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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

...to be angry at being Gina Ford-ed?

55 replies

CheerfulSoul · 07/07/2010 16:57

A friend of mine got out her Gina Ford book and proceeded to tell me what my very happy and content 4mo dd should be doing.

Why should my perfectly happy baby be expected to conform to someone else's schedule?

OP posts:
MiniMarmite · 08/07/2010 09:27

Totally agree Oblomov - I was clueless with DS so appreciated getting tips from a variety of books from Elizabeth Pantley to GF - considered opposite ends of the spectrum - as well as people in RL (and MN!).

Oblomov · 08/07/2010 09:27

Agree, if anyhting it is written primarily for bf'ing first time mums. becasue they are more likely to be the ones on whom the baby is totally dependant, and if the baby is all over the place, with very little routine and mum doesn't know what she's doing, mum and baby are up alot at night possibly, mum is so exhausted etc etc. then mums get distraught.
if the baby was purely ff, there is more chance that dad could take over some of the nightime feeds and allow mum some needed sleep.
so based on that basic theory, the book is more guided to bf'ing mums.
this, she writes for ff's, leaves them to cry, isn't a mum herslef. is all nonsense. i am sure doctors write books on ADHD - one has just been released by the consultant at St Peters hospital, surrey, down the road from me. funnily enough, after 50 years expereince, he writes on teenage/adult adhd. but he doesn't have adhd himself. doesn't preclude you from having an opinion.

ReneRusso · 08/07/2010 09:34

I thought we were banned from discussing GF

SloanyPony · 08/07/2010 09:46

By the time babies are past the 6 month mark, many seem to fall into a loose GF routine anyway. They wake in the morning, the have milk, then solids, a morning nap, some more milk then lunch, afternoon nap, milk, dinner, bath, milk, bed, sleep long stint.

It just shows you how to work towards that really.

Honestly if I hadn't read it before I gave birth to PFB I probably wouldn't have known just how soon after they get up in the morning they have to go back down again. Some of my NCT group didn't either - they were saying theirs were very unsettled in the morning but really they'd just got overtired - they started putting them back down at 9:30 and they were changed babies (and that's how you get a shower with a PFB isn't it!)

I personally think its rather lacking in the "how" factor certainly for the first 6 weeks. "Baby should be awake and feeding no later than..." HOW? How do you wake a sleeping newborn and rouse it enough to get it to latch on? Anyone?!?

But by 6 weeks or so, I picked up the book again and referred back to it - and it was very do-able, and something they had worked towards on their own accord anyway.

sweetnitanitro · 08/07/2010 09:48

GF aside, it can be upsetting when people give you unsolicited advice on parenting. When DD was very young and I was hormonal not as confident as I am now, I always used to think that people were criticising me for being a terrible parent.

OP, you need to do this: smile sweetly and say "I'm doing really well, actually. Look how happy DD is." and then refuse to discuss it any further. Eventually it stops! That or you just become immune to it

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