Customer Reviews

New Contented Little Baby Book

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The advice in this book should come with a strongly worded health warning: it can be DANGEROUS for breastfed babies. Trying to follow Gina Ford's routine can lead to not establishing a good milk supply -- or reducing the milk supply once it is established -- and babies consequently not putting on weight and growing as they should.

Ford expresses sympathy with women who want to breastfeed their babies, and gives some partially accurate advice for establishing a good milk supply in the early days. However her book is riddled with so many innaccuracies that if you try to follow it "to the letter", as she insists you must, it is inevitable that you will have to provide top-ups of formula before your baby turns one, whether you want to do this or not, or risk damaging your baby's health and growth.

Ford is very critical of "feeding on demand" (less judgementally known as "baby-led feeding") and blames it for all sorts of behavioural and sleeping problems. She proposes a feeding schedule instead. She rightly points out that health professionals advise women to "feed on demand" because this is the only way to ensure that a baby gets as much milk as she needs. What she fails to address is how her feeding routines can ensure that a baby will get enough milk to meet his needs.

Here are just a few of the problems with Ford's breastfeeding advice:

1) For women whose babies are having sleep problems, she recommends that you express your milk at a usual feeding time on the theory that this will show you how much milk your baby is getting. WRONG. A woman's body responds to her baby in a different way than to a pump, and breastfed babies are more efficient at getting milk from the breast. Expressing will NOT tell you how much milk your baby is getting.

2) Ford states that feeds need to be spaced 3 hours apart because it takes the baby this long to digest breastmilk, so feeding more often than 3-hourly may cause gas problems. There is NO scientific evidence to support this belief. And if you examine Ford's routines, some of her feeds are scheduled 3 hours apart. If it takes the baby 1/2 an hour to finish a feed, this leaves only 2 1/2 hours in between feeds for it to be digested. So even Ford's routines don't adhere to this schedule. (Incidentally, a windy baby may breastfeed more often because this helps to RELIEVE wind.)

3) Breastfed babies who are fed as often as they wish to feed, do not need any additional fluids during hot weather, because the composition of breastmilk changes -- thus more foremilk is available to naturally increase their intake of fluids. The key however is to feed the baby as often as they wish. Breastfeeding on a schedule could lead to a baby becoming dehydrated in hot weather. Ford never addresses this possibility. (Giving water between feeds is not the answer, as this can fill up the baby's stomach and reduce their hunger, thus replacing some of the breastmilk which he or she needs for optimum growth.)

4) To avoid the "inconvenience" of feeding more often when a baby is going through a growth spurt, Ford recommends having a stock of expressed breastmilk available so that you can just give the baby more milk at his usual feeding times, rather than feeding the baby more often. There are two problems with this. Firstly, the composition of breastmilk changes over time to keep pace with the growing baby's needs. Furthermore, when a baby feeds more often it signals to the mother's body that the baby needs more milk, thus increasing her supply. Continuing to feed on a rigid schedule during a growth spurt may mean that the milk supply does not increase adequately to meet the baby's needs.

5) At one point in this book Ford states that a feed from one breast "can be classed as" half a bottle feed. Though her wording is vague, this seems to indicate that she believes a baby feeding from one breast is receiving the same amount of milk as a bottlefed baby who drinks half the milk in a bottle. This is an absolutely ridiculous idea, and suggests that mothers should be restricting breastfeeds in a completely arbitrary way to bring them in line with the number of times a bottlefed baby would be fed.

6) Ford says that once protein has been introduced at lunchtime, a baby no longer "needs" a milk feed at this time and that the milk will interfere with the absorption of iron from the protein. This is true of dairy products, but not of breastmilk. The iron in breastmilk is far more readily absorbed by the baby than that in dairy products (including formula). Dropping the breastfeed at lunchtime -- especially if the baby still needs and wants it -- will thus reduce the amount of iron that the baby gets overall.

7) As the baby grows older Ford recommends dropping breastfeeds so that by the time the child is one, they are only receiving two breastfeeds per day, in the morning and at night. This is not consistent with the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics and breastfeeding experts worldwide that breastmilk should remain a baby's primary source of nutrition for all of the first year. Furthermore, once a baby is only breastfeeding twice a day, the mother's body is receiving the signal that a baby is almost weaned, and therefore only needs a small quantity of milk -- which in most cases will not be enough to enable the baby to sleep through the night, thus leading to the night wakings that Ford's routine is designed to avoid at all costs.

