Anyone on the Gina Ford routine?

[Celou]

I was just wondering if anyone was on the Gina Ford routine.
My daughter is 6 weeks old and seems quite happy on it, but I needed to discuss a few things with anyone whose baby is following the routine as well.
By the way I know a lot of people are against Gina Ford and the routine she proposes, so I know all the inconvenients and draw backs.
Thanks in advance.

I didn't really do GF until dd was about 3 months old and then not strictly. I read CLBB before dd was born though and I think had quite a lot of it in the back of my mind during those first few weeks. So I'm way from being an expert, but what are your queries?

Celou - there's a few of us about, although I think most of us adapt it to suit. I'm fairly flexible with our GF routine, and ds2 is 15 weeks old now, but I should be able to remember 9 weeks ago!!

I followed it with my dd who is now 3. Started her when she was 2 weeks until she was 12-18 months.

I followed it from birth with ds1 and we pretty much stuck to it completely. With ds2 (10 weeks) we have been following it more loosely. What are your questions?

Basically, she is pretty good at night (she has a feed at 10.30/11.00pm, then wakes up for another one at 4.00am and then 7.00am) so I can't complain about that side of things.
It's the daytime naps that are starting to go pear shaped.
For example this morning she had her normal feed at 7.00am but started to feel exhausted by 8.25am so we had to put her to bed (no way of extending the activity time any longer). She woke at 9.25am, had a feed at 10.00am and again could only stay awake until 11.10am.
Then she woke up half an hour later, I went up to her room and managed to send her back to sleep from about 12.15 (only because she was exhausted otherwise I would have had a job!!), and I can't garantee that she will be asleep until 1.30/2.00pm. If she sleeps poorly during her lunchtime nap it's awful because her afternoon nap is affected (funnily enough she doesn't sleep well through that either, as probably overtired and irritable).
But even if today was to go alright, lately I've noticed a resistance to go to sleep at nap times. And because of that, the evenings are nearly always affected; ie, she is too knackered to feed properly, and when put to bed at 7.00pm she wakes up 15 minutes later probably realizing that she is still hungry!!!
I find that she doesn't happily go to sleep during the day anymore.
What am I doing wrong girls?
P.S: She is bottle fed, would that make a huge difference? GF says it shouldn't, only to adjust a little (which I'm doing) to allow a bit more time between feeds as formula milk takes longer to digest.
re P.S: She often wakes up 45 min after a nap and won't go back to sleep, or if she does then it's time for her next feed anyway.
I've also got another question about the evening feed and bath (sorry it's so long).
How much of her bottle should I give her before the bath and after? GF recommends half and half, but the problem I've got is: If she only has half before the bath she doesn't enjoy the bath because she's still hungry, and if she has more, then she is too relaxed after the bath and (also because of her poor daytime naps) she falls asleep on the bottle and doesn't have the rest (which is why she wakes up 15min after bedtime.).
Just to say as well that I'm not following the routine to the letter, but I found that it's the best for Marie, as she more or less followed the pattern by herself from quite early on (which is what got me to start that routine properly-ish).
HELP!!!

It does sound like the main issue is self-settling for naps. ds2 had the same issue about the same age that he was getting tired by about 8.30am, so I'd just put him down early but encourage him to go through until 10am - he then seemed to do better at the later nap as well. It was only for a few weeks, then he just seemed to be able to stay awake longer and could extend the morning until 9am-ish.

Can I ask what your naptime/bedtime routine is - do you do anything specific to settle her into her cot or wherever she sleeps? I can't say I'm the expert on this, because we've been having issues with the LTN recently too! Just seem to have cracked it again over the last couple of days.

A couple of ideas to try, anyway: try not to go up immediately they cry on waking early from a nap. Wait 5 minutes and see if she manages to resettle herself - I found I often went up a bit too early and ds2 actually seems to need a short cry to settle himself mostly at the start of naps, but sometimes in the middle too.

Is there something that guarantees her to sleep, even if it's "bad" - car journey, trip in the pushchair, a baby swing? It might be worth a try to get her to sleep the time she needs doing that for a few days until she's less overtired and into the routine of having that long a sleep, then trying to introduce good sleep associations then.

