I agree with fea, it is the sequence of events that your baby gets used to not the strict routine, I have always from day 1 done bath, feed and then bed for Isaac and within 2 weeks he was settling well at night, other than that your baby will sleep when hes tired and eat when hes hungry, you are not always hungry at the same time of day so why would your baby be? Also you are not always thirsty when you have a cup of tea sometimes you just fancy one. I know there are many people out there who swear by her routines but there are equally as many who feel a complete failure when trying to follow them.
What it may be helpful to remember is that she doesnt actually have any children and I find it very difficult to take advice from a person who has never had a baby.
I've not read any of the Gina Ford books as she is a little too strict for me but I do think babies benefit from a good routine. We introduced a daytime routine with Millie at 7 months as she wouldn't sleep during the day. It took a few weeks but once she was napping at the same time every day she was a much happier, more settled baby and slept better at night (she has slept from 7.30 till 7.30 from 7 months). I wish I had tried to get her in a routine earlier but as a new mum I was clueless as to how much sleep babies need during the day and how to spot the signs when they are tired. Barney is now 3 weeks and is already starting, with a little help, to fall into a similar routine. It is much easier this time round as I can spot when he is tired enough to settle before he gets over tired. Both of mine have always been fed when they are hungry but I will wake Barney for a feed if he has gone more than about 3 1/2 hours without. I think the thing to remember with the Gina Ford routines is that they take a while to work and you might need to adapt them to suit you and your baby. It's really not worth beating yourself up about if they don't work for you. xx
Im not sure what you mean by 'torture', or appreciate the idea that you persume I would inflict any form of unpleasentness on my child, they are just a set of simple routines, which as a first time mother with a rubbish HV, were usefull.
Either way, each to their own, these forums are for people to discuss ideas etc, you dont have to agree with them. If your looking for someting more one sided and sensored you might want to look else where.
bhrolachain i wasnt implying that you were torturing you baby in fact if you read my post its the gina technique that can be torturous for both mother and baby as you have found out its actually the sequence that is more important than routine that is stuck to a time shedule. it inhibits you for going out and can upset baby by enforcing things on it like food or sleep when nither is what is wanted by baby. imagine getting woke up and fed straight away or sleeping soundly with no work to go to and your oh getting you up at 7 anyway cos thats your routine..or being told you have an hour so sleep!!! babies are wee people. i have been using BE for some time and your right it is a great place for info and you get honest true life experiences from mums who have been there done that and got the t shirt so to speak. i bought gina fords book as i have 10 years between my kids so felt like a first time mum again and i was shocked by her methods as i have strongly written before so i wont go there again but as you say everyone to there own if you find it usefull then you go girl !! but i have a worry that baby will get to three and you will wonder where all the time has gone and look back and wish you had done those cuddles that you wanted to do but felt that the "routine" would be upset so you never ! im not an airy fairy go with the birds kind of girl and i have a sequence of event that tell my baby whats happening next so i suppose you could say i have a routine but not one that is set by a timetable and although i do wake my baby from her afternoon nap its because she sleeps better if she only has an hour but that was trial and error with her not cos i read i should i never dream fed her and she has slept very well for a breast fed baby so the sequence is the key i think fea x
I can see where your coming from but I dont get the torturous thing, it doesnt envolve forcing food or sleep on the child when it doesnt want them. I also get lots of time to play with my littlin when hes awake and up for it. Maybe Im just lucky and he has adapted to it quite well, when I need to go out I just do it during his naps. Im not militant about following it to the letter so if hes sleeping Im not bothered if its at home or in his pushchair out and about. To be honest Id prefer him get used to sleeping anywhere (cant say Ill be saying that when hes 16!!)
im glad its working for you chick and you do whats right for you and your baby and as long as your both happy well tell the likes of me to p*ss off lol x iget on my high horse about this cos i had friends who did nothing but beat themselves up cos it wasn't working and they couldnt understand how mum was frazzled and baby cried all the time!!( mum got pnd and was on tabs and her nice hv thought it was the stress of a failing routine so banned the book from the house lol ) she eventually went for sequencing events and her wee one was so much happier and so was she. im lucky cos i am the youngest of 4 sisters so i got a lot of advice (didn't take all of it lol) so it wasnt such a shock when my son was born. i can see the appeal for first time mums hence why i bought the book for when i had my daughter but i dont agree with her methods at all and the cruks for me was the fact she has no kids herself??? yes she is a nanny but no matter how many kids she has nannied for its TOTALLY different when that baby is your own flesh and blood and the emotional embroilment kicks in.be happy with your baby is all i say and there is nothing like the big toothless grin that says i love you mum no matter what fea x
I think if you want to try Gina then go for it but don't beat yourself up, if it doesn't work. Personally I think it's madness! But I only say that cos I know I could never be that organised! I do think that my LO would benefit from Gina because he is adaptable and has never had any problems like colic or clingyness but I just do it my way, never bothered dream feeding and he has slept 9 - 7 or 8 since 6 weeks old and slept 9 - 5.30 since 3 weeks old. x
I sort of follow this routine, and I have found as a first time mum with no friends who have babies this age ( I am 31 so most friends have no kids or older kids- and those with older ones have forgotten the baby stage!) I have found it really useful as a guide, and as such I have adapted it for me and my baby. I was trying to remember how I came about feeding him at certain times etc, but he fell into his own time pattern which happened to be 7am/10am so forth- but if he needs feeding earlier or later than I take his lead on it, I certainly don't shove a bottle in his mouth becuase a book tells me too. I use Gina's advice on settling him etc- although I find some of it- such as no eye contact utter madness!
