Baby help books

[fufmum]

Hi i have just recently bought 'The new contented little baby book' by Gina Ford and i have to say i think she makes alot of sense. I am due to have my first baby in 8 weeks time and i am on my own so the idea of having help getting a rountine asap sounded great!

Has anyone here put into practise Gina Fords ideas?? I would love to hear back from anyone who did it and what results you got! It sounds like it could be hard work at times and maybe a bit too ridgid sometimes. I am planning to breast feed and what she says about routine breast feeding sounds good but also sounds like you never get time to actually leave the house.

You are meant to start the rountine from day one and she says you should have baby sleeping through night after only a few weeks. So anyone tried?

You will get very mixed answers to this question!!

I have not read the book myself but know friends who use it and have a gist of what its all about.

I have a dd who is 2 and since she was born i have had a very hectic time, juggling working parttime varied hours. Gina Ford just could not have worked for me as i needed my baby to fit into my day not the otherway round.

My dd learnt to have her daytime naps in the car or on other peoples sofas etc. Her meals and feedtimes can vary depending on our day and she just goes with the flow.

So what i'm saying is if you need flexibiltiy GF possibly is not the route to go down.

Having said that, the one thing i do admire is her night time sleeping, but i think you need to use the entire routine for it to work. I am envious of people whose children ask to be taken to bed, and their parents swear its thanks to GF. Whereas i struggle to get my lo off and then she often wakes in the night.

I know many people on here say they have picked out the bits that suit them, and ignore others.

Good luck, and i hope you get some useful advice here.

Don't even think of trying it from day 1 - you'll go insane. Go with the flow for a week or two. I certainly got DS into a routine which isn't far off GF's, and found her frameworks useful, but I profoundly disagree with some of her methods, especially controlled crying.

The main thing that's wrong with her is that she tries to scare you into believing that if you don't follow her routines TO THE LETTER, you will end up with a problem sleeper. (And that if you DO follow them, you are pretty much guaranteed a baby that sleeps through the night.) This is NOT TRUE. Friends of mine who had NO routine had excellent sleepers from very early on; I more or less followed GF and had a pretty much average sleeper. I think if I'd done controlled crying I might have had more luck but I wasn't prepared to do that.

The routines do allow you to leave the house! Just ignore her stuff about naps always being in the cot - your baby's unlikely to comply for several months anyway, and naps in the pram and elsewhere never stopped my DS settling in his cot at bedtime.

Hope that helps - good luck

Oh, and for balance, I recommend reading Elizabeth Pantley's NO CRY SLEEP SOLUTION.

I also think there are some babies who GF suits and some that don't!

I had a wonderful midwife who told me a newborn is too young to be "taught" a routine. To comfor their every cry with a cuddle a feed etc gives them security.

And i must say i have a very confident two year old now, who couldn't care less when i leave her with other people.

I think the Christopher Green books are a good read - reassuring and don't instruct you - just full of good suggestions. And there is the Mumsnet book of course which is full of very useful anecdotal stuff....

if your planning on breast feeding i'm sure the current advice is to feed on demand. i.e. feed when baby asks for it, this way you'll have a well established milk supply.

I didn't have a routine for my DD which suited me but may not suit others.

one problem friends who'd tried GF found was that there LO wouldn't sleep anywhere but there cots and the room had to be pitch black. problematic if you want to spend the day shopping with friends

I didn't do Gina Ford, I don't actually think I could afford the book at the time. However I do feel that there is nothing wrong with having an element of routine with a baby, I kind of did that on my own, by taking cues from baby and fitting in with myself. I think given time if you want a routine you will establish one regardless of doing it by the book. I NEEDED a routine, with twins I couldn't have done it any other way, I then suceesfully used the same routine for my subsequent children xx

I tried GF for about 2 hrs when dd was about 3 weeks old, ended up throwing the book across the room! I find her tone really irritating, I can decide for myself when to eat toast in the morning thank you very much!

I also bf and found I couldn't fit it in with GF, but I know a few people who have.

Some people find GF really helpful, but even when it works it's not all plain sailing. One friend's baby is on GF and had slept through the night for ages which is great, but he won't sleep anywhere apart from his cot which is really restricting when he has a 2 hr sleep in the middle of the day.

Me, I'm far too laid back to be *rsed sticking to a routine that tells you what to do every 15 minutes. dd is also a laid back baby and we have muddled through without too many problems. I found DD put herself onto her own (flexible) routine from about 7 weeks or so and we've stuck to that ever since.

All you can do it try it and see how you get on.

Thanks ladies much appreciated, Katzuk actually Gina disagrees with the feeding on demand and says it should be at set times. What with actually feeding and expressing when she says to i think i may feel a bit like a milking cow.
All i know is i was quietly confident about most of it and after reading the book, some good so not so good, i now have a lot more doubts about wether i will be able to cope and wether it would be easier to just give formula.
Actually i have alot of doubts about alot of things now, not because of the book but because the time is getting nearer, i'm sure this is normal?
I have 4 weeks left at work and to be honest it can't come quick enough, i have no patience anymore and as a nanny that's not such a great thing!

