Gin Ford: Contented Baby

brianon

Got this book last week and since Last Thursday have been trying to follow it closely with my 2 week old bottle fed girl.

Too early to tell how its working bu the last few nights have been as per here plan and not the nights before that which were 'on demand feeding' nights and much tougher.

Anyone else tried her methods ? Anyone any advice ?

Cheers,
Brian.

*Of course I mean Gina Ford !
Not Gin Ford. Although she may also be an expert on babies !?

loyatemu

we referred to it a bit with our first - she's a bit of a schedule-nazi, but there's some good ideas in there.

Getting babies into a routine, and in particular having a set bedtime routine is vital to getting them to sleep well. But you're never going to get everything timed to the exact minute....

brianon

Yeah. It is tough. Especially when she wants to sleep but you've to keep her awake for half an hour. I feel bad keeping her awake.

silverharp

didn't implement it here, thought on balance it was wrong to use controlled crying on a baby. they do cry for a reason and teaching them that it will be ignored seems dangerous even if you get short term results.

brianon

Controlled crying? I am pretty sure the book mentions nothing about ignoring a crying baby.

loyatemu

she suggests controlled crying for older babies if they are not putting themselves back to sleep (ie still waking up for a bottle at age 1 etc)

but I've seen several other books suggest the same technique as a last resort - children do need to learn how to put themselves to sleep.

littlebug

Congrats on the new baby Brian!

I agree there are some good elements of Gina Fords book but as with everything else it works with some babies and not with others. Some babies naturally slip into a Gina Ford- esque routine by themselves anyway, some can do so with a little help and some never will. Neither of mine ever went 4 hours between feeds and it did seem cruel to try to impose a book routine on them when they were screaming with hunger!
Same with sleep. I remember trying to follow the routine and reading "after she's fed, put the drowsy baby down in her crib" and I stood there looking at my wide awake baby thinking "hmmm... drowsy baby now where am I going to get one of those!"
I did use the controlled crying technique with my youngest when he was 6 months as it was taking 2+ hours to get him to go to sleep and I'd had enough! By the 3rd night he went straight to sleep and happily has done so ever since.

Good luck with it Brian, hopeully your little one will happily slip into a routine and sleep well but just be aware that every element of her suggested routines will not work for every baby.

P

brianon

Thanks all for the advice. Much appreciated.

I guess nothing is set in stone.

Figment

We used it as a guide and it worked out great.

loopymum

Figment wrote:

We used it as a guide and it worked out great.

Thats what we did! although I was breastfeeding, actually still am, but anyway was waking roughly around the times in her schedule, so we used it as a guide well bible really! lol:D

Found it great as a guide, but your baby is still very young and I fully agree with another poster about routines for bed times, but I think that really only applies as they get older!

simu

I find those books good for ideas but I don't think you can follow them to the letter. Also, sometimes they can be a bit overwhelming because you end up worrying about potential problems that end up not happening with your own baby at all.

run_Forrest_run

yeah, we read it also for reference..took some bits out of it....but now our lil one is 10 months old and she is in a pretty decent routine....well getting her to sleep during the day at all now is a challenge...but she sleeps well during the night.

simu

Yeah, my son started sleeping at night by himself quite early on but he's never been great at the napping thing. No way he'd do as much napping as those books recommend.