Gina Ford

[kbaby]

Hello,
Im 37 weeks pregnany with my first baby. I bought the Gina Ford book today on contented babies. Has anyone tried her routines and did they seem to work.
Her theories look quite good but I dont know if you can stick to such a strict routine, especially as this will be my first baby.
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks

My comments about bf were not based on this thread but comments by tiktok on other threads about the problems following gf causes for many people not all. I do think it is something one should be aware of. Gf is not a trained health professional!

thanks for filling me in, hmb, ...all that over grapes? still quite new to MN but boy have I noticed that polarity on a couple of threads (BTW anyone ever done a polarity mgmt course? I'm down to do one through work, maybe it'll make me less opinionated...)

Thanks for clearing that up Hercules. I'm assuming from your comments you never tried GF routines. Have you actually read the Contented Little Baby? It does have a lot of common sense in it - something my trained health professional - health visitor/ district nurse - could do with. Thank goodness I had my 'just a nanny' GF to help me out! Appreciate others might be luckier in their local health professionals. BTW gave the book to a few midwives to read before dd was born - they too thought it could be useful. They commented that many new mums took the 'demand feeding' concept too literally. Mums, like cows, need time to sleep, rest and eat if they want to ensure a good milk supply. (A calf that will suckle helps too - and I didn't have one of them!).
Can't see the harm in people trying these routines - if they don't work - fine - at least they were there as an option.

"Routine" is the big word/idea which is so advocated with babies. I was totally fixed with the concept that dd was supposed to have "routine", but wasn´t sure how a routine worked from a book perspective. When I often said to various mothers - "oh yes I am trying to encourage a routine" - they all said "oh she is abit young for a rountine yet" (under 3 months of age or thereabouts)
I think ZolaPola mentioned that GF did not work with her baby when very young. But all babies are different which is why I don´t believe in a one routine fits all mentality. Like exams in school don´t fit all.

I bought a GF book (on sleep) cause like alot of very young babies her sleep was erratic and I thought it might help, but after reading the book tbh I felt appalled by the stringency that was required and so have never used any of her routines or philosophies. I certainly wanted to bf more often and having the baby fall asleep on your breast is a beautiful thing to miss out on I reckon. They learn to fall asleep by themselves as time goes by.
So GF came across too regulator for my personality and ethos. I wished for alot more flexibility and life is not all about following everything to the letter and by rules and regulations. Many babies find their own routine (with or without a little encouragement).
I like attachment parenting which is altogether a totally different methodology.

Good luck with motherhood!!

Agree with Papillon about "routine" being over-rated, I felt very inferior for a long time because I didn't get 1st baby on a routine. By the time 2nd baby came along, I had learnt that I was actually very happy without a set routine!!

To be fair, I think GF was formally trained as a nurse, worked for years on a maternity ward? But no formal training in childcare, infant care beyond the newborn stage, breastfeeding, etc... But, um... no, I'm keeping out of it. La-ti-da La-ti-da La-ti-da La-ti-da La-ti-da...!

Kbaby: if you want what most people consider to be a relatively contrasting philosophy search for "attachment parenting" on MN or the Internet. I find some AP ideas just as loopy as GF's approach, but if you aren't brave enough to experiment a bit you won't find what really works for you.

GF was a godsend with me and ds (but then both myself and ds have personalities where we like to know what to expect out of our days, which I suspect had a lot to do with our success). I strongly believe that it a) meant we breastfed for far longer than we would otherwise have done (ds was breastfed for 8 months) and b) saved me from postnatal depression.

Before the routines (we started about 3/4 weeks from memory) ds would NOT sleep ... he got around 12.75 hours sleep on average every 24hr period at an age where 16/17hrs is the norm. He was not a happy baby as a result and I wasn't a happy mummy.

I wasn't a born mother and it was nice having someone telling me what to do. At the same time, I think it's important to use it as a guideline and not get worked up if you're not bang on the minute for everything - also prepare for days when the whole routine goes completely out the window!

I intend doing a modified GF for baby no. 2 simply so ds knows he has specific "him" time, but if it turns out that it doesn't suit baby no. 2's personality then we'll just go with the flow.

I have looked at the book and quickly saw it was not for me. I have never had good advice fro mhealth professionals either so went with what i thought was right. That's not to say gf isnt useful to some people just not me.
Women can breastfeed with little sleep, poor diet etc. You would have to be very malnourished to to be able to in which case you probably coulnt have carried a baby anyway.
If you are looking for a strict routinr from a book from the start then gf is the one for you. It is actually possible to have a content baby and mum without it though.

Personally I think Gina Ford should be the next Pope. I love her and I would kiss her feet! (If she'd washed them first, obviously!) Her books should be made law, and then she should be canonised.

Well, she is infallible....

You will probably end up with a similar routine to the one described by GF whether you try to or not!
You need to find your own motherhood style, and it will be pretty clear from reading the book if GF fits in with your own philosophy!

