To think there is no way my baby will ever manage a Gina Ford routine?

[Aliveinwanderland]

Someone recommended the Gina Ford book to me. Read it through and just laughed! There is no chance my 9 week old DS would manage that routine!

I am wanting to get him a little more structure after Christmas but according to Gina Ford he should be sleeping through from 10:30-7am by now. DS goes no longer than 3 hours between feeds and only feeds for 5-10 mins at a time. Gina says I should be doing 20 minutes on one breast and then 10 minutes on another- how on earth is someone suppose to force a baby take this much?

Gina Ford has gone back on the bookshelf never to be read again. But if anyone has any sensible advice about how to promote longer sleeping at night, or a good day time routine then please share!

Or they were panicking and knew how keen I was to bf.
Of course I could be, as you say, bullshitting, because I have nothing better to do on NYE.
Sorry to spoil your world view mini but some hcps are shit.

It wasn't me that asked it was my panicking mil, I was too busy being hustled into an ambulance when I heard this shit.

Just stuff routines, stuff whatever someone has written in a book, just go to with it and do what YOU feel is right. I spent so long in your position with my dd (bottle refused, co sleeper, night waker). She's 5 now and can't get away from my quick enough to go off on a play date or sleepover at grandparents. Ds is similar and as much as I would love my 'old life' back a bit, it's literally a couple of years out of my whole life that things will be this way so just go with it and enjoy your baby because they really aren't babies for long. Please don't listen to Gina sodding Ford

How did we manage for the hundreds of thousands of years before clocks?

You don't need a clock to have a routine. A routine is what the whole of humanity has, like it or not. Even in medieval times people followed a routine based on the sun rising and setting. I'm not advocating GF, letting babies go hungry etc., but routines are unavoidable so I can't understand why it's frowned upon to get a baby into one.

It's frowned upon to force a baby into a routine, which is what GF does.

Babies naturally fall into daytime/nighttime routines. The GF method is just bonkers, and totally counterproductive for breastfeeding.

Minifingerz- What I find more difficult to swallow whole are the reports of conversations where health professionals have apparently said that it would be better if babies died than had formula, and that formula is 'poison', and that women 'must' breastfeed.-

What a typical pro-bf response, how dare you suggest that those of us who suffered at the hands of the pro bf health professionals were making it up. I cant get over your audacity. Why would I make that up????? My ante natal group only offered advice on bf, bottle feeding was never mentioned.

My ante natal group only offered advice on bf, bottle feeding was never mentioned.

That isn't quite the same as saying that formula is poison

Are we allowed to talk about swmnbn now?

Ds1 put himself into the GF routine within days. He fed every 4 hours like clockwork: 6 o'clock; 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock. Slept through within weeks. Nothing to do with me, he just did it.
Don't worry. I got my comeuppance. Ds2 screamed all night for the first 6months!!

All mine were GFed to a greater or lesser extent and all were bf. Although her writing style is hilarious, the central premise that babies, in general, can manage one longer stretch per day between feeds, and you can manipulate that long stretch to be at night by not going too long between daytime feeds, is not that crazy imo.

All my babies were a good 2 weeks behind the age guidance in the book, even though 3 of them had larger than average birth weights.

I have just looked in my (admittedly very old) copy and it doesn't say a 9 week old baby should sleep from 10.30-7am. It says if he is waking before 5am feed him normally, but after 5am then try to not give a massive feed to encourage the big feeds to be at 11pm and 7am. That is if they are gaining weight and settling after a small middle of the night feed.

I agree with midcenturymodern. I found it quite easy to get all my babies to have a longer sleep at night, from 12 - 6am, from 4 or 5 weeks old.
It wasn't just down to luck (as many people on mumsnet like to think) because I had to do certain things that worked for all 3 babies. They also were fed roughly 3-4 hours and slept for a couple of hours in between.
I never read Gina Ford though. We were given a booklet written by a doctor and I followed that (along with what I learnt on the maternity ward on the first night).
It's up to you though, OP. There's no need to do what anyone else thinks, just do what works best for you and your baby

It is luck that your baby responded to what you did. If you read the threads here kits of people have dark rooms, night time routine, etc etc and dint have babies that sleep through.

Sanctimonious twaddle.