When you're trying to get good sleep associations, consistency does seem to be the key. Doing the same things before you put her down into the cot gives her the message it's sleep time now and helps her to get sleepy. We have a white noise machine as part of our sleep routine, a singsong while having a cuddle/rock, then placed in the cot while I sit nearby for 5 mins, then I leave regardless of whether he's asleep by then or not - only returning if he hasn't settled himself after another 5 minutes. But I don't think it really matters WHAT you do, as long as you do similar things each time as a little mini-sleeptime ritual.

Sorry, this has been a bit lengthy! If I have any other ideas I'll post again later.

Thank you that's so great!! You sound like you're sorted!!
I do have a sort of routine before bedtime, wind down 20min before, change her nappy, tell her that she going for a nice nap/sleep, put her in her cot, tuck her in nicely. But unlike you, I don't stay in the room for 5 minutes I just kiss her, caress her head and reassure her, then leave. Perhaps I should stay a bit more I don't know.
I see what you mean about trying to take her for a drive etc... but the problem is she doesn't seem to want to nap in the buggie or car seat anymore, she always wants to look around and doesn't get a proper nap. And anyway if she does, she'll only wake up if I put her in the cot. Not straight away but 30/45min after.

Oh if only we were :) I seem to produce bad daytime sleepers! Ds1 used to only get 12.5 hours sleep every 24hrs when he was a baby before we started on a routine (which is why we started GF in the first place) but both of them have been fierce sleep fighters. You never really know if you did the right thing or made the right choices, but ds1 is a very good sleeper now (he's 3) and has been since around 6 months old from memory - but the first 6 months were hard.

I don't know if the staying in the room a bit longer makes any difference whatsoever, tbh - it makes me feel a little bit better, and sometimes if he's been happy and then grumps a little I can shush a bit and it seems to calm him. Every baby is so different - I think you just need to experiment a bit but find something you're both comfortable with sooner rather than later and stick with it so it becomes routine.

She says. Ds2 just woke up. Gone in to reassure him and left again and he seems to have gone to sleep again. Daren't pop my head around the door to check though!!

Yes I've tried the "staying 5 minutes" trick and it seemed to be working. She seemed a bit more peaceful than when I leave straight away (I feel so cruel for doing that know).
We had a nightmare last night though. She was up to her old tricks again (ie: not sleeping properly for her aft. nap and being exhausted after her bath which meant she didn't feed properly). She fell asleep at 8.00pm pm, woke up at 9.00 STARVING, and then of course woke up at 2.00am instead of 4.00am and 6.00am instead of 7.00am.
What I've done to put her back on track is: Because she was up at 6.00am she had her morning nap early (8.15 til 8.45) I had the idea of giving her a very light feed before the nap so she wouldn't be hungry at 9.00am but at 10.00/10.30. And it worked (I was amazed).
And I think I've sorted out my evening problem as well (although I don't want to speak too soon).
But first, can anyone tell me what they do for bath and bedtime. Do you give half the formula/breast before the bath (around 5.00pm) and half after the bath?

I did the split feed around bathtime for a lot longer than GF recommended (in fact, I've only recently dropped that as he started fussing at both 5pm and 6.15pm feeds - which I took as a sign that he wasn't really hungry enough to be interested properly - fussing seems to have stopped now it's only one feed). However, we don't do a bath every night and some nights I do start the bedtime routine a bit early if he appears to be struggling a bit (especially if naps have been a bit haywire in the day).

I see. Because I have noticed that she's terribly fussy in the evenings normally between 7.00pm and 8.00pm. I know that doesn't sound too bad but that means she never goes to sleep on time and we always have to wake her up for her 10.30/11.00pm feed. And if she is not fully awake for that feed she doesn't feed well and ends up wanting a lot more for the 4.00am feed which we should try and drop eventually.