Ford's advice may well be suitable for bottlefed babies. However she is very ill informed about the physiology of breastfeeding, and for her to offer such inaccurate advice on breastfeeding is highly irresponsible and potentially dangerous for the health of babies. I would recommend that both she and her publisher seriously consider amending future editions of this book to state that its advice is only suitable for bottlefed babies.

This book obviously works for some people, but I just want to gently warn any pregnant woman who is thinking of buying this book who is also keen to breastfeed her baby. The idea of a perfect routine where my baby slept and ate exactly when I wanted her to was very appealing to me (ha!) and I read the entire book before I gave birth and planned to begin introducing it as soon as I was home from the hospital (oh yes, I was such a first-time mother!).
The truth is... babies don't work like that (well, at least mine didn't!). In my non-professional, totally un-credited opinion, it interferes with the whole baby bonding process to try to strictly regiment their day like this book recommends. It is actually so much easier to go with the flow and watch for the baby's cues to eat and sleep rather than putting them in these 'routines'. I am slightly bitter about this book, because I feel it created awful problems with my breastfeeding. Gina Ford seems to think women mostly give up breastfeeding because of how exhausting it is (it is exhausting, but ask any formula-fed baby's mother if she is exhausted and I know what the answer would be!). Most women give up breastfeeding because they aren't confident about it. There are loads of comments in this book about how you need to express your milk and if you are only expressing 3-4 ounces in the evening, that is definitely not enough (lie, lie, lie!). As a reviewer mentioned below, pumps do not accurately reveal your milk supply and 3-4 ounces is actually completely fine! Actually, if you are breastfeeding as often as the 'professionals' recommend (8-12 times), 3-4 ounces is all they should be eating. This remark in the book made me question my abilities several times. The worst part about it all was that my baby was probably hungry and I didn't feed her because I did what Gina said (stupid, I know, and I still feel guilty about this). She cried and cried in the 7-10pm sleep period when she was just a few weeks old (anyone heard of cluster feeding? That's what she wanted). My milk supply diminished, my baby didn't gain weight properly, and I had to spend a lot of money on a hired electric pump to boost my supply. Not to mention the enormous amount of worry and guilt I felt. I followed the routines to the letter and didn't understand why they weren't working ("what's wrong with meee? what's wrong with my baybeeee?!" all questions you shouldn't have to stress about when you're a new mother). Once I began feeding 'on demand' (or I like what a previous reviewer called it-- 'baby-led'), her weight and my milk supply both increased. Yes, she is 5 months old and sometimes wakes in the night. No, we don't always have as much free time in the evenings as we would like. But our baby is finally happy now and healthy and WAY more content not following this book. Happily, she is still exclusively breastfed. A young baby and the strange lifestyle it creates for a new mother is a confusing, but fleeting period in your life. It is tempting to read all the books and find some kind of manual to get through it, but the secret to calm and confident parenting is to just enjoy your time with these crazy, little individual, gorgeous babies. I wish I had never read this book, it created so many problems that could have been avoided.

UPDATE;: I wrote the review below after using TCB with my son, who is now 2 1/2 (and still sleeps all night!). I just had a baby daughter, and am compelled to write again because last night, at 7 1/2 weeks, she slept through the entire night for the first time. This book is not a fluke. I will say, however, that it is VERY important that you read the entire book and not just start with the schedules. There is a method to the madness, and it is important to understand what you are trying to achieve with the schedules (fit most of child's nutritional needs in during the day, and sleep needs in during the night). Remember that Ford is writing a book for the 2 million + babies out there, so her conclusions are what GENERALLy works for MOST babies. Every baby is different. That's another reason to read the entire book carefully -- there are some very important pieces of information buried in the text, in the Q&A sections, and in the case studies, which address problems people have had with the schedule and suggestions to fix them (e.g., what if you have a "sleepy" baby, or a "hungry" baby? What if baby keeps waking up even after getting a little older? What if you get off-schedule due to outings, etc., in the early days?). I will say that there is nothing "radical" about her schedules -- I sent my son to day care at 3 months and guess what? They had a scheduled morning nap, and a scheduled afternoon nap. Babies will tend toward this routine on their own, the book just helps you to get them along a little faster. Oh, and I have had no problem bonding with my kids on this schedule -- in fact, I am so well rested I enjoy them thoroughly!

