Gina Ford routines with baby number2

[Pupuce]

I am starting this thread as I had promised I would share my experience of having 2 children (not just the first one) on Gina Ford routines.

A bit of background :
DS is 21 months old and has been on GF routine since he was 2 weeks old. I chose to put him on the routine for 3 reasons :

1. The book sounded like common sense and did promise a contented baby
2. I am a very organised person and needed to know how what my life would be like after the birth
3. My ds was ÒhellÓ for the first 2 weeks - he cried non-stop (no matter what we did) for at least 3 hours in a row in the middle of the night. He fed well but breastfeeding was extremely painful (and I was doing it from hours on end)

Anyway for ds, the routine is a resounding success. He eats and sleeps very well. He still has a 2 hour nap (only 1 hour when at nursery). He goes to bed every night at 7PM and wakes up between 6:30 to 6:45...7 when we are lucky !
Because he is so well rested, I find him very easy to deal with, he hardly cries, laughs a lot and is generally doing quite well development wise. He is being raised in 3 languages (his dad and I have different mother tongues and nursery is in English).

Now dd was born 6 weeks ago - a completely different labour and a completely different child. From birth she hasnÕt cried much... she is MUCH easier, feeds very well and efficiently. So whilst I was convinced, before the birth, I would put her on GF - because of the good results for ds - I quickly realised that she didnÕt need a routine as much. That was my conclusion for the first 2 weeks. She was sleeping from 11 PM to 530 !
However when I realised that she wasnÕt napping at the same time as ds and therefore not allowing me to have a nap at all or that she would not go down in the evening very well (she would stay awake from 7 PM to 11 PM), I decided that I needed to make an effort and put her on GF.
At 6 weeks, I can say that she is on the routine (90% of the time), I am more flexible with her because she is easier and because it is my second child so I am generally a lot more relaxed.
She has been ÒseriouslyÓ on the routine for the past week only because I found it hard to get her into it, she would feed at the right time but during the day her sleeping time was all over the place. And while GF says to wake your baby at certain times, I would open her curtain and remove her sheet but if that did not wake her naturally then I would let her sleep. Doing this now, wakes her without any difficulty.
2 of my friends who did not use GF with baby one and had difficulty with their sleep patterns (i.e. baby would not go down easily) have decided to use GF for baby 2. One is already using it and is very pleased with it, the other one is expecting for November.

At this stage, I would say that dd is very content and if she had been baby number1 I would have seen less need to use GF. I am also noticing that I am using GF more flexibly this time as I know how it works but first time mothers (hopefully most of you will agree on this) are usually more tense/worried/.... so it isnÕt surprising that they are (and I was) using GF to the letter. As I have said in other boards, once your baby reaches 4 months old GF says that you can be a lot more flexible... and I was.

I will continue to add to this thread as I gain experience with baby number 2.

You could of been talking about DS..he was exactly the same at that age. He couldn't stay awake for more than an 1 1/2 and then slept for 40 mins...the woke for feed. After much pulling out of hair I just went with what he wanted after talking to a friend with a very similar baby. DS would do the night bit fine just not the day bit..but one day (I can't remember what age but I think it was around the same time as weaning) he suddenly changed and slept longer and slowly went back into the routine.

Second baby due in a few weeks and I am keen to follow GF routine as I did with my dd. Really don't want to start for and against debate here, but I was hoping to hear from anyone who has successfully managed to have two babies reasonably close in age in the GF routine, and if you didn't follow the routines as strictly with No 2, which bits did you find you could "cut corners" with? My dd is 20 months and is a happy, contented little girl who seems to have thrived in the GF routine. As the birth of No 2 draws nearer I'm getting a bit nervous about the timings of the routines etc with a toddler to consider. It has also struck me that I'm going to be really "cooped" up in the house as there isn't much of a window in the routines for getting to the shops etc. I actually feel quite torn, part of me says that I should chill out and just go with the flow and not worry if I can't stick to the routines to the letter, but then I feel that a little effort in the early days will hopefully pay dividends and before long baby No 2 will be nicely established in the routines.
Any little tips or snippets of advice from those with 2 (or more) in GF routine would be really, really appreciated.

I would also be interested to hear if anyone successfully adapted GF to work with baby no. 2. I think it will be hard to stick to the routine in the mornings because my daughter will soon be starting playgroup 9am-11am so babe will be dragged along in the pram to take and collect her. This means no nice 45 mins morning nap in cot, to start with! Also if I stick religiously to the routine I can't see when I will ever manage to get to shops to buy a pint of milk, paper etc.

Maybe it is more realistic just to try for the regular afternoon sleep in cot for baby no.2. My dd sleeps 1/1.30-3pm so perhaps baby can coincide? DD is 2.5yrs though so have a horrible feel that that sleep's days are numbered....

Melly, I never used the GF routines until dd was 4/5 months old, so you can just go with the flow in the early days (as I did) then I found it really easy to persuade dd into the routine - she was ready for it.

I used a very abridged version of GF for dd2. Didn't use GF for dd1 as she settled into her own routine. Dd2, however, refused to sleep at night for the first six weeks so desperate measures were needed. As most people have here I adapted it to suit me and dd1 - fairly strict initially and the torture of keeping dd2 awake. Still feel rather guilty BUT she was such a happy baby once the routine was established. Used to let her sleep in the car for lunchtime nap/pushchair and that seemed to work. Also, after three months it gets a bit easier if I remember. I think, in general, wherever possible I followed feeding and sleeping suggestions but ignored a lot of other stuff and made sure it worked for me and dd2. My sister followed it to the letter and I must say her children have impeccable sleep patterns - even post a 12 hr transatlantic flight. In fact, I've never seen such well-behaved children generally.

Who is this Gina Ford person and what is the name of her book? I've never heard of her before. Is there a web site about her that I could look at.

I remember the first few months of dd life being quite stressful in relation to crying and at one point she was feeding every 2 hours and I couldn't get out of the house, or so it seemed. But once she reached 5 months she slept through the night and things got easier. Also she cut out afternoon naps all by herself at about 15 months and went to bed around 6.30pm every night. She's always been a child who goes to bed early even now that she's nearly 6 she goes to bed between 7 and 8pm and gets up at 7am.

Dh and I are considering baby #2 and I would like to read up about trying to get new babies into routines. I don't remember actually reading up on it before dd was born. I remember reading about it in pregnancy magazines but I didn't read any books on it, silly me.

Gina Ford is a maternity nurse and the book is called The Contented Little Baby Book. It is one of those love or hate things. Unfortunatle there is no website but most parenting sites will have at least one (usually argumentative) discussion about the methods.

I tell a lie, her website is under construction. It is www.contentedbaby.com

Yipee!

That website is apparently nearing completion and you can now pre-register and enter a prize draw.

I am currently "working" on my dd2 aged 13 weeks, it has not gone entirely to plan but I am still a devotee, and she's pretty content too having said that. Is anyone interested in another second baby story?

I wonder what you win...a stopwatch ?
Or maybe a toaster for the 7 o'clock slice?
Just kidding, I quite like the old dear

Jasper....... you should know better
Very funny though.

GF's website has been under construction for 3 years! I guess she can now afford a website designer as a firend of mine just tried to call her helpline and she now asks for £125 a consult... it was £30 2 years ago, £60 last year and now!!!!
Ridiculous !
The friend who can afford it - chose to not ring her at that price (she had done so at £60 though)