Gina Ford - bossyboots or best friend?

Wendyv2000: I was enthusiastic about Gina Ford's theories while I was pregnant, curious to know if it worked. But then faced with my beautiful Milo it suddenly made no sense at all, and once we tried it and found it hideous I just came to loathe the book with a passion.

I had to be very regimented with my triplet daughters when they were babies, but even then the pattern came from them, not me. And I think they got a sense of security from each other when I was struggling to give them each of them one-to-one attention.

Having Milo 15 years on is such a joy, and I love the close one-to-one relationship. I started out with him in his cot in his room, but soon realised we were all loads happier with him in our room. I have the carrycot alongside the bed. I'm sure he'll progress to his room when it feels right, but there's no hurry.

Now I wish I'd never read this book. The routines may lend themselves to bottle-feeding, but they are deeply flawed if you want to establish successful breastfeeding. I tried following the routine to the letter when my baby was eight weeks old and by day two my milk supply was dwindling and I had a miserable, starving baby. He cried more in those 36 hours than in the previous eight weeks put together.

Gina Ford simply doesn't allow for the fact that different babies have different appetites, feed at different rates, and that different mothers have different milk supplies. To establish breastfeeding you really do need to 'watch your baby, not the clock'.

Her suggestion that breastfed babies need three hours to digest a feed is ridiculous. Most babies need to feed more frequently than this in the early days, and believing that Gina must know better only demoralises mothers and prevents them from trusting the very clear signals their baby is giving. I would not recommend this book to anyone who wants to breastfeed.

In retrospect I've never read a more annoying book! I hate that it made me doubt myself (and Milo).

Purchase The New Contented Little Baby Book at Amazon.