________________________

This book was a godsend. I think it goes without saying that you will be unable to follow Ford's schedules to the minute, but by giving you a general pattern, she gives you some predicatibility to your day. I honestly am very puzzled by the people who claim that this book somehow suggests that you starve your baby. Did they read the book? She gives you target feeding times, and suggests that you feed when he's hungry, but slowly stretch out the feeding times (by 5 minutes a day) until you are at the suggested times. In effect, she is supporting the "feeding on demand" theory -- she's just helping you to structure your child's day so that he is "demanding" to be fed at certain times. Put it this way: I followed this schedule while breastfeeding and my son was (and is) consistently in the 90th percentile for height and weight!

I put my son on the schedule at 5 weeks. We had to work hard to keep him awake for the first few weeks so that he would nap at the proper times and at night. Almost immediately he started sleeping from 7-10:30pm very easily, giving me and my husband a real evening back -- we could eat dinner, watch movies, and email, like the old days. He continued to wake up once at night (around 3:30) after the 10:30pm feeding until about 10 weeks, but after that he began sleeping from 11pm to 7am. Best of all, thanks to Ford's suggestions we never got him hooked on a pacifier, or rocking, or any other sleep association -- we put him in the crib wide awake and he babbles to himself until he falls asleep (and plays quietly in his crib in the morning until we come get him)!

One note -- heed Ford's warning about trying to put this plan into effect only with a supportive environment. It does take focus and work, and my mother, who was staying with me at the time, was a total naysayer and constantly tried to sabotage me. However, I stuck with it, and after about a month even she had to admit that the schedule was working both for my son and everyone else. But it would have been A LOT easier if she had gotten on board from the beginning.

Everyone we meet comments on what a happy baby we have, and I tell every pregnant friend I have to get this book. I watch my sister, who has three children who eat at different times of day and stay up to all hours -- she or her husband have to drive their youngest around in a car seat to get him asleep, and he still has a pacifier at 2 1/2 years old -- what a nightmare. She, like many of the other reviewers here, is convinced that this is just how my son "is," and her children would never be amenable to a schedule. Guess she'll never find out...her loss!

How I have longed to write a review of this book for 2 years now but I had my doubts.... All my friends told me I was just lucky to have such an easy baby. He constantly smiled, rarely cried, slept 12 hours a night and seemed so alert and active in his waking times and at the same stage as babies 2 or 3 months older than him. I was certain it was this book my husband and I call 'our bible'. So everyone waited with baited breath to hear how this next baby would take to it. And lo and behold again I have the easiest baby.
It is possible it's a fluke and that both times I have been exceptionally lucky.... but I don't think so. The book was recommended to me with the advise of try it for 2 weeks before you give up. And I pass that on to everyone I recommend it to. With my first baby we started it at 6 weeks and he was sleeping through till 7am (other than 10pm feed) at 7 weeks. With the next baby he was a little more gradual (but we were also less structured) and he slept through till 7am at 10 weeks.
This book makes parenting easy. It means you all get to sleep well and we are all aware sleep deprivation is the 'mother of all evils'.
The benefits of this book become more obvious as time goes on and I see the experiences other friends are having with their non-sleeping babies. Patting them for hours to get them to sleep, loss of sleep for both mother/father and baby because the baby can't sleep without help, relationships suffering, angry with their children and their partners because they are tired, and worst of all just not enjoying parenting. With this book you will find you have so much time on your hands you want to wake them up so you can play. And when they are awake you can really truely enjoy them as you are also well rested. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
The worst thing about it is that as a normally non judgemental person I get most upset when I see so many people doing it wrong. And reading ridiculous reviews about how bad it is. My baby hardly ever cries and if you read the book you would read that Gina mentions that she would be surprised if any of her babies cried for more than a few minutes in a whole day. This is because you know exactly what they want and at what time- so rather than having to wait for them to cry to get your attention- you anticipate their needs. Hence happy children.
Another advantage we have found with the book is that my husband and I are always on the same page so to speak with where the baby is up to. We don't have to give a full brief when one is rushing out the door and the other one is taking over. We know when they need to nap, eat and bath. And each day we don't have to make up new plans of when we are going to do this or that. What a brain strain that must be to those people who have no routine. I hate routine for me but on those days when the baby routine is out the window due sickness or traveling or special events life becomes hard work. With this routine we know exactly what we are doing and for new parents with no previous experience people couldn't believe how relaxed we were.
It is all just so easy and most importantly ENJOYABLE. We can not believe how much we love being parents and how much FUN we are having.
One of the greatest gifts you could ever give your child is the ability to sleep well and if you actually believe you are being kind by rocking them to sleep then tell me how kind and gentle it is to have that poor baby waking up during the night and getting all upset because no-one is there to rock them to sleep-in effect they are forcing the wee thing to have to cry to get the attention. I am sure there are a number of books with similar techniques and as long as you stick with something that's sensible it will work for you.
This one worked exceptionally well for us. We don't always follow it to a T (and I never followed the volumes for breastfeeding and pumping) but we stick fairly close and I think it was written for the natural babies cycle so really requires just a little parental guidance to work well.
($51 is not a normal price for this book!!!!)

