For all who want GF banned from MN - so does she!!

[mummygow]

As you are all prob aware I follow the Gf routine and am also on her website and this was posted for us to see.

Dear Members,

In response to your emails regarding the statement in The Times Newspaper on 9th May 2006. We would like to confirm that neither Gina or her lawyers have put pressure on Mumsnet regarding the criticism that her methods receive on their forums. Gina was forced to seek legal
advice regarding other very serious issues with Mumsnet, and we will in the near future make a public statement as to her reasons for this. It would appear that some Mumsnet members are demanding a ban of the
Gina Ford name on the site. Gina herself would welcome this, as her forthcoming statement will confirm, she has for very valid reasons, no wish to be associated with the Mumsnet site.

Yes when I was pregnant I read a review of her book saying "I didn't bear this baby for nine months to spend my afternoons in a darkened room avoiding eye contact"

Best advice I ever read

oops I think we are not meant to be discussing her methods are we? or did she say she didn't mind now?

Can we not discuss the merits of avoiding eye contact?
And leaving babies to cry becuase its not time for their feed?
And ironing labels?
And having regular drinks of water?
And the rest?

On the grounds that Gina Ford did not actually invent any of it. AFAIK, much of the credit must go to Mr Truby King (whose followers produced Truby babies....), who is dead and I'm pretty sure his stuff is out of copyright too.

I could discuss it Filyjonk

but I must go and eat cereal and toast

and express from the left breast for 30 mins

then check not a chink of light is coming into the bedroom past the blackout blinds

at some point I may even play with my child

probably not though

yes Filyjonk GF says do not make eye contact with your baby in the night. Also, do not talk to or make eye contact with your baby during "wind down time." And she says it is important that a baby is not cuddled to sleep while feeding. And that you shojuld only play with your baby at the "right time" which is one hour after he is awake and NEVER be played with 20 minutes prior to his nap.
HTH

Truby King advocated the ironing of labels? Cool! I thought it was all just about leaving your baby to scream under a tree in all sorts of unsuitable smoggy frozen weather to exercise its lungs.

I am still snickering about the Ford Pulley but I really really must not post suggestions for its use

Must I?

As a 4 year veteran of MN, (though not a particularly prolific poster) I find this the most bizarre thing I've ever seen here.

1. Child care 'expert' does not wish her methods to be discussed on parenting website. Okaaayyy....

2. There is a mysterious 'big reason' why this is the case. Righhhttt...

3. In the meantime, the interim reason given is that MN members are sometimes foul-mouthed in jest. WTF????!!!

Does anyone else think that Ann Clough must hav posted a link to the wrong thread? Either that or a parallel universe situation beckons.

(BTW, i am really sorry that Carrie, Justine et al have all this stuff (nearly said sh*t then ) to deal with.)

Oh ignore me I am at this whole debacle.

Parents need to discuss parenting with, dare I say it, other parents. 40 000 MNers have more collective expertise than any parenting guru. Its ridiculous and absurd that someone like that can silence a parenting website purely on the grounds that she has more money than MN. Its ridiculous and wrong, and show what a sad, insecure bully she must be in my opinion*, and I would not use her methods for this reason alone.

You don't fucking sue because people don't agree with you. And in particular, you don't threaten a website which is incubating a new generation of adherants.

Gina, love, if you're reading this, get yourself some new lawyers and maybe some help with publicity.

go for it faz!

Oh PMSL I'm so glad I went to bed early last night or I would have been up all hours.

I still want to know what happened to the review of her new book that was posted on Amazon.co.uk (one star, it's gone).

Ah I think dreaming up uses for the Ford Pulley is best left to our individual (warped) imaginations :)

i went to bed convinced Ann Clough was a troll/prank. Then Justine [thanks Justine, hope you had a great night!] clarified things a bit. Fantastic. Any journalists here care to take this and run? It really is the most ludicrous thing i've ever heard. I think Ann Clough may have shot herself in the footsie.

(Have decided to uncapitalise myself before anyone asks).

It is my opinion that if any public figure has enough money to hire expensive lawyers, they can make the world sing their tune (makes you wonder what else we're not being told, really).

I rather think that anyone who knows this story will snigger in the chorus though.

I mean bloody hell, no eye contact and no cuddling.
Who has the authority to prescrbe when you can 'love' your child.

I remember a line from Dr H Karps book thats says "remeber even if you hold your new born 12 hours a day it is still a 50% reduction on what they are used to"
he had a theory that up to the age of three months new borns are still foetal and should have the womb mimiked to them in order to help them adjust to life outside the uterus.

He acknowledged that ever baby had different temprements and would not all respond to his prescrbied method in the same way.

I belive that failure in the contented little baby rotoune always automatically is the parents 'fault'.
Should there really be a 'fault'?
Dr Karp wrote that children were just different and that the greatest art is learning to read them and understand them.

I belive that individuality can be expressed from a very early age and that prescribed structure like this is not for every child and definitely did not make my baby contended.

That is my theory that is my opinioin.
I am not scared of suing and offical complaints nonscene because I have just as much scientific evidence that gina does (if not more) that my theory of parenting is the right one for my child!!!

oh karp sounds interesting. Very true that they're completely different. My 3 have all looked identical, but needed such different things as babies (and children). Something that never ceases to amaze me.

Barbara Woodhouse was very successful for a time.

nice post, chapsmum!

these methods need discussing.

can we discuss gina-inspired parenting?

it is a very interesting book, he looks into the gestetion period of most mamles and comes to the conclusion that human babies are born when they are not because they are developmentally ready, but because the female pelvis would not be able to deliver the the equivillent of a 3 month old baby.

chapsmum, research has proven that the baby tells the brain when it is ready to be born....

wtf are mamles???
Ive said it before andIll say it again, PREVIEW!!!
thanks filyjonk

I apologise unreservedly for suggesting that Ann Clough might not be genuine....I excuse myself on the grounds that I find her post so funny.

oh yes that's widely recognised chapsmum (by biologists I mean). A consequence of walking upright.

\link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385483627/qid=1147421681/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/203-1206763-4640747\here's another book on the same subject that franny lent me, which I found really interesting}
I promise I will bring it back franny

yes beety but what dr karp was saying is that it has to be born before the head becomes tooo large to be dielivered from the pelvis.
If you look at other animals there a few if any that are as helpless and inanimate when born as humans are.
Even monkies can hold on to their mothers to be carried.
he belived they are born because of their head size and not because developmentally they had the insticnt to survive

Betty- what he means is that gestation has evolved to be 38 weeks because any longer and the babies head is too large to pass through the pelvis. If the human pelvis was a different shape (because we walked on all fours) then gestation would be longer.