Gina Ford is a phenomenon. Every parent in England will have heard of Gina Ford, and most will have a very firm opinion about her. The majority appear to be split into two opposing camps: one that loves her and one that hates her.

I looked at her The New Contented Little Baby Book before I’d heard about Gina, found the book terrible, and put it back on the shelf. Eric bought it because “everybody knows Gina Ford, so let’s see what all the hoopla is about”.

So what is the hoopla about? Her main point is that babies need routine. Things should be done in the same order and at the same time every day. A large part of the book (50 pages) is filled with detailed schedules setting out feeding and sleeping times with 5-minute precision. Another 30 pages are dedicated to discussing the different parts of the routine. This is supposedly “the secret to calm and confident parenting” (as the front cover blurb promises) and will lead to a contented baby.

This is the complete opposite of the “feed-on-demand, baby-knows-best” approach which seems to flourish in some places (notably among Swedish midwives, from what I read on Swedish parenting sites). In Sweden the common view seems to be that you shouldn’t meddle with small babies’ sleep rhythms but leave them to find their own rhythm. But I don’t see how a baby is supposed to figure out that night is for sleeping and day is for playing, if parents don’t teach this.

And the followers of each approach are often fully convinced that the others are mad, misled, and probably horrible parents. Gina’s book, therefore, gets very conflicting views from readers: of the 478 reviews on Amazon UK, 76% give it either 1 or 5 stars. Gina has even been compared to terrorists, and sued an online forum.

I started out reading The New Contented Little Baby Book mostly out of curiosity (and because it was there). I was inclined to discard much of the talk about routines. It just sounded ridiculous – and insensitive and unworkable. In the first few weeks I fed on demand, and Ingrid slept most of the time when she wasn’t eating. But then as she became more alert, I gradually felt the need for some more order, and started using a simple sleep-eat-play routine (i.e. doing things in that order, all the time) based on Tracy Hogg’s advice. I found it helpful, but at the same time it was hard to figure out how to adjust this as her sleep needs changed. And I was still spending a lot of my time guessing – is she tired? hungry? in pain? simply cranky?

I came to refer to Gina’s book more and more frequently for a more carefully considered routine. At first I was thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I am following this horrid book,” and yet I was gradually won over. Ingrid took well to having a routine, and I liked having one. It simply works very well for us. I have made a 180-degree turn: I now find Gina’s routines very helpful, and I am glad I have this book at hand. In our household we’re now on first-name basis with Gina: “Gina suggests…”

But I still can’t say that I like the book. I’ve got the hate-Gina and the love-Gina camps both right here inside my head, because the book manages to mix very good things with very bad ones.

This is what Gina gets right:

• I totally agree that having a routine is good and leads to more confident parenting. I find it much easier to read Ingrid’s signals when I can immediately exclude several reasons for crying. Ingrid never gets overtired; she is happy almost all the time and rarely cries without an easily discernible reason. And she definitely never cries for long (unless she is in pain because of reflux) because I can figure out what she needs, and help her.
• A routine makes it a lot easier to distinguish baby’s habits, and to tell chance from a changing habit. Because we do things at roughly the same time every day, I notice quite easily when Ingrid is able to stay up longer without bad effects, and when she is getting too much daytime sleep (because she is awake for a longish stretch during the night).
• A routine means that I know when Ingrid will sleep, which lets me plan my own day as well. (And it ensures that I get my daily feeds as well!) And since we have a well-functioning basic routine, I can adjust it when necessary to fit in outside activities.
• Gina provides not just a routine like some other books, but a routine that changes over time. There is guidance about which naps should get shorter, and which waking times longer? This is probably the most important and useful part of the book.
• Gina’s advice to limit daytime sleep by waking baby from naps was counterintuitive, but turned out very helpful. Ingrid learned the difference between day and night quite early, unlike some babies I read about.

This is what Gina gets wrong:

• She assumes that all babies and all mothers are the same. “Baby should eat x minutes on the first breast and y minutes on the second breast.” One day Ingrid may need 10 minutes for a feed, and the next day it takes 25. And this is just a single baby and a single pair of breasts! Imagine the variation, then, among millions of combinations of babies and breasts. A baby should eat until she is full.
• While she does say that her schedule is a guideline and should be adjusted as needed, the wording of the schedule flat-out contradicts this (“He needs a sleep of no longer than 45 minutes”) and there is hardly any advice in the book on how to adjust the schedule if you think it isn’t right for your baby. I get the impression she really means that the schedule should be strictly followed, but then everybody would get all upset, so she says (without much conviction) that it’s just a guideline.
• She pays too much attention to minute details and ignores more important questions. The schedule micromanages the day (down to telling you what to have for breakfast: “8am: try to have some cereal, toast and a drink no later than 8am”). But at the same time there’s no help for dealing with mishaps. If the baby woke up an hour early, do you stretch each nap a bit, or just the longest one, or do you put in an extra nap? You’re on your own there.
• The book commands instead of explaining. Why is this nap longer than that one? Why is the third nap dropped first? You can figure this out by experimentation and observation, or (more likely) see that it just works that way, but but more explanation would certainly be useful.
• She strongly discourages doing anything that upsets the routine, most of all getting out of the house. If you listened to her you wouldn’t even be able to go to the doctor, not to mention shopping or coffee mornings! Mothers need a life, too!
• Much of the book is written in an unpleasant tone which I found quite offputting. It’s all about “should” and “must” and “must not”: I picture a nurse in a starched white uniform who will not listen to anything you say. There is no joy. She is also far too fond of doling out guilt and disappointment: a baby should be able to do x at 3 months, and so on, and anything that goes wrong is because you haven’t done everything exactly as she says. As another reviewer put it:

  I would say that this book actually should come with […] a volume controll- to turn down Gina shouting at you for being a very bad parent.

• Finally I think the book is badly organised. It is hard to find the important bits, and even the schedules are not so easy to read. The book would definitely gain from a better editor.

As I said, I do find Gina’s advice helpful. But following it to the letter, as she insists, would be a nightmare. I’d need an alarm clock. My whole life would be taken up with her schedule. As it is now, we often deviate up to half an hour in either direction from the schedule, depending on what seems to be needed. Yet the only reason I can fiddle with the schedule (for example to fit in a swimming lesson at a time when Ingrid would normally be getting sleepy) is that we have a schedule to begin with. In order to break the rules, you first need to know what the rules are.

And Ingrid would most certainly not be contented with Gina’s standard routine. She has always needed more sleep and more food than Gina’s “average” baby. At the age of 3 months her routine most closely resembled what Gina suggested for a 2-month-old. At 3.5 months she still wakes up twice every night for feeds – and it’s not just snacking, she takes a proper meal. And she definitely cannot be just put down in her bed awake, in the dark, to fall asleep on her own.

Buy the book. Find the best bits and ignore the rest. Add a large dose of common sense, and relax about the schedule. Then Gina’s book truly is useful.

Amazon UK, Amazon US.