Does *anyone* think Claire Verity's methods are kind of OK and we are hugely overreacting?

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

BP: I'm right with you there. I remember being given a chart to fill in at ante-natal class along the lines of 'illustrate your dialy routne and how you would fit baby into it' and handed it back to the midwife, explaining that I didn't have a daily routine and we would be making it up as we went along (which I stuck to, pretty much, and DS is 3 now and fine. We do different things on differnt days.)

agreed. Instincts are there for a reason.

Nope, its not Ok to go against FSID advice- or even worse, to (as a professional) advise newly delivered mothers to go against it. never OK. her attitude wasn't even friendly, it was off putting and arrogant. Dha ndI agreed we'd each take her by an arm and remove her from the house pronto!

Pondus - the "No lasting harm" thing absolutely cannot be trotted out in this case. prolonged crying in a newborn can lead to brain damage. leaving your baby to cry for no reason (because, yes, sometimes i have had to walk away from ds when he's been wailing and wailing and i've been unable to soothe him) is just insane!

and yes, a grand a day is what it costs you to ignore your instincts. socialbaby.com has put a call out for anyone who actually employed CV to come forward and talk about it. here

She doesn't know anything about babies if these are her methods so how she can set herself up as an expert I don't know.

Would be interested to know her story, i.e. why she has no children but has made babies the basis of her career.

If you don't like children, don't work with them. It's really that simple.

Sorry to be really boring/anal here, but didn't we ought to be a little bit careful what we are saying here - don't want to get mumsnet HQ into trouble a la strapping babies to bombs/GF scenario do we?

TheUrbanDryad - just goes to show that human instinct is there for a good reason.

Have already had my first argument about CV being wrong, with someone who said that their parents did it to them and it didn't do them any harm. How RL differs from mumsnet....

Me and my sister were raised partly by that method. I still have a problem with hugging... I do not like close contact with people. It does cause problems with DH who feels rejected at times because I'm not a touchy feely huggy person.

My sister was put outside to sleep all day as a newborn in late October and nearly died of pneumonia when she was two weeks old!

Helenn - you're right. I feel a Penn and Teller moment coming on...

CV is a cuntpickle.

just saw a bit of this programme
it was enough

dont really agree that their should be 'one way' one size fits all .... dont make me laugh
imho parents should find their own rythmn and routine and to care for baby in way that suits them all
its life changing experience for all and there is no way back to other life, that makes me laugh too..
...but child must fit in on daily basis after a bit...find your own way , trust own instincts...

What did concern me actually- more the producers than CV- if someone came into your home with a routine like CV's (or any of the others I suppose), you could sack them- you'd be empowered. But with the cameras there, adding in post birth hormones, I imagine the parents felt under pressure far mroe than they would have done in a normal domestic situation, iyswim, to 'conform'- well tehre's lots of research iirc that people will conform to almost anything if they feel someone in authority is telling them what to do. Add in cameras for triple effect, I suspect.

FWIW I got the imrpession the dad'll break before the Mum, I would love to know Mum's history and whether her first child ws a poor sleeper etc- might explain why she chose the method perhaps?

Also ntoed Mum was a CM- don't think we would be likely to hire her if this is her parenting choice, somehow!

Also wondered about CV's uniform choice- is black a colour for abbies, what with sick and all? Oh no, because you barely pick them up...... . Looked more like the nanny from Hell garned out in black, than the Mary Poppins most of us'd dream of.

Both my grandparents brought babies/children up in the 50s, when these so called strict routines were more common - beither agreed to them and didn't follow the rules. prefering to rely on maternal instinct and motherly love - cuddles and more!

yeh agree, the 50's method baby 'guru'... wtf .. did not seem to like the babies...

I kind of agree (about not totally pandering to baby...) but I think this too:

see this thread til I wrote my one!

oops link should read "I didn't see"

peachy i thought that too
if you were reading it from a book you could make your own mind up and do as you wish
having them there to prove point method was for the 50's style couple looking like regret at agreeing was setting in...

btw..they had tv show requests at our hospital when i was pregnant...me personally,could never get my head round why anyone would want to do it....

