Has nobody mentioned this yet? ((WARNING: Contains graphic images of SHE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED))

[Picante]

HERE.

What a wonderfully open approach, trice, judging beforehand whether you have something in common with people based on whether they follow a routine .

I tell you what, I make judgments on people based on whether they have this kind of prejudice, so probably we wouldn't be friends if we met . I happen to have friends who are strict attachment parents, strict routine people & others in between. All lovely people. I dislike fanatic & humourless people, but really, fanaticism & lack of humour has nothing at all to do with parenting opinions IME.

Trice - Why is Gina Ford's response to Nick Clegg ill judged ? I thought that members of Mumsnet believed in freedom of speech, or does that apply to everyone except Gina Ford

Members of my family have worked hard for years supporting the Liberal Democrats, and like many supporters they feel that Nick Clegg would have been better using his meagre media time promoting the party and his policies, not attacking Gina Ford's parenting methods. Yes, he is entitled to voice his opinion, but my god did The Times not stich him up good and proper. The serious article about him in The Times has gone virtually ignored, because he felt that by attacking Gina Ford he would pick up some votes from members of Mumsnet.
Sure he may have gained some votes from Mumsnet members, but he has also been dubbed Calamity Clegg in the press, which is not exactly the image his party was aiming for.

I was not around at the time of the battle between Mumsnet and GF, but from what I have read, she took legal action because of the relentless personal attacks on her, not because her methods were slated. Highlander, thinks that freedom of speech means that she can make nasty vicious comments that are untrue, simply because she dislikes GF's methods. How would she like it if people started spreading rumours about her family on a public forum. Just because GF is in the public eye, I do not think it gives people the right to spread such nasty lies.

Mumsnet offers some great for so many mother's. It is such a shame that all the good is often tainted because some members are incapable of making a point without hurling personal abuse at people they disagree with.

Sorry, meant to say offers some great support and advice !

priyag - from what I hear, Gina Ford said that Clegg's response to her shows that he is not fit to lead his party. As someone on Radio 4 said: "What kind of bizarre God complex does this woman have?"

Anyway GF has become far more well known and I'm sure has sold more books than ever before through the bad publicity she created during the MN Gina Missile Crisis, so you've got to take a balanced view: MN has probably made her richer.

Sorry, but I agree with what GF said about Nick Clegg leading the Lib Dems,not because I support her routines, but because Nick Clegg did his party no favours wasting an opportunity with The Times to get across what his party stood for.

As for GF creating bad publicity for Mumsnet. Having done a google search I can not see GF making any comments about the legal battle in the papers, only one statement from her lawyers saying the legal action was taken because of relentless personal attacks.

Perhaps it made GF richer, I have no idea,but the publicity has not done Mumsnet any harm either. They have gone from having 60,000 members to having over one million. They have also landed a five part book deal, which is great for them. So if anyone came out on top of the legal action it was, IMHO Mumsnet not GF.

"Nick Clegg did his party no favours wasting an opportunity with The Times to get across what his party stood for." umm...isn't that what politicians do???

Re publicity - you are definitely biased in favour of GF! I say both parties benefitted from the fiasco.

I did actually hope that Nick Clegg was different !

As GF appears not to have done any publicity since the fiasco, I doubt very much that she has benefitted much. Her books are certainly not as high up Amazon as they used to be.

Maria and MilaMae - actually, as a point of fact, co-sleeping, at the very least, can be said to be 'natural' in that nature has created the means to make it work effectively. It has a strong biological support structure in that the bfing mother's body is designed to operate in harmony with her baby whilst co-sleeping, and vice-versa. This happens in several ways:

• the baby's breathing is regulated in sync with it's mother's;
• the baby's body temperature is also regulated by it's mother's;
• so long as she co-sleeps safely (i.e. not under the influence of drugs or alcohol) the mother's body retains an instinctive awareness of the position of the baby - so much so that during sleep studies, where a sleeping father moved too close to the baby, the sleeping mother automatically blocks him with her arms - totally unknown to her as she carries on sleeping
• I'm sure there's another point but I can't recall what it is!

These points alone suggest very strongly that since nature supports both mother and baby's bodies in working together harmoniously to make co-sleeping safe and effective, calling it a 'natural' way of sleeping is not fallacious.