This book was recommended to me by a friend from the UK. It contains a schedule from 2 weeks to 12 months. The schedule is designed to fit the babies natural needs, it is not a rigid every 4 hour schedule. On the contrary as it evolves every 2weeks to 2 months or so. The schedule basically ensures that the baby gets enough milk and naps during the day so it can sleep through the night. I have to admit that we had a hard time making our baby follow the schedule the first 3 months but it gave us something to go by which made us a lot more confident. At 3 months, all of a sudden she followed the schedule, slept through the night from 7 to 7 and is just a very contented baby ever since.

What I liked about the book:
- Breast feeding advice was terrific (expressing and how to wean the baby -- worked very well for me ).
- Schedules are clearly explained no misunderstanding possible.
- For each period, Gina Ford suggests what to do socially with the baby and how the baby's feeding and sleeping habits are supposed to evolve.
- The book is small and to the point (in a military style) which made it very easy for my husband to read and understand. We were therefore on the same page on how to care for the baby, and minimized the number of "what are we suppose to do now?" questions.

Thank you Gina Ford, I don't know what I would have done without this book. I look forward to getting your next book!

Okay, my daughter will be two years old in a few weeks. We've been following Gina Ford since she was five weeks old, so I feel qualified to finally write a review. To sum it up: This book is fantastic, run don't walk to your nearest bookseller and get this book. Or, alternatively, you could just sit right where you are and click your mouse a few times.

I could go on and on about the wisdom of this book, but a lot of other folks here have shared many of the same experiences we've had so I'll try to cover some new ground.

My daughter at two has watched about one hour of television, including videos, her whole life. I've had friends ask me -- How do you do it? How can you take it? These friends say they just need the break for the 15 to 20 minutes that the kid sits motionless and passive in front of the boob-tube. I understand they need a break and I don't begrudge them it. The answer is, I don't need a break. And why don't I need a break? Because I, lucky duck, read and followed Gina Ford's advice. If your child is going to sleep at 7pm, and sleeping for two hours midday, you have plenty of time for yourself. No need to feel deprived - and perhaps begin to harbor resentment? - there. And if that isn't fabulous enough in and of itself, there's an added bonus: Your child's a pleasure to be with because she's had all her sleep! I spend most of the time my daughter is awake together with her and enjoying her company, doing things I feel positive about as a parent, not sticking her in front of a video. Are there off days? Of course there are. But they're the exception and not the rule.

Please don't be scared off by those naysayers that will have you believe you'll never breast-feed successfully if you follow Gina Ford's book. I breast-fed exclusively until my daughter was six months old, at which time I began to introduce solids. I continued breast-feeding until she was 13 months old. Later she refused to take a bottle, so the only milk she received was from the breast. The weeks before I started using Gina Ford's book my breast feeding experience was actually quite miserable. Not being able to figure out that my daughter was screaming because of sleep deprivation, I assumed hunger, and was putting her on my breast four times an hour. My daughter never drank well at that time - since the problem was actually many, many hours of missed sleep - and I was constantly engorged. To be honest, had I not been so motivated to breast-feed, I probably would have given up. Then, when I began using Gina Ford, the experience began to be the enjoyment I had always dreamed of rather than the nightmare it had become.

Hey all you pooh-poohers who say of Gina Ford -- She's not a mother. Neither is Dr. Sears, but I bet you read and worship him, don't ya?

Those who may be considering this book might think -- This kind of book is for go-getter parents, the types who are always on top of everything. At least that's how I felt when I first read this book. Thank my lucky stars I took a second look. It's not for the born organized only. It's also for the rest of us.

Please do yourself and your baby a favor and use this book. You are going to have the most wonderful experience. The one you always dreamed of, the one you knew would be.

