In having no idea who Gina Ford is?

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Who is Gina Ford and what sort of things she advises parents to do?

I'm only aware of the woman because I read about her having a strop with Nick Clegg. Will someone tell me who she is?

You may have to google as MN has been in trouble over Ms Ford before. Look for 'contented little baby' IIRC.

You're best not knowing who she is.

She is a Super Nanny (not a mammy) - she is into routines, I think... feed baby from breast 1 for 2 minutees, nap at 8.38am...

Hippy, happy clappy mums who bf on demand and co sleep hate her...

She also does toddler and little kid stuff too..

Also didn't she famously sue this site?

She has written books about her theories on caring for babies
A few years ago she and mumsnet had a big argument because she didnt want us to express our opinion about her/her methods

It all got terribly messy and caused hours of heartache for mumsnet towers

Not knowing about Gina Ford is probably best tbh!

Isn't her name a banned word on here? It must send an instant text aleart to MNHQ and their legal team

Well, this is the thing. I ?googled? her and ended up on her website which only gives you info and access to the message boards etc, if you pay her £60. Sack that for a start.

Then, I did see something about her stropping over what folk had said about her via this site and about her stropping over Nick Clegg... and the postman?s cousins? uncle?s next door neighbour?s sister in law...

She sounds a right gem! I?m just dying to know what she does.

She wrote a childcare book, like Dr Spocks. She likes routine, a very strict routine. Google her book, "The contented little baby", it should give you more of an idea of how strict her routine is. I'm sure it's wonderful. I've not tried it myself though.

She wrote an (in)famous book on childcare, very rigid but some people swear by her. Next door neighbour followed her regime, while breast feeding, which struck me as not quite right, newborns being breastfed far too young for regimes IMHO! At one stage while pregnant I walked into many a charity shop and there was always a Gina Ford on sale, more than any other. Apparently best selling baby book, but by that evidence, does anybody actually follow her? Await onslaught of opinion!

Have to admit the first I heard of her was when I came on here. I very quickly got the impression she wasn't popular. Now I get the impression that the previous sentence is an understatement

I remember watching a TV programme which was testing some baby theories on some um....babies. I thought her theory was um.....wonderful. (see, fluffy chooses her words wisely )

I agree with ilovespagbol that she MAY have sold lots of books, but said books might have been thrown across the room by purchaser (e.g me)
GF is very "routiney" and her tone is bossy. One thing that I remember is that she wrote that you must have white bedding for the nursery as it washes well blah blah blah. On the verge of PND and looking at my pink bedding, I was just about to lose it, when I too had a Nick Clegg epiphany and realised that I don't need to parent by the book, threw it away and just got on with it my way.

Saying that my SIL had a v tricky and colicky baby and they swore by it in getting him into a routine. They were both very direct about when you could and couldn't visit though and were slavish to her methods.

Now, if anyone can help me get my latest DC to go down BEFORE midnight, would be grateful. Spare copy anywhere?

First I ever heard of her was on here. Seems she is a childless woman who wrote a book adocating a very regimented style of parenting for even the youngest babies which means you must do eerything for the same amount of time at the same time every day and you can never ever ever go out to lunch again as that is when your baby WILL BE SLEEPING! whether its tired or not.

She also seems to get very very angry INDEED if anyone questions her methods.

you are better off not knowing who she is trust me.

DP goggled her after some parent friends raved about her, this is her, thats enough to scare any infant into sleeping when mummy wants!!

I couldn't work out what she was all about for ages - I went on her website etc as well.

Basically she has written a book called The Contented Little Baby Book which has very strict routines (Time for parental breakfast included!) and I believe she advocates controlled crying from quite a young age, which is controversial. It's the kind of book people read when pregnant and think "Right, I know what to do now, this will be easy" and then suddenly they are landed with a tiny person who has not read the book and this sparks huge feelings of inadequacy at a time when you should really just be relaxing and getting to know your baby, not stressing because they won't do things like the book said.

It's all a bit regimented, but although it's the complete opposite of what I did I don't think she's that bad, did you see the programme a few years ago called Bringing Up Baby? It showed 3 different parenting methods, one was Truby King (from the 1950s) who advised bottle feeding babies from birth, sticking to a strict 4-hour feeding routine and leaving them in a room alone to cry themselves to sleep from newborn THAT is awful IMO.

oh I wish some of you would lose the hysteria...

GF might not work for all, and when I was pg, I tossed the book, thinking i didn't need anyone telling me what to do...

But 4 weeks in, and totally on my own, DH very lazy, hands off, mcp, my Mum not 'ready to be a GM' (I was 38 FGS, when exactly did she think my turn would come?), I turned to GF.

I followed her principles, and within days my DS was sleeping, happy, and thriving. Til then I'd be lucky if he slept more than 30 mins at any one time...

Structure and order is needed in some way by all of us, none of us like a life of freefall chaos.