However, using the word 'natural' does not automatically carry with it a judgement against people who choose not to do this - yes, some people will judge parents by this, but by no means all.

priyag - you're more optimistic than me; Cleggy is just another politician like the rest of them. Sigh.

If GF's book sales are dropping perhaps she needs to do more work on her publicity machine, as has MN over the years - you can't blame MN for her not being in the press much since 'Missilegate'!

And for the record, when Highlander said: "what gets me about GF being a nanny, and advising other parents on parenting skills, is that her childhood was awful. Clearly, she has unresolved psychological issues. For someone who was emotionally abused as a child to go onto rear other people's children is frightening." - a similar thought occurred to me when I read about her family background. She came across as someone who had unresolved emotional issues (not sure about 'psychological') and who had reacted strongly against a very chaotic upbringing which lacked any structure whatsoever.

When I read about this, I felt deeply sorry for her but also felt very strongly that I would not trust the judgement of someone who had simply swung from one extreme to another without tackling their traumatic past. Everyone's childhood has good and bad bits (sadly for someone like GF perhaps more bad bits than for other people), but in order to not be controlled by the bad bits it's essential for us to unpack as much as we can about the past so as to work out which bits are beneficial to hold onto and which bits are damaging us.

I got the strong impression that GF had not done this at all, but instead had done the ostrich thing - swinging to the other extreme is a way of hiding from the past. So that's why I feel that I could not trust her parenting advice.

But how does Highlander know GF had an unhappy childhood, I think it is a very strong statement to say, without any proof to back it up. Fine, if you don't like her advise, but to spread lies about her childhood, is as I have said before, very very nasty.

The reason that I pointed out that GF has not been in the press for years, is because so many people go on about her pushing her brand, when in fact it is quite the opposite.

Speedy co-sleeping is not natural for all mothers.

I just don't sleep like that and I know many others who don't.I just can't sleep when squashed in bed I just toss and turn thus making the exhaustion 10 times worse.

It would have worked with dp and the dc because he sleeps differently but not with me. I actually have a gorgeous photo of dp co-sleeping with dd.

I also move about a lot. We all get very hot as a family(people have different body temperatures) under covers so at times kick covers off, my babies sometimes woke up cold. We all hated it.

Co-sleeping may be natural for some mothers but definitely not all,personality has a lot to do with it's success too. 1 of my sons in particular hated it,he'd only settle in his cot even when ill,even now if I bring him in with us to monitor him he's asking when he can go back to his own bed.

Priyag - I read about her childhood in an interview with her several years ago. She had an extremely stressful and chaotic childhood, with absolutely no structure whatsoever - often no food, no space to herself (she shared a bed with her mother until she was at least 10, perhaps older). I'm sure that if that article I read was libellous GF would have called on her lawyers in a flash. So perhaps you just haven't read what others like me know about her.

Mila - I think you've missed my point. I was saying that nature has built in the mechanisms to enable co-sleeping, therefore it's more 'natural' than one can say many aspects of parenting are. So with that in mind, yes, it is 'natural' for all bfing mothers (not for mothers who formula feed exclusively as their bodies revert back to the pre-preg state and so lose the instincts which enable safe co-sleeping - and not for fathers as they simply don't have the mechanisms provided by nature). As I said, saying it is 'natural' does not automatically imply a judgement against people who choose not to do it, and I think it's very easy for people who don't co-sleep to feel more sensitive about it in discussions like this.

Don't assume that I am an out-and-out AP devotee, by the way. I did follow some of the AP principles insofar as they suited me. Like most mothers I know, I selected the bits of parenting guidance that worked for me. I know a lot about co-sleeping because I researched it in some depth before becoming a mother. However, I co-slept sometimes but not all (or even most of) the time because I found it uncomfortable - great for my DS, but not for my back. However I would never lash out at people for saying it's natural or for saying that putting a child in a cot is unnatural. IMO they are two different ways of managing an infant's sleep; both have benefits and drawbacks.

Gosh - very interesting which newspaper was the interview in ?

Hmm - 'twas some years ago but I reckon either the Indie or the Grauniad as they're the only two I read. I'd say it was probably around 2006 - 2007 that I read it.

I think the article does a lot to explain why GF is as strict as she is. I don't rate her methods.