I write this mainly to respond to two prominent critical reviews, one by a "sleep researcher" and the other by a pediatrician. Their reviews are marked by an extraordinary lack of balance or equanimity, which causes one to question the seriousness of their postings, and to wonders: what are they so outraged about, particularly given the positive testimony of so many people who have been aided by the book (myself included)?

First, let's examine the initial complaint of the "sleep researcher."

"I could not believe my eyes when I flipped to one of the routine pages. She has everthing laid out to the minute"

One hastens to make two points: First, the reviewer says she "flipped to one of the routine pages," and also mentions reading the introduction. One strongly suspects, given that the review that follows is merely an objection to the content of those two brief sections, that the reviewer never read any further. Second, as to the content of her complaint ("laid everything out to the minute"), how exactly is that an a priori disqualification of the book? Does the researcher have some God-given knowledge that highly articulated schedules are to be shunned? So she doesn't like them: that's hardly a reason to discount the success that many people have had with this book.

My own experience, not unsurprisingly, was that the method described by the author of the book worked better the more zealously it was followed. That's not to say I haven't made alterations to it in order to tailor it to my own life and my baby's needs. But I have done so after carefully reading the book (repeatedly) and understanding the principles that each of the tedious details represents.

It is also peculiar to me that the occasional need for flexibility (an important social engagement or growth-spurt induced feeding clusters) would be cited as reason to shun this book. Why? One of the benefits of having a very hard and fast schedule is that the rhythms become very ingrained and are not terribly disrupted by having a chaotic day or two once in a while. The rigorous schedule is precisely what gets you through the tumult without having to utterly start over again. (It probably bears saying, though, that people who are extremely literal or who have problems with authority probably should avoid this book. Such a person will not understand that on special occasions, schedules are often put aside, and that both the celebration and the schedule can live on, without one negating the other; but instead the person will become angry or resentful, feeling that impossible demands are being placed on them. And this may be the case with the reviewer.)

A related complaint is that feeding should not be scheduled at all. Feeding on demand, the reviewer says, is "proven" as the best method. Certainly, there has been a resurgence of this sentiment, backed, in many specifics, by some scientific findings. But certain questions remain open: for what age group? 1 week? 4 months? A year? How long do you carry that on? What are the implications for the mother's sleep and, thus, health? What about babies who want to suck for comfort and aren't really feeding? A weak-sucking on-demand baby gets a) little hind milk, b) an exhausted mother, c) no sense of distinction between day and night. At the same time, trying to implement a rudimentary schedule after a week or two will never prevent you from noticing that your baby is hungry. Nor does providing a set routine of feedings prevent you from supplementing these by responding to the baby's hunger at other times. On-demand and schedules are not entirely incompatible. (Ever had a snack and still ate dinner?) In fact, a baby who tends toward the late day cluster-feeding that the reviewer talks about could be easily incorporated into Ford's schedule, since the whole point is trying to get more eating done during the day time so that less need will be felt at night.

The hard part, the real "job" of interpreting the signs of these little pre-linguistic wonders, is figuring out sleep, which the baby often does not know how to recognize as a need and often does not know how to achieve it if she did. This issue becomes an enormous problem for many mothers, but the reviewer seems not to recognize it. Of course, she is a doctor, and doctors often have rather attenuated relationships with sleep. But some of us very much like to sleep through the night, and very much like to do so on a regular schedule. This book has proven helpful in achieving that goal for many people.

At the end of the review, the reviewer turns personal, and perhaps gives us some insight into my initial question: why the outrage? She apparently chooses to follow a more irregular schedule with her own child (goes out a lot, visits friends, doesn't keep a consistent routine, has fun!) and that is certainly her right. But she is reacting defensively, as if the existence of this book is an accusation against her and her lifestyle. It is not. Perhaps her baby sleeps more than enough on a less regular schedule. In any case, the reviewer's own insecurities should not be the basis on which the efficacy of this book is determined.

The reviewer dismisses all of the positive anecdotal evidence for this book as a sort of placebo effect: "any book may have worked for them."

I sincerely doubt "Catcher in the Rye" would have done the trick for my child, but admittedly, I didn't try it. In any case, this is a rather cavalier dismissal of data for a "sleep researcher" to be passing out. Aren't there other possibilities? What if it turned out that many of these people had tried other books, but hadn't found success? It's as if the sleep researcher knows all the answers already (a helpful talent for a researcher), without talking to the subjects, without reading the book. She has her degree and her list of "FACT," but are the actual facts--and not the lazy, generalized slogans then may engender--incompatible with this book? Not in my experience. In any event, how can she know without actually reading it? We might have actually benefited from her expertise if she'd read it and gave a more nuanced response, acknowledging areas of insight and practical successes of the book, while raising red flags in areas that women might want to be cautious of (e.g., don't be tempted NOT to respond to a hungry baby who isn't getting enough food on the schedule.)

