effects of CC

[papillon]

i just found this review in amazon.. does anyone agree ... disagree? I have heard of Gina Ford but not Elizabeth Pantley

...Australia the Association of Infant Mental Health have issued a warning against the method of "controlled crying" which she advocates as it can lead to psychological problems!! Gina's job is to train babies, she has no interest in the child's mental or physical (scheduled feeds can lead to dehydration and failure to thrive) well being for the future. She just wants her money for her quick fix methods! She's not even a mother herself, just a baby trainer. Babies aren't meant to be trained, they need to be nurtured and loved and leaving a baby to cry until it believes it has been abandoned and then shuts up to conserve energy is not my idea of caring for a loved one! Dissociation and learned helplessness are not pyschological problems i wish to instill in my baby for the sake of a full nights sleep! This woman makes me so cross! I second the reader (dated the 7th of november) who suggests a far kinder book to look at - "The no-cry sleep solution" by Elizabeth Pantley. At least she has had children so has some idea what she is talking about!

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Yup, it's pure GF! A lot of her stuff is derived from pure common sense and observing babies. I found no eye contact at night really, really hard - esp as he could stay awake for three hours and need two napppy changes in that time!

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actually to further my comment about being a parent vs a child care professional (CCP).
Whilst not trying to totally dish CCP this thread of parental opinions is more useful to me than most of the books I have looked at and the hours of endless searching on the web re baby and sleep etc...
I am feeling more onto it just reading all your comments !!

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I cannot believe what I am reading my dd is now 20 months old and I am sooooo proud of her and I started her on the Gina Ford routine when she was 6 week old and everyone in my family ridiculed me at first for bringing my baby up by a book but within months and even now they boast about my book. My dd eats and sleeps and behaves like an angel, and to the contrary of what I am reading she is a well balanced, happy, healthy child and I put it all down to her routine. As far as I'm concerned the title of her book is exactly what my dd is - contented - and she certainly does not feel abandoned, she feels safe and secure and has a confidence in myself and her dad that comes from knowing exactly what is going to happen to her everyday. Yes I did do controlled crying but it only takes a few nights whereas I know parents who are still trying to get their babies to sleep whilst screaming and I can asure you at 20 mnths the crying is worse than at 2/3 mnths and also her dad and I show her a love that has shown that she does not feel abandoned and this was advocated when she started nursery at 15 mnths, she settled no problem and is was through her trust in us. My dd certainly did not dehydrate but what did happen was that she never had to cry to tell me when it was time to be fed therefore she was never under any stress and she is not a fussy eater and weaned easily - I'm sorry if there are others who have said this too but I get so angry when I know how easy raising my dd has been so far - I also own Gina's second book from contented baby to confident child and my dd is all of the above.

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Yes defintely more instinctive and I def second learning more from mumsnet than any book. I have learnt already just from this thread.

But dont you GF followers ever want to choose your own ways and follow your own instincts in bringing up children.
For me I wouldnt want to follow someone elses methods totally, more get hints.

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I cannot believe what I am reading my dd is now 20 months old and I am sooooo proud of her and I started her on the Gina Ford routine when she was 6 week old and everyone in my family ridiculed me at first for bringing my baby up by a book but within months and even now they boast about my book. My dd eats and sleeps and behaves like an angel, and to the contrary of what I am reading she is a well balanced, happy, healthy child and I put it all down to her routine. As far as I'm concerned the title of her book is exactly what my dd is - contented - and she certainly does not feel abandoned, she feels safe and secure and has a confidence in myself and her dad that comes from knowing exactly what is going to happen to her everyday. Yes I did do controlled crying but it only takes a few nights whereas I know parents who are still trying to get their babies to sleep whilst screaming and I can asure you at 20 mnths the crying is worse than at 2/3 mnths and also her dad and I show her a love that has shown that she does not feel abandoned and this was advocated when she started nursery at 15 mnths, she settled no problem and is was through her trust in us. My dd certainly did not dehydrate but what did happen was that she never had to cry to tell me when it was time to be fed therefore she was never under any stress and she is not a fussy eater and weaned easily - I'm sorry if there are others who have said this too but I get so angry when I know how easy raising my dd has been so far - I also own Gina's second book from contented baby to confident child and my dd is all of the above.

hercules - to be honest, I didn't have any motherly instincts when ds was a baby!! I was completely lost at sea, and I did find GF immensely helpful. As I got more confident and started to understand the reasons why behind all the things, it became more natural and I adapted accordingly to suit us.

I think with baby no. 2, I would be more inclined to take a much more flexible approach, simply because I'm more confident in my own abilities now.

I see your point Georgina.

I agree natural temperment makes a huge difference. Ds has always seemed to like the security of routine (even now at 2yrs 10mths he wants to know exactly what we'll be doing in the day "where are we going today, mummy?" - sometimes even asking me the night before!).

Plus (perhaps more significantly) I am someone who feels more secure on routines - so having a routine with a young baby helped me adjust with the upheaval so much better. I'm pretty sure the knowledge of when I would get a little time "off" in the day saved me from depression.

However, other people's personalities would mean that a GF-style routine would be the worst possible route they could take!!

I am fairly disorganised at home so wopuld have found gf too much work and resticting.

Wog, I am really happy for you and GF has obviously worked for you. All babies are different though. I think we need to be better at trusting our own judgements and find a way which suit our individual parenting-style. Very difficult I know.....I frequently see threads here on Mumsnet where mums ask questions like "Why does GF baby wake at 6 when supposed to wake at 7?" or "Can I feed my GF baby at 8, when GF advises to wait until 8:15?" etc......I think that's just taking it a bit too far and I personally think if you take everything in GF's book (or another book) too literally and don't try to adapt it to your particular baby, then you can end up feeling like a huge failure.