The only routine you and your baby need is one that suits the two of you and fits in with the rest of your family and commitments. My DD always went to bed late (with us) and coslept. She also slept in in the morning, leaving me to have a coffee in peace. Your family, your routine

Gina Ford seems to divide - I never used Mumsnet when mine were babies as I wanted to bottle feed and do a routine & both seem to be heavily criticized on here.
I am used to a routine and needed to be back at work (teaching) when DD was 4 months as so needed to be able to get a decent nights sleep. I wouldn't have been able to function at work without sleep. Also have to plan/mark in the evenings so needed babies in bed by 7pm.
Small babies will follow a routine & contrary to what you read on here it actually means you know why they are crying & so it's easier to work it out. If you follow a routine you know they are getting enough sleep and also enough food. As a result because they are neither hungry nor tired they are less likely to be cranky.
I also used to be grateful for 2 hours in the day when they would be fast asleep for a chunk of time to either get things done or have a rest myself.
So it depends on what sort of person you are - I am not the sort of person that would have wanted to go with the flow & preferred to be out and about & it gave me a routine where I could plan things knowing they would sleep and feed at certain times. If you prefer to be more relaxed, can take a full year off work, don't mind not having a routine to the day then I wouldn't worry.
Both mine were FF and I have no idea why the issue of BF or FF divides people so much. I was really shocked when having babies that it is such a big issue. People can do what they like as far as I'm concerned.

bobo absolutely right - do whatever suits you and your family. People on here can be so judgmental.

holidaysaregreat - it does depend on what sort of person you as the parent are. But it also depends on what sort of person your baby is. Not all babies will fall into Gina Ford routines, not all babies will have a 2-hour lunchtime nap and then go to bed at 7, not all babies will be good sleepers no matter what you do with them.

I agree with you that it's not helpful to be judgemental about this topic, but it is worth keeping in mind that one of the ways people are judgemental is by telling parents of tougher babies that they are somehow choosing that by not doing XYZ parenting technique. I am past that stage myself, but when I was deep in the trenches with an unputdownable non-sleeping velcro baby, it was really, really misery-inducing to hear parents of easier babies say things like "oh, I couldn't have been doing with that, I needed my sleep. But I suppose if you're happy to be awake all night then that's fine!"

53rd I never said to anyone else in RL mine were sleeping through early on - it just winds people up. I literally had no choice but to force mine into a routine otherwise I would never have coped. I think it's a fine line between steering people away from a routine though when it would actually help some people to cope. DD just did routine from day one but DS took about 6 weeks to get into a routine - he used to sleep all day and then perk up late afternoon until about midnight :( but it was possible with perseverance and hard work to get him more into a day/night routine. It was important for me though - for others it is less vital. I don't think this site is helpful though for people like me who wanted a routine and wanted to BF - it's like we're the worst parents in the world.

holidaysaregreat, I think you're missing my point.

I'm not disagreeing with you that it was very important to you to get your babies into a routine and get them sleeping through the night. I believe you! What I'm saying is that there are other parents who wanted that as much as you did, and worked at it as much as you did - and still didn't get it because their babies were different to your babies.

Like I said, I had a tough baby who didn't sleep. I didn't get a 12-month maternity leave, and I really really really really wanted her to sleep, believe me. And when I heard people saying the things you are saying here, that was quite upsetting, because the implied judgement is "you just aren't working hard enough to get your baby to sleep, you just don't consider sleep as important as I do."

I'm sure you don't mean to sound like that - I'm just letting you know that there are struggling parents of tough babies who will be reading this thread, who tried things like Gina Ford and found it did not work for them.

The mistake is thinking that because it was important to you it worked.

It can be "very important" to other people who are returning to work/don't cope on no sleep who also do "all the right things" and still struggle. Can you see its very hard for them. it's especially horrible for people to hear "I couldnt be doing with that" as if they could :(

If you have a baby waking screaming for whatever reason

Holidays how did you force a routine though? My DD couldn't be coaxed into any sort of napping routine without a lot of tears which I couldn't have coped with.

Ah yes what she said.

53rd did you try GF? It seems that lots of people don't want to try it because they are told it is evil - burn the book etc... I think if people have tried it and then it just won't work then yes it is demoralizing.
I think there is loads of support on here who are in your position though.
In some cases I do think parents who don't know what to do for the best (like me - I literally had no clue) then the structure offered would actually help rather than hinder.
I am in no way smug - my kids are far from perfect. Both are fussy eaters and I do believe that is down to my parenting. It can't be a complete coincidence they are both like that.

Holidays, I agree. Sometimes it's like you are a pariah on MN if it GF suggestions work out for you.

I didn't try Gina Ford. I did look at her books with an open mind when I was struggling, but I was breastfeeding with oversupply, and 3-hourly 15-minute feeds just were not compatible with that. 'Crying down' would not have worked with my baby either - she didn't calm down, she just got more and more and more worked up and then vomited everywhere, in the space of a couple of minutes!

I did try Baby Whisperer a little and it was such a total, complete failure that it's kind of funny looking back

My dd loved routine but she also thrived on flexibility. I couldn't have made Gina ford work for us but the Baby Whisperer worked a treat