Finally, Ms. Sleep Researcher, shame on you for criticizing Gina Ford's "gaul." You should rise above ad hominem, especially where such jingoism is involved. Frankly, I don't even think Ms. Ford is French.

The second reviewer, the pediatrician, also appears to have not read the book, which is a shame, and writes something that is clearly untrue, suggesting that the book counsels a breastfeeding schedule that will cause milk supply to diminish. "This book reccomends a lagtime of 5 hours in the daytime and almost 9 hours overnight for feeds." In fact, the book says quite explicitly that a baby should not go more than 3hrs between feedings in the first week. Did she read the book?

Or perhaps the doctor's point is not directed towards newborns, but older infants, when Ms. Ford's schedule does indeed suggest the baby sleep 8 hrs without a feeding? But if that is the case, what are we to make of the doctor's statement that her own child slept through the night at 5 1/2 weeks? And how, one wonders, did she manage to maintain her milk supply?!

What the doctor unwittingly acknowledges with her own experience is that schedules--whether rigorous or not--exist for everyone, regardless of their view of this book, and that they change frequently as infants grow older. The question presented by this book is whether they should change with some level of parental management. Should you push a baby towards longer times between feedings as the weeks pass, and towards a schedule that encourages nighttime sleeping and daytime eating? The book says yes. Rather than finding this shocking, I would think the rational reaction would be "inevitable."

Babies aren't born knowing that 8-10 EST is primetime and after that we head to bed. Left to their own inclinations, they may develop a habit of sleeping consistently for 8 hrs in the middle of the day. Any guess as to what will happen during the nights? But they respond like any human to repeated schedules. If you eat every day at a certain time, that's when you'll get hungry. If you are woken up at a certain time, that's when you'll tend to wake up. Anyone who travels across time zones knows that if you want to deal harmoniously with the world, you have to subject yourself to arbitrary schedules. The quicker you get on it, the better your days will go.

So it is for the baby: Newborns have special needs, but within a few months, they can indeed sleep for long periods of time. They won't do so automatically, however, and they won't automatically do so during the time of day you want them to. But, eventually, regardless of what book you buy, the child will have to live on society's normative schedule. Moving there gradually but expeditiously from the start will help everyone in the family, including the baby, get more sleep more consistently. The literature on the many dysfunctions caused by lack of sleep in the world today is copious and I commend it to the two MD critics.

Finally, the doc says that "babies need love to grow." That's sweet and true, but deceptively simply. Actually, they need people to express that love by giving them food and helping them to sleep. This book provides techniques that help you do that. The doctor seems to have had an easy time getting her kids to sleep through the night. But does she know people whose kids aren't sleeping that well after a year? I do. Mothers who are sleep-deprived month after month after month have an increasingly hard time being loving people, you will find.

As for my own view of the general efficacy of this book, I have only anecdotal evidence and thus, cannot guarantee anything about how your baby will react to any given schedule. If the proud MD critics here were behaving according to the methodologies their science degrees purport to represent, they would refrain from issuing their all-knowing fatwas as well, and would certainly not be titling their reviews with such inflammatory headings, or propagating actual falsehoods about the contents of the book.

Undoubtedly, not every reader will be able to live by Ms. Ford's schedule, and not every baby's sleep problem will be solved by it, and the book, in its tone and structure, is not perfect. But what I can say with confidence is that you should do what the two critics here obviously haven't done: read the book for yourself.

The advice in this book should come with a strongly worded health warning: it can be DANGEROUS for breastfed babies. Trying to follow Gina Ford's routine can lead to not establishing a good milk supply -- or reducing the milk supply once it is established -- and babies consequently not putting on weight and growing as they should.

Ford expresses sympathy with women who want to breastfeed their babies, and gives some partially accurate advice for establishing a good milk supply in the early days. However her book is riddled with so many innaccuracies that if you try to follow it "to the letter", as she insists you must, it is inevitable that you will have to provide top-ups of formula before your baby turns one, whether you want to do this or not, or risk damaging your baby's health and growth.

