Re: Ford

January 12, 2001

So what she is basically saying, is because her mother never gave her any

restrictions which made her tired and troubled at school, that you should

restrict your baby?

Surely there is middle ground between being very rigid with a baby's routines

and not having any sort of routine at all? Then again, I haven't read her book

and I'm only going by what I have read here.

I agree that there are too few HVs and the likes to help mother and families

through troubled times with babies and young children, even if you don't always

take their advice, it is nice to have someone to confide in.

Mc

SAHM 6, Olivia 3, 2, 15/3/00

Nearly Ex-Editor Wallingford and District

January 12, 2001

So what she is basically saying, is because her mother never gave her any

restrictions which made her tired and troubled at school, that you should

restrict your baby?

Surely there is middle ground between being very rigid with a baby's routines

and not having any sort of routine at all? Then again, I haven't read her book

and I'm only going by what I have read here.

I agree that there are too few HVs and the likes to help mother and families

through troubled times with babies and young children, even if you don't always

take their advice, it is nice to have someone to confide in.

Mc

SAHM 6, Olivia 3, 2, 15/3/00

Nearly Ex-Editor Wallingford and District

January 21, 2001

OK then, I'll let you off if you've read it! Sorry to have assumed that you

were attacking without reading (but in my defence I must say that you

wouldn't have been the first....)

But I bought it because a number of mums told me how much happier they and

their babies were since starting to follow her suggestions!

Condensed version of what follows - I understand that routines for bf when

bf is main/omly source of nutrition are a bad idea, but for most babies and

most mums routines for everything else make everyone happier.

(there, now you don't have to read the rest!)

Tim was IIRC about 5 months or so when I bought the book - I found it pretty

helpful although I didn't follow her weaning suggestions (order in which to

introduce foods) at all and I didn't adopt any of her routines verbatim. I

have had explained to me the reasons why her routines aren't ideal for bf

babies unless they're dead average (thinking about it they'd probably have

worked for us - I started expressing daily first thing in the morning and

giving the bottle at bedtime when Tim was about 2 months old just to try and

get him to take the damn thing, not because I felt that he wasn't getting an

adequate bedtime drink directly from me!) so I won't argue with you about

that one. (as an aside, BTW, I would say that she is carefully non

judgmental and non-assuming about whether a baby is bf or bottlefed, rather

than that she doesn't believe that breast is best. But I was reading

without an agenda)

BUT - from my own observation and that of a number of friends and

acquaintances, a lot of us have got very hung up on " demand everything "

rather than routine - I felt it was mean to put Tim upstairs for a nap when

he was wide awake and he should be " bonding " with me, for example. One

other friend of mine never even thought about routines until her son started

nursery at about 5 months - when his key carer asked her what his general

routine was her response was " he hasn't one " . Key worker said " Are you

sure? Are you sure that it's not just you who doesn't have a routine? " So

for the next week she really concntrated on what her son was doing rather

than what she was trying to do herself - and discovered that in fact he DID

pretty much feed and sleep at the same times each day - she'd just never

noticed it as she was living from moment to moment. Once she'd tuned into

that, everything fell into place for her. Similarly, once I started

timetabling my day round Tim life got easier.

Quite a few people here have said " Oh, she doesn't think of the baby, just

the nanny " - well, not my experience! And IMO it doesn't matter if it's the

biological mother or someone else looking after the baby - the baby's needs

are the same in either case, and the carer's imperatives to prepare food, do

laundry, put the steriliser on and get exercise are pretty much the same

too!

BTW I haven't got shares in the publisher and I thought some ideas were dumb

too - but for those of us who'd never spent 5 minutes with a baby before, to

have what may seem like the glaringly obvious to others of you written down

was quite useful.

Of course, this will all mean nothing to anyone who has no wish for order in

her life!

Anneliese (part-time) SAHM to Baby Tim (18/9/99), member, Alton, Bordon and

district branch

Re: allegedly horrid gina ford

I have read (most of) the book, but not all of it (no copy in the

library so I have to read it in bookshops) which is why I need a

copy - all that I have read and heard from other mums (including

qualified bfcs - btw I didn't say I was training with the NCT) seems

pretty horrid to me.

The main two reasons for this opinion are a) her " advice " on bf - I

can't see what she bases it on but a lot of it is damaging to a good

bf relationship. e.g. she doesn't appear to allow demand feeding

which is generally agreed to be a necessary part of establishing bf.

She tells mothers they must express from the start which seems wierd

and illogical to me (unless going back to work quite early - stocking

up) and is also pretty exhausting (I had to express at first)

and the routines that she outlines, which seem terribly rigid,

which seems to lead to a lot of mums (in my experience) feeling they

have to do all or nothing - if they can't follow it to the letter

they abandon it altogether but feel like failures. At the other end

of the scale I've known of mums whose babies are failing to

thrive/have poor weight gain because their mothers are religiously

sticking to , who on being given better advice about bf decide

that they must stick to the routine and therefore switch to formula.

From what I've read of the book, she also doesn't seem to believe

that there is much benefit to breastfeeding/detriment to artificial

feeding.

I apologise if I came off as unnecessarily antagonistic toward/about

ms Ford and her book, I was in a hurry and unfortunately forgot to

check through my post and render it as neutral as possible (seeing as

this is a pretty general board) which I would usually try to do.

________________________________________________________________________

January 21, 2001

> Key worker said " Are you

> sure? Are you sure that it's not just you who doesn't have a

routine? " So

> for the next week she really concntrated on what her son was doing

I had a similar experience with Steffi when she was 4mo. I've got a

chart somewhere that I split into 24 hours and kept track of what she

was doing - everything was marked either feeding, sleeping, awake or

out (which usually meant sleeping). I coloured it in different colour

blocks, and by the end of a week it looked like a barber's pole! She

did have a vague routine but seemed to be working on a 23 hour clock!

I also had a routine though - whereas most mums would probably get up

when their baby had 6am-ish feed, I always rolled over and went back

to sleep, waking with her again around 9am. Then she'd feed again and

be left on the floor whilst I showered. By 10am we'd usually be

strolling up and down King's Road, doing a bit of shopping (Steffi

asleep in sling around 50% of the time). Back in time for lunch and

feed and Neighbours and Home and Away - sad or what! Then out again

in the afternoon for stroll around the park/petting zoo or, if I was

tired, we'd both go to bed for a couple of hours.

But I just couldn't get her to sleep anywhere other than with me.

Every time she went in her cot she screamed the place down and as DH

was working away, there was no-one to push out of bed during the night

to go to see to her on the rare occasion I did manage to get her to

sleep in a cot. We also travelled a lot during her first year - she

had slept in 26 beds and done 13 flights, IIRC, by the time she was a

year old. Now at the grand old age of 4 and almost 40 flights later,

she seems to cope with jetlag better than anyone else I know! And can

she ever sleep!!!

--

Sue

January 21, 2001