I'm doing the GF routine with our DS who is now 7 wks old. He was doing well but has started to find his fist and fingers but cannot keep them in his mouth enough to sooth himself to sleep and this is actually stimulating and frustrating him. This results in poor sleep and guilty parents playing catch-up with the rest of the days' routine. Is there anything else we can do apart from waiting until he can keep his fingers in his mouth? We don't want to use a dummy unless we are really desperate. Any tips or advice?
Also, we are finding the routine very restricting due to the fact that DS is asleep in the car or push chair and is not awake after his feed and gets more than the recommended sleep time during the day. I am ready to get at least a bit of my life back! How do I do it?

Gina herself was apparently online the other week.....

I still don't believe it was her, but even if she was... her routines have worked wonders with our baby, so even if the woman in the thread was Gina Ford.... I can say I didn't like her but I would follow GF routines again if I had another baby. It's a matter of doing what works best for you or the baby be it GF routines or c0-sleeping. So please don't hijack this thread

chandra, far from hijacking the thread i'm being deadly serious. i followed some of gf's book (tho not until ds was 4 1/2 months, and then i picked and chose the bits that i thought would work for me). but i don't believe you can totally separate an author's work from the way they are (especially in the case of the way we care for babies). i believe following coppertops post that gf was the person on the site and it has made me rethink using her routines and listening to her advice.

I too have been experimenting with GF vs Babywhisperer - and I think I like BW better. Get to know your baby's tired signals and put them down for a nap when you see them happening. My ds has differnt nap times and lengths nearly every day - I've given up stressing and just let him go to sleep when and for how long he wants (within reason of course). I just know that if I wake him - he cries - but if I leave him to wake himself - he wakes up smiling.
It does make for a very disorganised day - but hey - I don't have much else to do anyway.

Just out of interest, which thread was gina ford possibly on?

It's been deleted, alibo. And it wasn't her, imho.

Message withdrawn

For what it's worth, I used Gina Ford method when my son reached 6 weeks - and I haven't looked back! It is restrictive at times and frustrating at times and hard - but I found it was the only thing that brought sanity back into my life - it gave structure to an otherwise chaotic time. My ds is now 2 years old and (touch wood) is still a fantastic sleeper - 12 hours every night and 2 full hours at lunch time. His eating is a bit hit and miss, but you can't have everything can you?!! But every child is different and the first few months are so much trial and error - don't stress too much about 'bad habits' - you'll find your right way to do stuff.

I saw my name mentioned so just nipped in to say that according to the e-mail I received from the MN team it really WAS GF who came on-line. I presume that as MN have worked with GF before (she did an on-line Q&A on MN a while ago) that they knew and recognised the e-mail address that was used for the more 'controversial' thread.

Pebs, my dd is 8 weeks old and keeps trying to suck her fingers as well (it's so sweet) but can't keep them into her mouth either, I know what you mean, it stimulates her too and rather than soothing her she just gets frustrated.
Unfortunately my advice is a dummy. Gf is not completely against them. I think she'd rather not use one at all, but I find that if dd is excited, the dummy calms her down a lot. As long as you don't give him the dummy in his cot or let him fall asleep with it he won't learn the wrong sleep associations. And anyway, sometimes dd does fall asleep with it but I take it out straight away (otherwise she'll only wake up when it falls out). I understand how she feels as I myself found my thumb very quickly and it helped me fall asleep everytime (when I was a baby of course , at least that's what my mum told me!!).
To come back to GF, it's easy to say that she might be bonkers, but to do a job like that you have to be caring and very patient. I recently read the bit in her book about that little boy she had to train to sleep at night, and she let the parents sleep while she took over. All I can say is: How dedicated is that!! I know it's her job but I couldn't do it.

At the moment the routine is going well (although I don't follow it to the letter but almost), however she doesn't seem to settle at 7.00pm even though she's tired. DH always has to settle her for a good hour (on and off) before she falls asleep for good.
Any idea why that is? Or any tips?
The other thing is, by now she should be cutting down on her 5.00am feed, but she doesn't seem to. I want to get rid of it eventually but she's so hungry by the time she wakes up at 5.00am, it's hard to imagine she could cut it out all together. What do I do? Introduce a bit of cool boiled water?