Ford is very critical of "feeding on demand" (less judgementally known as "baby-led feeding") and blames it for all sorts of behavioural and sleeping problems. She proposes a feeding schedule instead. She rightly points out that health professionals advise women to "feed on demand" because this is the only way to ensure that a baby gets as much milk as she needs. What she fails to address is how her feeding routines can ensure that a baby will get enough milk to meet his needs.

Here are just a few of the problems with Ford's breastfeeding advice:

1) For women whose babies are having sleep problems, she recommends that you express your milk at a usual feeding time on the theory that this will show you how much milk your baby is getting. WRONG. A woman's body responds to her baby in a different way than to a pump, and breastfed babies are more efficient at getting milk from the breast. Expressing will NOT tell you how much milk your baby is getting.

2) Ford states that feeds need to be spaced 3 hours apart because it takes the baby this long to digest breastmilk, so feeding more often than 3-hourly may cause gas problems. There is NO scientific evidence to support this belief. And if you examine Ford's routines, some of her feeds are scheduled 3 hours apart. If it takes the baby 1/2 an hour to finish a feed, this leaves only 2 1/2 hours in between feeds for it to be digested. So even Ford's routines don't adhere to this schedule. (Incidentally, a windy baby may breastfeed more often because this helps to RELIEVE wind.)

3) Breastfed babies who are fed as often as they wish to feed, do not need any additional fluids during hot weather, because the composition of breastmilk changes -- thus more foremilk is available to naturally increase their intake of fluids. The key however is to feed the baby as often as they wish. Breastfeeding on a schedule could lead to a baby becoming dehydrated in hot weather. Ford never addresses this possibility. (Giving water between feeds is not the answer, as this can fill up the baby's stomach and reduce their hunger, thus replacing some of the breastmilk which he or she needs for optimum growth.)

4) To avoid the "inconvenience" of feeding more often when a baby is going through a growth spurt, Ford recommends having a stock of expressed breastmilk available so that you can just give the baby more milk at his usual feeding times, rather than feeding the baby more often. There are two problems with this. Firstly, the composition of breastmilk changes over time to keep pace with the growing baby's needs. Furthermore, when a baby feeds more often it signals to the mother's body that the baby needs more milk, thus increasing her supply. Continuing to feed on a rigid schedule during a growth spurt may mean that the milk supply does not increase adequately to meet the baby's needs.

5) At one point in this book Ford states that a feed from one breast "can be classed as" half a bottle feed. Though her wording is vague, this seems to indicate that she believes a baby feeding from one breast is receiving the same amount of milk as a bottlefed baby who drinks half the milk in a bottle. This is an absolutely ridiculous idea, and suggests that mothers should be restricting breastfeeds in a completely arbitrary way to bring them in line with the number of times a bottlefed baby would be fed.

6) Ford says that once protein has been introduced at lunchtime, a baby no longer "needs" a milk feed at this time and that the milk will interfere with the absorption of iron from the protein. This is true of dairy products, but not of breastmilk. The iron in breastmilk is far more readily absorbed by the baby than that in dairy products (including formula). Dropping the breastfeed at lunchtime -- especially if the baby still needs and wants it -- will thus reduce the amount of iron that the baby gets overall.

7) As the baby grows older Ford recommends dropping breastfeeds so that by the time the child is one, they are only receiving two breastfeeds per day, in the morning and at night. This is not consistent with the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics and breastfeeding experts worldwide that breastmilk should remain a baby's primary source of nutrition for all of the first year. Furthermore, once a baby is only breastfeeding twice a day, the mother's body is receiving the signal that a baby is almost weaned, and therefore only needs a small quantity of milk -- which in most cases will not be enough to enable the baby to sleep through the night, thus leading to the night wakings that Ford's routine is designed to avoid at all costs.

Ford's advice may well be suitable for bottlefed babies. However she is very ill informed about the physiology of breastfeeding, and for her to offer such inaccurate advice on breastfeeding is highly irresponsible and potentially dangerous for the health of babies. I would recommend that both she and her publisher seriously consider amending future editions of this book to state that its advice is only suitable for bottlefed babies.

