally accept that some babies sleep better than others. However, parents CAN play a role within this, helping or hindering.

I tore my book to pieces in a fit of rage when DS2 was about 20 weeks old.

I felt like a failure.

Babies are not little robots who can be moulded.

Ds when a baby ( not knowing to us) was asd, diagnosis around 5.

Nothing would have worked, because he was asd.

If I could go back in time I would have done thing differently. I would have never picked up a baby book.

When I had my DC1 I knew nothing (ok I had a Certificate in Childcare from St John's cadets and had 3 D nieces and nephews but for day to day care of my own baby - nothing). For his first couple of months I was convinced he had colic, the HV suggested infracol, that didn't work.

Then I read TCBB, he didn't have colic, he was screaming every evening because he was tired. I didn't follow her schedules but reading them definitely gave this clueless first time parent an idea of where to start.

Ds still has sleep issues.

I went on to have DD did everything the same, she naturally just feel into her own routine and apart from illness has slept through since being 5 months old.

People who followed GF and ended up with babies who slept through and were content assume that it is because of the book. They also assume that other people's babies don't sleep through because they haven't read the book. My cousin smugly told me about how they followed GF from day one and it worked beautifully. Then they had their DC2 and it all went out the window and suddenly GF was no longer the guru.

Babies who are suited to a routine will generally do so regardless of which book their parents read or whether they are put to bed awake or asleep. Babies who aren't going to settle in to a routine just aren't.

If new parents find a book giving them an example of a good routine to follow I would never knock it but nobody should feel pressured into trying to force a routine on a baby that isn't one they are dropping into naturally anyway.

No book should be published that makes parents feel like a failure for having a baby who needs a more flexible approach.