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.

here here caligula.

lol at bum toss arse.

fanny / poo / wazzock (with many apologies to gf)

Have most people on this thread actually READ CLBB??

I only ask as all these 'shock horror' stories about GF seem to me to be quotes taken OUT OF CONTEXT of the book.

I have read the book, and yes it is a little percriptive in places, BUT as has been said further downthe thread it is god for those who have no idea AT ALL about babies. I know some popel have said use you inituative, act on instinct etc. BUT when you are suffering oin the days/weeeks after the birth of your child and you are exhausted, got PND etc etc, you have no idea who you were pre-baby and you were used to a routine at work, then GF can be a bloddy miracle. It is one of the few books that explains why babies need naps, why they need a certain amount of food, and she doesn't IIRC suggest a newborn baby should be left for hours screaming. I am sure she actually suggsts she is against controlled crying, as she says if you have a routine of putting a baby down as a baby to sleep they are used to sleeping on their own. I remember this bit of advise as when my child was fractious I would run to her straight away, pick her up jiggle her about a bit, put her down, she would get fractious and we would do it again and again. I did not know that my child WANTED to be left alone, she was only grumbling for a few minutes - less than 5 - as she settled herself. I also understood better the amount of sleep a baby needs, and teh fact that good naps in teh day, will not stop them sleeping at night.

Now I did not use her book 'religiously' I read it, got some tips and used them. There are people here used used her methods, there are people here who used bits and pieces of her methods. There are some who threw the book out the window. But have you all actually read what you are denouncing with such passion??

Overall I am not anti or pro GF methods as I think there is a lot of sense in what she writes and I found snippets useful. I am anti the who legal thing, although I understand why someone would be upset on a personal basis by what has been said over the years. I cannot quite believe the whole GF doesn't like MN due to the swearing. I think that is a total red-herring and although I have read AC post, I still don't quite see why she said it.

Anyway I still call for GF or AC to come on here and clarify their postion I would support her if she was against the personal degrogatory remarks tbh as I hate this sort of vitriol pour onto another person who you don't know and have no idea of them as a human being. BTW GF has no kids BECAUSE SHE CANNOT HAVE THEM!!! So all of you that tink hse is a bitter old whatever, and her methods must be mad as she is not a mother herself, if the same woman came her on MN and said she couldn't have kids even though she had dedicated her life to them, what would you all say - I think you would all be supportive and sympathetic. Maybe I am wrong, but I am sure I am not.

Just think about it, slag off her methods if you have read teh book enough to understand, but read it first, then make up your mind, rather than be swayed by all the anti-GF feeling there is on here.

Doesn't matter how out of context it is, how on earth can you defend a book which quotes approvingly a case study where the parents were encouraged to leave a baby to cry for three hours without going in to reassure the poor mite? Or a book which gives advice about breastfeeding that directly contradicts all advice from breastfeeding counsellors, La Leche League etc. and is, in fact, likely to be detrimental?

Yes, I did read it, and thought it was bizarre. Luckily my sister had been a nanny and I had seen her in action with babies (and remembered my youngest sister as a baby).

This is the best post I've ever read on CLBB

By cheeseypeas on Sunday, 7 May, 2006 10:03:41 PM

Hi Bobley

I too bought this book when pregnant and had the same warnings. I should have heeded these warnings and binned it, but didn't. I thought it was a loveless, joyless restrictive approach so thankfully didn't follow it. But, every so often after a bad night or day, would dip into it and basically just depress and confuse myself!!!

There are three very dangerous things about this book. Number 1. Trying to get a baby to conform to them will in most cases mean leaving it swaddled and deperately crying alone in a darkened room. This is a trauma beyond comprehension unless you've ever tried it. Making a baby wait for milk (especially when breast feeding and they can smell it on you and want the comfort as well) is something else.

1. You'll be dependant on the book and could miss out on an important part of becoming a mum - watching your baby and learning how to respond to him or her. An invaluable tool.

1. When (and if) you have established these routines, your family life will be very restricitive. There is nothing as blissful as just saying to youself - right, I'm going out! Grabbing your baby and ambling around the park, shops and friends houses and then ambling home again at your own pace. You cannot do this if you follow these routines. That's a valuable lifeline down the pan. A very close friend of mine followed this book. The result - her baby, evetunally slept through the night. The cost - She was trapped in the house following these routines at times. Her baby would ONLY sleep in a cot in a darkened, silent rooom (never even in a pushcair), she got post-natel depression, felt like a failure as a mother, had horrific rows with her husband in town centres as she insisted they had to 'leave now' so they could gedt home for her DD's 1pm nap.