How do you reckon "Probably", Scoobysnax????? I didn't end up with anything like a GF routine.

nor me.

Me neither!!! Not sure we had any form a routine at all

Maybe Scoobysnax is right... I'll do a poll, let's see!

Nor me! But like Zebra, I'm not getting involved! The Grapes thread is here though!

GF was after my babes time (IYSWIM), and I have never read any of her books. We did get into a routine with both our kids and they thrived on it. But we were flexible with it as need dictated, say if we were out for the day or on holiday. But on an ordinary day they would eat and sleep at about the same times each day.

Why not give yourself a couple of weeks to do what you think you want to do, and then consult GF if you need to?

I think toddlerbob's point is a good one. If it ain't broke then don't fix it.

We basically went onto GF (and as I said, we found it FANTASTIC!) because we were at our wits end, ds rebelled against sleep at a very young age, wasn't feeding well and was horribly grumpy. It was our last ditch attempt to try something ANYTHING to make our lives bearable.

An easier baby (which I'm hoping no. 2 will be ) would probably just slip into a routine in their own time or will be perfectly happy taking each day as it comes. Until they're actually born, you don't really know what you're going to get!

Our DS did get into a similar routine from about 5 months. But that was with the help of nursery getting him to nap in his cot. And he was still waking up very early (ie before 6 at this point). Before then he was a difficult baby and since then he has been a happy, reasonably manageable child.

Also think that Cab has a point about some Mums (ie me) taking demand feeding too literally. DS would feed on and off from 6 until 11-12 in the evening and then we would pace the house trying to settle him. While I'm not saying this was a problem to me or my milk supply I don't (retrosepctively) think it was doing him or his colic any good. This time, kbaby, I have bought the book and read it and am planning on following it loosely (so can fit in with DS's requirements) at first. Then will see how its going and either carry on as is, ditch it or go stricter.

I foolishly tried GF with ds2 as keen to get into a routine as already had ds1. Anyway, was the worst thing I could have done, as it stressed both me & dh out beyond belief and made me feel like a useless mum - which I know I;m not!
Abandoned the book after about 2 weeks after firm words from dh & have all been much happier (and relaxed)since then. Babies will find their own natural routine and it may take a while, but they'll get there eventually!
Good luck & enjoy!

didn't have time to read all the messages here but my own experience was this:
i bought the contented little baby book and 'what to expect the first year' (after my daughter was 1y old, i also bought the follow-ups on these two). they're very different in their approach so you can make up your own mind in the end on the advice you get from these books. i tried the programme in the gf book and found it very succesful. partly because i had no other help on hand to give me straight advice on what to do with a baby. most of it works and you can have a life with it if you remember that the baby can have the morning or afternoon nap perfectly well whilst in the car or buggy and so on, so you can have a certain degree of flexibility really. and the lunch-time nap is perfect for going out for lunch with friends when the baby is small because they'll sleep through. i have to say night time sleep was an issue because of breastfeeding and found it did not happen like in the book, but then i stopped breastfeeding at night time when she was 6 months and she's been sleeping fine since then. the best part of the book is the chapter reffering to weaning. althought i did not follow every sequence in there, i found it inspiring because often i'd be stuck about new ideas and the book would offer me good alternatives. so all in all i am all for gf (not sure if i'd like to meet her in person though!) and if you stick to it, the programme does work wonderfully well (give or take because we're not robots and have to be flexible). do read the other book though, it's great for tips. good luck!

Use it and abuse it - don't get fixated. It can help - didn't use it with first dd, slightly with second. But interpret it for your own child - don't get obsessive and it MAY help - depends on you and your baby.

Like many mums, I reckon I must have read almost all the books about baby routines available on the market and am still no wiser and certainly not a better mum for it.
kbaby - if reading these type of books help you to plan and organise your daily life with your new baby and makes you feel more confident and happier about coping, then read them and give them a shot. Equally, if they don?t work for you for whatever reason, be careful how you handle it. Many mums feel really bad when the routines they have carefully planned and believed in go haywire and it can leave them feeling like a bit of a failure and not knowing what to do next. This is how the subject of routines can become such a contentious issue because, for some, GF books are "life supporting tomes" and they can feel evangelical about them while others have found GF routines to be akin with the devils work, thanks to their own experiences. Be prepared for the possibility it might not work for you and my advice, if you were to try a set routine, is to build in a contingency plan if it doesn?t work out as you hoped. Make sure that you are able to be as philosophical about it all as possible. Some babies seem to thrive on a rigid routine, some seem to fight it all the way, while many are probably somewhere in the middle. The important thing to remember the purpose of any routine is to help you and your baby live a happy and healthy life - ditch any routine that makes you miserable or creates stress by trying to "live up" to it?s "rules" and stick to one if it works (not a dig at GF).

are you going to try breasfeeding kbaby? I know a freind who tried gf and ended up having to do lots of bottles (which upset her) because the plan was too strict for her baby in the early days and it meant her breast milk supply didn't keep up with the babies demands.