I cried through the whole thing and couldn't believe that they actually aired the series, with CV in it!

I bet health visitors everywhere would be concerned about neglectful mothers if everyone acted the way she did.

How could anyone tell other mothers not to hold or cuddle their newborn babies if they hadn't had one themselves? I just don't understand and think it's very wrong. The smell of my baby and lovely cuddles is what kept me going through PND. If I hadn't held her, I'd have gone even more mad!

Forgot to say about the not picking up the baby thing etc that if cave women had left the babies to cry, they'd have been eaten by wolves!!!

LewisFan, yes, I agree, if the baby wants playing with or cuddling then you should attend to it. Problem is, on the CV regime you don't actually play with babies so there's not much point in responding to that cry.
I do tend to ignore (if I'm trying to get on and do something else) the "I'm a bit bored" or "I don't really know what I want" cry, but only for the length of time it takes me to finish what I'm doing, not to prove a point!

There's evidence after all that people will electrocute (or rather beleive they are electrocuting) someone in a lab because an authority figure tells them to do it.... why then, would it be acceptable to place parents of a newborn in a similar environment? The presence of the authority figure would totally negate any validity of the 'research' (any undergrad psych student could argue as to the differences in authority due to uniform, etc between CV and the other childcare 'experts')

Saying well it awas OK in the fifities is quite really, plenty of things were more acceptable then than today (both my Grans thought it was normal to get a slap if they overspent, for example)- would we try and revive that based on 'it was OK then?'- or perhaps the way single mothers were treated- of course not.

oh me too - for the length of washing up or doing whatever as that is only reasonable as you need to get on ... however, ignoring each and every moan that "please help - I am bored" is utterly outrageous

People in solitary confinement with NO entertainment go mad - it is only a matter of time; why then, is it perceived as OK to put a NEWborn baby into solitary with no stimulation (from parental/human interaction - this is how baby learns anyway)

I'd love to see if she changed if she HAD a child

I watched the programme and was quite distressed. I don't think the issue is about getting babies into routines - that in itself doesn't have to be harmful to the baby - I think the issue is CVs insistance on no eye contact, no talking, no cuddling and long periods of ignoring the baby. WTF??? It goes against EVERYTHING - instinct and received wisdom. It just seems so logical - a baby that is cuddled, smiled at, talked to will surely feel secure and loved. And FGS, leaving the baby in the garden, closing the door and not going back for three hours??? What if the baby is dirty or sick? I suppose they would only be doing that to get the parent's attention (selfish blighters) so let them lie in their own mess, that'll teach them. I mean what is wrong with wanting attention anyway??? Isn't that what babies are meant to do as they can't fend for themselves??

If the Daily Mail reported on a teenage mum living in a council flat in a run down inner city who left her baby on the balcony in in a buggy for hours at a time while she chatted with her friends you can bet the social services would be accusing the mother of neglect. Put the baby in a middle class setting with a "Guru" paid £1,000 a day and it's ok...?

I also felt that there was an underlying implication that bottle feeding was best in this instance - I guess because it involved less intimacy which was CVs whole aim. Like someone else mentioned, it does make you wonder how different this treatment is from being left in an underfunded Romainian orphanage.

So glad there is somewhere like this to rant!

Peachy - I so agree with you that having the tv cameras there made is much much harder to the couple to argue with her and do their own thing. Thought the bit where the daughter was complaining that she couldn't have a cuddle with the baby and the Dad was telling her that cuddles were not allowed was very telling. He didn't sound convinced and the daughter had more sense than the lot of them put together.

I want to know what happens if your baby ahs an undiagnosed medical condition- my cousin's lad had a heart attack at a few days old, becasue they were together she could get him to medical help... (sadly he died aged 6, but six years is everything in that situation). it's not that uncommon for abbies to have to go into hospital again or be treated for conditions that aren't necessarily apparent at birth.