Ok I'm going to be serious again (having had no wine tonight, what with it being a weeknight!) this will be long, and possibly confusing, but I wanted to tell my Gina story in full for the first time here, as I have allided to little bits of it here and there. It may also help to explain my not very positive attitude to Gina, and my reasons for complaining when my HV was handing out the book to mothers in my area.
GF (or her book) nearly very seriously mucked up my parenting. I have never confessed to this before, as it is so tied up in my depressions and very emotional. I find GF threads obscurely fascinating, but scarey too. But time to confess - I used her routines, for 3 days. They were the worst 3 days of my life. I had a pretty content baby who, at 8 weeks, was waking up twice a night. I was getting fairly tired and rundown and not coping very well - this being as I had undiagnosed PND and was deteriorating fast. In fact I ended up in hospital.
Someone who didn't know about my depression (how could she? I didn't) lent me the book. In my dazed state I read it, and took from it that my 8 week old baby should be sleeping through the night. Of course, I don't think she says that, but I took that from it. So I started the routines, as I was sure that they would be the answer.
My child turned from a happy little girlie into a monster. I was waking her at 7 when she wanted to sleep till 8, trying to make her take a nap after 1.5-2 hours when she didnt need one for 3, desperately panicking about living in a remote area and not being able to buy blackout blinds. Trying to feed her when GF said to, when she wasn't hungry.
Looking back I was stupid. I shoud have thought about adapting the routines, fitting dd's ways round them and making things easy for us. But, hey, by this time I was psychotic (in the true sense of the word) with depression, and still didn't realise. So for 3 days I made everyone's life hell and eventually dh binned the book on day 4 when he came home mid-morning to check on me (he was getting worried) and found me in tears on her bedroom floor cos she wouldn't sleep. He called the doc, got me a home visit, and the following week I was admitted to hospital for ECT, which worked like a dream.
Now I know GF and her book wasn't responsible for my illness, in fact I had been in hospital for depression before and was stupid not to recognise it in advance, but we were so tired that we didn't see it. But the routines did bring my condition to a head, for which I suppose I should thank GF, cos it might have gone on for a bit longer otherwise.
What worries me is that there are other mums out there, perhaps also depressed, who don't have the insight to adapt and change what GF is saying. Who are so tired, or so ill, that they can't think straight and try to do these routines but they don't work, so they feel like a failure. My parenting instincts and confidence (which hadn't been bad, I was a 29 yr old Mum who, like many, had hardly held a baby before dd was born) were shot and it took me months to recover, not to question every little decision, because I was sure there was someone else out there who knew better than me what to do with my daughter and that the reason she wouldn't do what GF said was because I was a bad mother, not that dd was an individual. I have seen friends since obsess about these routines, worrying about late naps and late/early feeds, panicking is baby isn't in bed at 7. etc, unable to go out because of nap times, having children who cant eat with the rest of the family because their mealtimes dont fit in.
Now I am much better (although on doses of antidepressants to prevent a relapse with ds, now 8 months) and dd is 2yrs8months old. She was, after what we refer to in our house as the Great Gina Disaster, raised in a much more realxed manner, allowed to find her own routines, and she slept through the night from 10 weeks (though it took us a while to break her of the 11pm habit, which only started when GF was introduced - she used to wake up then and play, never feed, cos she wasn't hungry!). We ditched any plans for blackouts (after all, my mother, my MIL etc dont have them) and started to feed on demand again. She is now a bright cheery active CONTENT toddler who sleeps from 8pm - 7am with a 1.5 hour nap after lunch (which can be skipped if really needed). She eats well, at roughly the same time, but I can't and will not commit to having tea on the table at 5 every night (or whenever), we're just not that organised, and I also want her to eat with us, our family teatime is important to us. We have an 8 month old ds, who sleeps from 7.30 - 6.30 then comes into bed for a great snuggly feed. he naps in the morning after about 2 and a bit hours, ofter nearer three, for about 1.5 hours, and again in the afternoon for about the same. He also eats well and is a content wee boy.
If Gina works for you, good and great and do it. But if it doesn't, don't keep doing it and putting your family through hell, like I did. I firmly beleive in the importance of routine, but also that babies know what their own routine is and will find it. I want flexible kids who will nap in the buggy or in a friends bedroom, not always in their own cot in their own room with ther own blackouts closed. I have, eventually, the kids I hoped I would have.
So thanks, Gina, for making me so ill I went into hospital. I certainly got help quicker than I would have otherwise. And I hope people now understand why I am not a Gina fan.