You can have a contented baby without this book. (The Contented Little Baby Book - Gina Ford)

Member Name: Claribella

Product:	The Contented Little Baby Book - Gina Ford
Date:	02/12/08 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some of the book is useful

Disadvantages: Far too strict

I was given this book by a friend. She had used it for her little one and thought it would be useful to me.

The book is written by Gina Ford who is one of the world's top maternity nurses. It covers a whole array of things concerning your newborn baby from birth until aged one year. The book takes you right back to preparing for your baby's birth explaining what equipment you will need for when your baby arrives. There is a section on arriving home after having your baby. She talks about feeding your baby either by bottle or by breast and covers how your breast milk works. It includes case studies of different children that have had problems with sleeping etc and it tell you how Gina managed to get the child sorted.

The main gist of the book is routine. It is very strict in what you can and can't do with your child. The four things that Gina says your baby will do if you follow the routine is:
'Sleep through the night from an early age
Feed regularly and well from either breast or bottle
Be less likely to suffer from colic
You will get a better night sleep and feel more in control'.

I was pretty intrigued because as new parent I wasn't getting much sleep. I started reading from the book ad trying to implement the routine that she suggested but I soon realized that it was pretty impossible unless I stayed in every single day for the rest of my life!
You see Gina would say get your child up at this time then feed them then change their nappy and then put them back to sleep at this time then do this and then do that. The thing was as we all know if you go out in a car a newborn baby will fall straight to sleep. If you go out in the pram your baby will fall asleep. If they fell asleep at the wrong time then the routine would be messed up.
Also the book suggests that you should put your baby in it's cot to sleep all the time. Like I said to follow the routine my life had to go on hold so I could be at my house to put my baby to sleep in his cot. I wasn't really prepared to do this.

I found the way that Gina suggests to bring up your baby far too strict and it just didn't fit in with my lifestyle so I took parts of the book and made it work for me. I did have a routine but not the one suggested in the book and my son did sleep through the night from an early age, he fed regularly and he didn't suffer with colic.

At the beginning of each chapter there is a little bit that explains shows you how much sleep your baby should be having during the day and what their feed times should be. Although I didn't stick to this rigidly I found it helpful to know how many hours on average my baby should be sleeping.

There is a small weaning section in the back of the book which I found very useful. It explains what to start your baby on and shows you what to introduce slowly. It also shows how much milk they should be having with feed times.

I have a friend who stuck to this book rigidly and got pretty stressed about it and her son still doesn't sleep through the night and he's 18 months. I don't think this book works for everyone and in places it's pretty unrealistic. I would say that you should definitely read it but only take what is relevant to you. I'm a firm believer in routine but there's no need to get yourself worked up about it. Take what suits you and leave the rest behind.

Summary: Tanke what you need, leave what you don't!