There are basic approaches in this book that have some truth and I believe its these that make it work, not the routines.

• Put your baby down sleepy and not quite asleep as much as possible (so they learn to fall asleep on their own and don't wake up and totally freak out because they are some place different than where they fell asleep.
• Try and make sure your baby gets as much milk as possible during the day
• Have regular naps during the day but don't sleep for huge stretches that interfere with night sleep.
• Develop a basic, flexible structure an routine for your days, based on you and your babies needs. A bit of routine is reasurring for babies. A bit.

Watch your baby, learn his or he cues and do the basics and you'll give your baby the best chance at sleeping through the night.

There is a book by Elaine Pantley called the 'no cry sleep solution' which I recommend totally. You can happily have my copy. Email me and I'll send it to you.

I can't put into words how much I would advise you bin that Gina Ford book.

Sorry for this post being so long but if you could meet my friend (who followed it), you'd know why. The best day I have had as a mum is a day when I finally stopped reading books like this and started following my instincts. It feels so, so good.

Good luck and sorry for the long and empassioned post!

And it isn't just about her book, now, it's about her attempt to prevent people discussing her methods. Sending the heavies in to threaten MN (and individual posters) is hardly the sort of behaviour I expect from someone who proffers behavioural advice. Nor is complaining that people are talking about her as a person when she started it by turning yourself into a brand and referring to 'Gina babies'. And when she talks about parents as people. Hoist with her own petard.

a total PR fiasco if you ask me .. and I say that as an ex-marketeer .

I have trouble in understanding why she isn't just secure in the fact that she has made oodles of money from parents to date and could make oodles more if she doesn't risk alienating her very target market

the internet is incredibly powerful .. and one dissatisfied potential consumer can spread the word to millions

but wouldn't Twigs post, copied from CLB site, confirm that she does allow criticism of her methods?

Yes I have read it (and other GF books) and there is undoubtedly some sensible advice in there which will suit many parents.

The having no children thing - I think sometimes that could appear very hurtful to bring that up over and over again and oftentimes it is irrelevant, BUT I think that most people only say that to try and illustrate how very different it is looking after someone else's baby and being strict/listening to it cry/avoiding eye contact and looking after your own baby - when it can be almost impossible to listen to it cry as your own baby's cry cuts your heart like no other!

Derogatory remarks are horrid I agree, but I really thought that had been sorted out now, and lets face it it's bound to happen to anyone in the public eye. The most any website can do is remove anything like this ASAP. However there have been rumblings of 'more serious' issues with Mumsnet than this though and so far the only indication of what these are is what Ann Clough's post says. Until someone clarifies the REAL problem speculation is going to carry on.

(that's from this site Jools .. I wouldn't go on the clb site if you paid me )

oh right Twig

when you said 'on' CLBB I thought you meant 'on the site'

Crunchie I think most people who have made comments about GF being childless don't care why she's childless, but maybe feel that someone who makes a living giving prescriptive advice on bringing up babies and children may not be best placed to do so if they don't understand what it's like to be a parent. I'm not saying this is my view necessarily, but it's one with which I have some sympathy. It's a bit like those who post here asking 'will I be able to fly to a wedding on the other side of the world when my baby is 1 minute old?' - lots of people tell them to see how they feel once said baby is here because, as we all know, (havng all once been childless ourselves), it's incredibly difficult to explain the experience of parenthood to someone who is not a parent.

But many people are concerned about the threat of legal advice against Mumsnet and would like to know what this 'serious' matter is asap.

I just do not understand all this hoo ha about GF. Once size does not fit all. For all of you who rant about Gina's methods some of us are as gobsmacked about why others would choose to co-sleep or breast feed till the age of 5. I'm like Crunchie, I dipped in and out and the routine was useful to me although I didn't come home specially to put ds1 to sleep. I did find it liberating though with ds2 to not follow any one else's ideas and that includes both GF and NCT which I purposely did not join. To trust my instincts was amazing however I didn't have the confidence with my first so was more susceptible to outside interference. God, I cringe when I think about doing flash cards with ds1 when he was eating aged 18 months because the "NCT girls" all did with theirs. Talk about competitive mothering. Much more destructive IMO.

Has anyone seen the article meniotning GF in the Sunday Times today? It is about a book due out later this month by Margot Sunderland,who is the director of education at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London.
It apparently advocates that children should sleep with their parents until the age of five and is quoted as putting the author "at odds with parenting gurus such as GF". The article goes on to include quotes from her Complete Sleep Guide for Contented Babies and Toddlers.