This method seems to work well for some, but not all babies....just like any other "parenting advice". I'm glad for the moms who found sanity through this book, but I'm afraid for the other families whose babies will not thrive on scheduling. Emergency rooms and doctor's offices are sadly accustomed to seeing babies who are not gaining appropriately, in fact are quietly starving without enough energy to protest their treatment, because mothers are not feeding them enough while following baby scheduling books. (Yes, I hear those moms whose babies fed well on this method, don't bother to reply, see below.) I would especially be worried about breastfed babies, because the natural rhythms of breastfeeding cannot be scheduled for all babies. Breastmilk is digested easily and quickly, and the fat and caloric content of breastmilk varies from day to day, hour to hour, even minute to minute during feedings. Mom's breast capacity, flow rate, and other factors can influence feeding frequency and duration. A clock cannot possibly dictate to a baby's stomach, which actually has receptors to monitor not only the volume but fat percentage of mom's milk to tell baby's body when she's full. This fat is essential for proper brain growth and neurological development. For the babies who gain weight well following scheduling books, it's simply a happy coincidence that these babies' physiology matches the author's advice. For those of you who wish to try Ford's advice, PLEASE be cautious, especially with younger babies: have the weight gain monitored carefully, watch your baby's signals, and always respond to your instincts.

I was given this book as a gift from a friend who used it and had a good experience with it. I have been using it for four months. I consider myself well read on a large variety of infant development issues and I found that she incorporates many of the expert opinions of other books into her schedule. She does seem to follow Weisblouth on sleep training, which I personally don't agree with. She is consistent with the No Cry Sleep Solution which is anti "cry it out" on how many hours of sleep a baby needs total and how long and how many naps they should take. These other data points gave me confidence in using her program once I realized that the book had the similar controversy in England as "Babywise" does in the US.

All that being said, my experience has been positive. I have used the book as a guide though. I think part of the controversy is that for her to give you a schedule versus just general advice, she does have to give some times, etc. and it can appear militant to some. If her ranges were too broad, she would negate certain helpful rules such as don't let the baby stay awake for longer than two hours. It is a bit of a Catch 22.

I really appreciate a few really key nuggets - don't let the baby stay awake longer than 2 hours. My child has never ever been inconsolable and the longest he has cried when he is slightly overtired (from not being on the schedule) is 10 minutes. I also like the idea of adding an extra feeding during the day to replace the "dropped one" at night. I loved doing the 5pm feeding, a bath and then a 6pm feeding. I also think the "dream feed" is a great way to let mommy have a reasonable bed time and get a few solid hours of sleep before getting up again. The 7am to 7pm schedule works really well too. My husband and I have wonderful evenings together and I think this has really helped us to maintain our relationship. I do think that the book advocates to feed them well during the day and make sure they have good naps, but not sleep all day long, not starving them, as some suggest. But I think giving them water or sugar water is generally accepted as not a good practice, I have never done this. I really love knowing why my baby is crying. I feel like that really helped me to learn his cues so that when he is off his schedule, I actually know why he is crying.

However, because I believe strongly in creating a healthy attachment, I have not followed the advice on "negative sleep associations". I rock and bounce my child to sleep, he uses a pacifier. I consider myself responsible for helping him soothe himself, until he can do it on his own. I followed this book in conjunction with Happiest Baby on the Block and the No Cry Sleep Solution. What I found was that I could have a nice outline of a schedule using her book, but used Happiest Baby to Soothe my son. Because I don't want to let him cry it out, I am using No Cry Sleep to gently ease him towards falling asleep on his own. The three go together nicely if you use each as a guide.

Some days I throw the schedule completely out of the window if he need me to. But I always start the next day at 7am, using her book as a guide. Alas, I have not experienced the miracle of having my child sleep through the night. He dropped all his night feedings for 4 nights in a row but then starting waking again. It was advised to me to let him cry it out at that point, it probably would have been the opportune time to do so, but I personally don't believe that is the right decision for us. He gets up anywhere between 2am and 4am for a feeding. I am happy to continue to do this as long as he needs, as he is 100% breastfeed and I am generally rested enough that I don't mind getting up with him. He eats quickly and I am off to bed again.

I cannot say if it is coincidence but my child is extremely happy. He has been able to play by himself since he was quite young under his mobile or in his bouncy seat. He is happy to sleep all night and take all naps in his "big crib". He smiles all the time and people constantly comment on how happy he is.

It is not practical to do this schedule to the minute and leave your house for errands and social dates. But I can say that the days that I am home all day with him and he is most closely following the schedule, he is the happiest. Also, I never delayed feeding him so he could stay militantly on the schedule. He was premie and doubled his weight at 8 weeks and is on schedule to triple well before his one year birthday. He went from the 5% to the 33% in 8 weeks on this program.

I think the most helpful reviews on this controversial book probably come from parents who have either tried and love the book or tried it in earnest and hated it. I tried it and liked it, with the caveats noted above.