The removal of surprises from a little babies life has to help somehow, to manage expectations with subtle triggers etc... it made sense to me the moment i started doing it, and what's more it worked. (for my DS).

Once the framework is established, you can move timings about, and as long as you make sure that the quantity of time for sleep and rest are more or less maintained, it'll all be fine.

I'd recommend it to anyone to give it a try, get a routine that works for you and broadly stick to it, it needn't be GF exact timing, it's about what works for your DC and for your family.

You know this is really awful to hear. I was googling Gina Ford to see if she had an e-mail contact and I stumbled onto this site instead only to read negative feedback about her. Well before you all judge someone without knowing them and without actually putting her theories into practice, I thought I'd share with you a little bit of my experience.
Being a new mum, I was basically thrown into a world of unknowns. Even with my mother, grandmother, and mother in law by my side, I was literally going crazy trying to look after a what I thought (and was told) was a "colicky" and "high maintenance" baby. I was told to feed her every 1.5 to 2 hours from the hospital, so I did. For the next 3 or so months, that's all she wanted to do and would cry CONSTANTLY. I hardly slept, would cry day and night, went into depression and was contemplating suicide many a night trying to deal with this wild, out of control screaming baby! What also scared me was that I wanted to run away because I thought I would eventually hurt her!
I didn't know what to do and I was rapidly spiraling out of control, and so was my baby. Everyone around me was worried. I would have mothers/doctors give me advice CONSTANTLY. Do this and do that. Nothing helped. All they could say in the end was "She'll grow out of it eventually"
Eventually?? Were they crazy?? Or was that just me! I couldn't wait for eventually and my parents/husband had given up.
Finally, one day my husband bumped into a couple who just had a baby, to see them out and beaming with a positively happy infant. When he told them of my horror story they were shocked and quickly recommended Gina Fords happy contented baby book.
I can now confirm she is the most wonderful, happiest 5 month old (who sleeps from 11pm till 7am straight!) and an absolute JOY to look after now ALL BECAUSE OF GINA FORD. She saved my life, my child AND my marriage ( I can't begin to tell you how many times we were on the brink of separation)
This book is not for everyone, I admit....If you have a happy, low maintenance baby, lucky you, you have no idea what it feels like to have gone through an experience like mine. I always ALWAYS recommend this book to distraught mothers and they ALWAYS come back to thank me over and over again for saving them.
So please, PLEASE, before you judge, think about mothers like us (and there are millions just like me!) who have gone through hell and back only to be rescued by a little blue book written by a wonderful woman.
Oh and PS, for a book that is so awful, I found it sold out at all the book stores I visited and had to place it on order!!
Knowledge is power. More power to Gina Ford!

so much for five short months mazstar , maybe stay around here and you'll find alot more and get loads of support.

Are we being invaded or what?

I thought it was a bit of a strange post, a few weeks after the OP?

I would like to know the stats of who out there loves her and who thinks she is a complete fruitloop. I know far more people in the latter camp, and lots of them actually read her book (unlike me who read nothing that's what the rest of my NCT group was for ).

Are we being invaded? I bloody hope not!

But then I'm a hippy, happy clappy mum who bfs my 2.5yo on demand and co sleeps.

GF would hate me

Yes Mazstar, you might have had success.

But please, please don't put down the experiences of us mothers who have tried GF and ended up in a worse situation because of it.

Personally, I found that my (high maintenance, colicky) dd1 hated the routine and it made my pnd so bad that dh came home from work one morning (he slipped out as he was so sure something was wrong) to find me sobbing on the floor of her bedroom - I thought there was something wrong as she wouldn't sleep when the book said!

I ended up hospitalised, yes hospitalised for pnd and my psychiatrist said that it would never have happened if I had not tried to follow a strict routine which didn't suit my baby and had gone more with the flow.

I never recommend GF. In fact, I actively advise people against it. I buy the book in charity shops and bin recycle it when I get home.

Excuse me if I don't sing her praises!

(and I now have 3 happy, sparky and exceptionally content school age children, who are flexible and easy. I only know 2 really serious GF families, and at similar ages to mine they are still slaves to routine!)

Message withdrawn

Didn't look at the dates, silly me!

I have 4 kids ranging in age from teenage to toddler.

IMHO relying on someone like Gina Ford to tell you what to do divorces you from the ability to learn to understand babies and their signals and needs, it delays you learning how to be a parent which is tough but possible without the regimentation. It is a formal, unreal approach and hurts more people than it helps.

I personally believe that strict routines are damaging - that learning with your first baby is important.

I don't understand how this woman has invented the title of "maternity nurse" as though it means something, and it's bought into. There is no status of "maternity nurse" no training, qualifications or organisation. She has no training to expound these views and no personal experience of her own children. This is a theoretical approach to dog-training

I have never read any of her books, I only know who she is through the newspapers and my understanding is that she hasn't had her own DC anyway. Don't bother finding out who she is-you are much better banishing all books!