Anyone seen todays Times about Gina Ford's new book?!!!!!

[louby78]

OMFG is all I can say. Anyone who doesn't like her will now see their hatred excel to a new level.

Apparently new mums should go on a date night with their husbands 4-6 weeks after the birth of their new baby and have sex even if they don't feel like it. Other mums share their tips and one woman actually says...."you may have to grin and bear it"!! EXCUSE ME?!

When her mums are feeling down she tells them to have a bath, shave their legs and paint their nails!!!! Not sure about anyone else but when my children were babies I could just about manage to brush my teeth! And as for sex...... well sleep would be my priority but I guess if I'd listened to her my babies would be sleeping through from 6 weeks after I put them in their own room and left them to cry until they got the message.

All this from someone who has never even had a baby. If she too had pushed out a baby bigger than a melon, had to be cut and then stitched together again (not to mention the bruises which made it hard to sit down for a week), then she maybe qualified to offer new mums advice. Until that day she should just keep stum.

It's like reading something from the 1940s. Silly cow.

Sorry but after zombie state sleeplessness, vom badge down the back of my nightie, the first clothes you could find lying in the floordrobe, falling out head hair, wolf leg hair, big leaky breasts, bleeding for ages, sex was not number one on the list.

Please dear god tell me it isn't true that she doesnt actually have children....

Whhhhhaaattttt??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I actually get mightily irritated by the censorship that operates on here regarding Gina Ford. She spouts ill thought out bollocks and markets it most effectively and has thus made her millions.

I saw the review and was OMG. Extraordinary, completely and utterly "cloud cuckoo land".....

At least Nick Clegg and I and most of the English speaking world agree on one thing.....

dippedinhoney you have just described the postpartum period to me perfectly

Really if she doesn't have kids then she isn't in the best position to be advising women on when they should have sex again when she has no idea what they have just been through.

mathanxiety - [standing ovation]

I'll second that festiemum.

Sounds incompatible with breastfeeding. Is this true of her other ideas?

Yes, Cheerypi, it is. In my humble opinion.

Must admit, I don't subscribe to her ways of thinking but can I just pick the OP up on one point? The scorn related to GF never having had kids? If you have a heart attack, you wouldn't say 'I only want to be treated by a cardiologist who's actually had a heart attack'. I believe she has lots of experience, so why does it matter if she's never actually had the post-partum experience?

The woman is a complete idiot.

I can't think of anything pleasant to say, so here's a picture of a kitten instead.

Her Contented Baby book made me cry uncontrollably for about an hour, DH was until he read it. I still have it, don't think I could give it away without feeling guilt about possibly passing on the sheer depression her book made me feel.

The cardiologist analogy is a nonsense, come off it.

i was always a bit [at] her handing out baby care advice having never had a baby, but telling people they should be doing x, y and z within a few weeks of birth has boggled my mind.

my BIL and SIL were out on a 'date' within 3 weeks of my DN's birth and had left her overnight within 6. so not my cup of tea, but their social life is v important to them.

this kind of dribble just seems to reinforce the 'must get back to normal asap' idea. still remember PIL suggesting we drop DS off and head out for lunch as we needed to 'get out of the bubble'. he was 10 bloody days old! and I'd had a cs and was not feeling v lively

Hear hear matha!

I think that Gina Ford gives good advice. Anything I don't like/agree with, I ignore. I don't think it matters that she hasn't had her own child, she was a maternity nurse to enough babies to know what they are like.
I loved French Children Don't Throw Food too. It doesn't mean I follow the advice of either author to the letter.

Having experience of babies when you get a good night's sleep is a completely different kettle of fish from dealing with babies when your body is recovering from childbirth and you have not slept for three weeks.

A cardiologist will have a Phd in medicine. Does Ford have a PHd in childcare? No, thought not.

Why would anyone buy this book?

I don't believe it is nonsense, there are countless examples of jobs where you don't have to have experienced something to be considered appropriately qualified. Your average nursery, for example, is staffed typically by a high proportion of qualified nursery staff who don't have their own kids. Funny that we never see them being pulled up on it (although I wouldn't expect them to be telling me when to have sex and on that point GF should wind her neck in)

looking after a heart is also a tiny bit different than looking after an actual tiny person.

Bunny rabbit

Can't believe it looks like I'm fighting her corner but FGS folks, it's not compulsory to follow every piece of advice in a child are book. Everyone gets a little hysterical about GF, it seems

Care not are!

But that is the point surely? Caring for children is one thing, giving diktats advice on how new parents should run relationships when she's never been in that situation is something else entirely.

I'm a single parent by choice. I wouldn't fucking dream of telling anyone how to manage their post-partum relationships, even if I'd been a maternity nurse since the beginning of time