Thanks Willowmum your post made me laugh and that's something i need right now!
I think like you all say it's every baby is different and i can try and see how i go but i can easily see hoe the sleeping would be a problem with her strict pitch black rooms and falling asleep in cot not in arms etc. I hadn't thought of that cheers ladies!

If that woman has made you have doubts about breastfeeding, I could kill her!!!

I'd have gone up the wall if I'd had to faff on sterlising bottles and all that in the first few weeks. B/f is difficult to start with but WELL worth the effort IME. I planned to do it for about 6 weeks but found it so lovely - and so EASY after the first few weeks, I'm still doing it at 10 months

Doubts natural - definitely. But don't let anything make you lose confidence in your natural ability to be a parent.

BTW I agreed with GF re. demand feeding in theory when I was pg, but in practice demand feeding in the early days is a lot LESS stressful as it means you have a near-foolproof way of calming your baby, instead of going out of your mind listening to him/her cry. I kind of demand fed, but eased the feeds towards GF's timings whenever possible ("whenever possible" - that's a phrase Elizabeth Pantley uses and I found it amazingly comforting ).

Must dash - take it easy on yourself and your baby, motherhood's much more fun that way

fufmum - yep doubt and impatience pretty normal at this stage of PG!

you might find the baby whisperer by tracy hogg a bit less scary/prescriptive than gina ford - similar sort of principles but not as dogmatic. agree with just about everyone else - for the sake of your sanity, let the baby sleep in the buggy/pram if they want.

however you feed your baby, the first few weeks will be difficult anyway - regular round the clock feeding(!) - tbh think it's best to write off any form of routine the first few weeks anyway.

Mummytosteven - I agree, I also read the Baby Whisperer when pg but I think I read everything!

fufmum - I thought bf seemed really hard when I was pg. I decided to stick with it for 2 weeks and if I hated it at that point I'd give formula and not feel guilty about it. As it turned out we both loved bf. I didn't find the first few weeks as hard as everyone said it would be and once you've got the hang of it, it's much easier than formula!

I'm back at work now and formula feed in the day, then bf in the evening and I miss the days when I didn't need to faff around with bottles, sterilising, warming etc etc

If you want to breastfeed, the best book I ever read on the subject was called "Bestfeeding". Step by step instructions and masses and masses of info.

Also 2 little books (in the library!) simply called Feeding and Sleep, written by two midwives, Lucy Smith and Beatrice Hollyer.I followed their sleep advice and my DS slept through the night from 6 weeks, and DD from 9 weeks. Also followed their feeding tips to avoid mealtimes being a battle. Both very good books.
HTH - good luck with everything.

I nearly gave myself a breakdown trying to follow GF's routines.For instance dd,didn't wake in the night for a certain feed & there was no way I was going to wake her for a feed she obviously didn't need.But the book promised dire consequences if you didn't follow the timings to the letter-therefore I stopped reading it & tried The Baby Whisperer instead.That was much better & dd slept through from 9wks old.

I have a copy of the baby whisperer, wouldnt b without it!!! very handy with a new dd!.When 1st dd was born 13 years ago advice was to breastfeed every four hours, what a nightmare, couldnt stand it ! by day 2 I was feeding her whenever she was hungry and she was a happy , contented baby who slept through the night from 7 weeks. I have read some of gf book and thought it was too rigid, cant understand how anyone can expect a newborn baby to conform to a routine , all they know is that when they are hungry, they are hungry etc!! I have always let my children fall asleep wherevr( within reason, doesnt seem to have done them any harm!)However I do think that once your baby is a few months old its a good idea if your at home to put them to sleep in the cot in the afternoon, just to get them used to the idea of falling asleep in there.

fufmum do not let the book put you off breastfeeding.

Go at it with an open mind. Give bf a go, but you can switch to bottles if things don't work.

If you are lucky, bf will be the most rewarding thing you have ever done. And far easier than bottle feeding!
I don't know how you can not demand feed a newborn. If a babies hungry they'll let you know about it until you feed them!! And what would you rather do on a cold winters night? Run up and down the stairs several times heating bottles? or bring your baby into your bed keeping warm and having constant supply and access to the boob (as its called in our house).

Also when going out and about, you only need remember change of clothes and nappy. No bottles, formula, method to keep it cool, method to heat it up, bibs etc etc. And then have the concern, what if you run out?

My problem with GF was that she had obviously never had the pain of hearing your own child cry with hunger and not been 'allowed' to do anything about it. When my son was small his crying not only hurt my breasts but could make me cry very easily. I have to say I'm much more likely to take advice from a real mum.
My fave baby book of all time (not sucking up) has to be the mumsnet book (the first one cant afford the other yet) it contains the right advice for everyone type of mum and baby. I've not bought the baby whisperer book but boy that woman does make sense on her tv program
B

Thankyou so much for all the response. I think i will invest in the baby whisperer book as she sounds like she knows what she's doing.

GF really brought me down this week and has made me doubt my capabilities, i was in tears last night. I think the best thing to do is put that bloody book somewhere i can't see it. If i decided to take any of her advice i will getit out after DS is here!

Having a baby is the hardest thing I've ever done BUT it's far easier than GF makes out!

If you can, do try Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution too. I wished I'd read it much earlier when I finally discovered it. And it's written by a real, gentle, human mum.