Interesting post bosscat and somewhat agree with what you say!

I think the major 'beef' with GF is the current situation with MN and AC's cryptic post!

I don't know that much about GF's methods so shouldn't really comment, most of my knowledge is hearsay but some of her methods do sound questionable though.

Yep my beef is really specifically with the involvement of lawyers and the stress put on MNHQ (who after all are mothers, and have new babies) by this.

Oh FFS another guide for parents!

By the time we finished reading all these books GCSE results will be dropping on the mat!

This is not directed at you in particular, bosscat, btw! - but surely the point with GF is that if you're 'dipping in and out' of her routines, then you're not actually following her at all? Isn't she very firm on the idea that if you ain't doing it to the letter, you ain't doing it right?

I'd be happy to be corrected on this (it's a while since I banished the book from my shelves, so... ) but it interests me that people support her methods fairly vociferously (saved my life, such good sense, helped me to understand my baby, etc etc) and then admit that actually they didn't really follow her routines at all...

I've read the book. I read it when DS1 was about 8 weeks old. I can honestly say that after reading it, I felt myself at the bottom of a huge pit of despair with no clue how I was meant to emulate the "6.45am express, 7am make sure baby is awake and feeding from other breast, good kick under playgym..." etc. I was meant to do sewing to make a drawsheet to go under my baby's head so as not to get milky dribble on the ironed cot sheets.

I could not even sit up from exhaustion and I had a tear from DS1's delivery the size of the Grand Canyon. I felt I'd failed because I'd not put DS1 onto the newborn routines (I cannot tell you how angry remembering that feeling makes me.

I spent that day trying desperately to follow the routine. DS1 was an amenable little chap, but there was no way he needed as much sleep as the routines suggested he did. He was able to keep himself cheerfully awake for HOURS at a time. I remember one particularly wakeful day, he slept for 9 hours in a period of 24 hours.

I am so desperately sorry for the woman I was that day. A lingering feeling of failure followed me for the next few months of DS1's life. And this is me, Hunker, someone who you might think is extremely confident.

So when people question whether I've read the book, yes. It made my heart heavy and my life miserable and tainted the first few months of my first child's life. THAT is why I feel so strongly about it.

I realise it works for some people - but when you question them further, they often say they took bits from the book, a pick and choose situation.

And it makes me heartsick to think of insisting a mother gives formula to her baby.

Yes, I'm sorry that she can't have children, of course I am. But I'm sorrier that she writes the books she does and I wish I'd never read the bloody thing.

I think being childless makes a huge difference to your understanding of the emotions new mothers go through. Just like the only people who really understand what its like to have a severely disabled child are those of have a severely disabled child, and the only ones who really understand what its like to have problems ttc are those who have problems ttc etc etc.

The clbb came out when ds1 was little, I flicked through it, saw the time I was meant to get up and put it back on the shelf.

Someone on mumsnet was hospitalised trying to follow gf's routines, she got herself in such a state about it. Now clearly that would never be an aim of gf, andI'm sure she would be horrified to find someone treating the routines as the only way, after all her aim is to help new mothers, but it does mean that frank discussion is needed.

Incidentally the people I've mt using the routines seem to be hard to arrange to meet with (one eye on the clock for naps etc). That has always worried me, I think as a new mum getting out is really important, more important than the baby sleping at a set time. I also think its one of the best ways to avoid depression. Just my view. Contact with other new mums is important.

I think it was Susanmt Jimjams - she was very ill and felt very strongly about this IIRC.

Hunker, that's such a moving post. Exactly the way I would have been, had the book been out when ds was a baby.

WWW and JJ, that's right, it was susanmt. She wrote very graphically about it. And whilst I agree with tigermoth that it is a shame if people who followed her routines are upset by these discussions, I have to say that I can't for the life of me see why it would be upsetting. I will admit here and now (before I am drummed out of MN) that I liked Miriam Stoppard's book , and even used What to Expect The First Year . Both of these come in for regular, and no doubt well-deserved, slatings on MN. It has never, for one second, occurred to me to take this personally and be upset. Why would I?

"It has never, for one second, occurred to me to take this personally and be upset. Why would I?"

ditto for me, but it's been proved time and again on mn that some women do take things personally, I don't get it myself but their feelings are as valid as my own.

btw - I like Miriam - not read her books, just her persona

I love 'what to expect' .. in fact it was the book I pulled out when 2nd child was born

I am constantly amused at the bashing it gets on here

What is "What to expect"?