I personally co-slept with my babies and it was the right thing for us. We also used CC to get them to sleep in the evenings, but a very "light"version. I always picked my babies up when they cried and carried them everywhere with me. A lot of people told me I was spoiling them and setting myself up for having my kids in bed with me for years to come (I wouldn't actually have minded though). I ignored them all and told my HV where to go with her advise and I have very happy children too.

I have never read GF, but don't many people find her irritating because she claims her methods work for everyone?

sorry didnt mean to do that - but thank you secur she is a dream - hercules I thought I was doing allright with dd until I started the GF routine and the only reason that I got the book was because I went to my ante-natel reunion when dd was 5 weeks with all of our new babies and the midwife who had taken our classes and it was a subject that everyone started talking about - I had never heard of it - I went home and told my mum about my reunion which included this conversation - my mum bought me the book and I thought it was great. I do follow my own instincts because following the routine in the beginning was very hard work but I persivered(sorry if wrong spelling)and I made the decisions to keep going and had the fights with dh to keep with it and I promised that it would get better and within a month it was fab but I do bring up my daughter on my instincts because I teach her about her new life on this earth every day its just that a babies only interest are sleeping, eating and doing the toilet and GF taught me an easier way of handling these new situations in my life

FairyMum
I think here on the mumsnet site Gina says that her methods work for the majority of babies she has worked with.

We do a mixture of co sleep and dd in her bed (mostly she is in her bed unless it is a wakeful nite.. and then she comes in either in the morning or early morning depending on when she wakes up)

Bloss

you are probably looking at the back of your eyelids by now. But thanks for all your info.. and sweet dreams!

I see in GF book "the complete sleep guide" that she has a section on CC - over 6 months - and on crying down - under 6 months. they appear seem to one and the same thing i.e. leave the baby 10 - 15 minutes go in and give reassurance then leave.. do not pick baby up.

The problem for me with GF - which is not a criticism of those who simply use her book and are happy with the results - is that it seems to imply that there is a 'good type' of baby, that sleeps through the night and never complains about anything, and that this 'good' tye of baby can be created (if you like) at a very early stage. I have met parents who then compete with other mothers who are not fans of GF, implying that babies crying/waking in the night for food and comfort are the result of unsuccessful parenting. In fact, if you think about it, crying is the most potent form of communication. Happy warbling is lovely but we all know that if a baby wants you to really pay them some attention the best way is to cry. It is actually their way of talking before they can speak. After all, if your baby was lying gurgling in a cot 100 per cent of the time, we'd all be pottering around doing things and leaving them to get on with it! When a baby cries, it might not be unhappy, but it might fancy a bit of company and a cuddle, some reassurance and love - fair enough in my view, after all they've barely been in the world a little while - and even those of us that have seek loving contact with others! Life is not so very interesting when viewed from a horizontal vantage point. Naturally babies want picking up and cuddling - another form of communication as far as they are concerned. What I am trying to say (at some length!) is that there are plenty of us who don't think there is something wrong with a baby who wakes and needs feeds and cuddles for the first year of her life and I think that there is a subtext in Gina Ford that the parents of babies that do this are somehow faliures. As it happens my babies both slept through from about the fourth month witha little encouragement in the way of cuddling back to sleep from me. My first child slept in her own bed from 18 months and sometimes jumps in with us at 2.6 years in the very early hours of the morning ( which I love). However, my sister's baby is breastfed and weaned late and he still wakes fairly often at night. He is a also lovely smiling little boy and he clearly adores his parents. A strict daily regime a la Gina Ford was not neccessary for him to be a loving and happy baby. I want to make clear that I do not criticise people who use GF but I hear too many criticims by her followers of mothers who are happy to give up a little sleep for some extra cuddles when in fact this is nature's way. As for Gina Ford herself,I do think the absence of a maternal perspective is quite significant because obviously there is a totally different relationship between a nanny and a mother and the children they care for. Also, her own uhappiness at her own very lax, unstructured childhood seems to me to account for a somewhat excessive approach to baby care. If it helps peple get some rest, then great, but to my mind, there is nothing wrong with responding to the natural and rightful demands of your baby in the most immediate way.

two - I would just like to say that with the GF routine and my own maternal instincts my dd was never left all day gurggling in a horizontal position because if you are aware of the routine that is what GF thinks should not happen, your baby should only be asleep in her her cot a certain amount of time a day at( not any more thant 2 and a Half hours for my 20 mnth dd) and the rest should be full of activity, learning and fun whilst being loved and cuddled by their mother or carer. I come from a very cuddly and touchy family and therefore this is the environment that my dd lives in day in day out and GF indicates in her book - contented baby - not a baby who leaves you to get on with it, because all babies need attention and she is not saying good babies / bad babies she is saying CONTENTED therefore my baby never had to cry for love anttention or a cuddle because I was on hand for every hour that she was not sleeping, the only thing was I was not too tired or stressed to give her the attention that she needed and she was happy because she was not tired, hungary or irritable

I think two that what some of the posters here are saying about cc is that with their babies it wasnt a case of wanting a cuddle during the night but of being totally unsettled cuddled or not.

But Wog, don't you want to be the one or even your baby be the one who decides when they sleep,play etc rather than having all this dictated to you? I really could not hack bringing up my kids by someone elses methods and routines.