I think if you have a certain level of intelligence you can take from it what will be useful and develop your own routine, based as closely or loosely to hers as you wish.
My little boy settles well at night but I am having trouble settling him for his lunchtime nap, I am not bothered where he sleeps, cot if we are at home, or his bouncy chair, car seat or pram if we are out. I am wondering if because I don't settle him in same place for his nap it is affecting his sleep. I know he is over tired, and he is grumpy in the afternoon without his sleep, so any advice, gina fans or not!??
Mine was the same, and I used to take him out in the pram or sling some days. Since I stopped doing it and put him down in his moses basket every day at that time he has eventually started to settle sooner, today he even lay there awake amusing himself for half an hour before nodding off. Dont get me wrong, it involved a fair few days of having to keep going back to settle him and even giving in to the dummy (I did try do the exact same things each time in the same order including holding him the same way each time). I have noticed that if after an hour of being awake I start winding down the interaction so as not to overstimulate him he goes down easier. I try follow his lead on that, if he starts looking like hes not interested I ease off. So either hes getting the hang of his afternoon nap or the heat lately has been knocking him out and as soon as it goes he'll be wide awake again.....
I am struggling with the lunchtime naps, he used to go down a treat, but lately he is not sleeping and it doesn't matter what i do, even if I let him fall asleep on me and then move him to his moses basket, he wakes. I might have to try to settle him at lunch the way I do in the evening. I am finding he is so unsettled due to the heat, he is restless and off his food- and he loves his milk!! Last night he would not take his full feed, therefore woke earlier in night and this morning for his bottles. I have got so used to him sleeping 11.30-4.30 that a 3am wake up was a shock!! Esp as I had a friend over and had had a glass of wine!!
Do you have a hotmail address? Though if you did we could give each other a bit of support sticking to this!!??
Good luck tonight! I am off to make some bottles before the next feed!
I have a question, I'm trying to follow the Gina ford book but I am breastfeeding, my LO is 7 weeks old - I feed my LO at 5 and then again after her bath for her to settle at 7 which she does well at and doesn't wake up again till 10/10:30 but then when it comes to the next feed I don't know if I'm supposed to unswaddle her or whether oys supposed to be a dream feed? She's a pretty sleepy feeder so only does 10 minutes before she's fallen asleep and then she obviously won't go till 7 she wakes up again in an hour for more food and is hard to settle, how can I break this?
Replies
What it may be helpful to remember is that she doesnt actually have any children and I find it very difficult to take advice from a person who has never had a baby.
I think the thing to remember with the Gina Ford routines is that they take a while to work and you might need to adapt them to suit you and your baby. It's really not worth beating yourself up about if they don't work for you.
xx
Im not sure what you mean by 'torture', or appreciate the idea that you persume I would inflict any form of unpleasentness on my child, they are just a set of simple routines, which as a first time mother with a rubbish HV, were usefull.
Either way, each to their own, these forums are for people to discuss ideas etc, you dont have to agree with them. If your looking for someting more one sided and sensored you might want to look else where.
i wasnt implying that you were torturing you baby in fact if you read my post its the gina technique that can be torturous for both mother and baby as you have found out its actually the sequence that is more important than routine that is stuck to a time shedule. it inhibits you for going out and can upset baby by enforcing things on it like food or sleep when nither is what is wanted by baby. imagine getting woke up and fed straight away or sleeping soundly with no work to go to and your oh getting you up at 7 anyway cos thats your routine..or being told you have an hour so sleep!!! babies are wee people. i have been using BE for some time and your right it is a great place for info and you get honest true life experiences from mums who have been there done that and got the t shirt so to speak. i bought gina fords book as i have 10 years between my kids so felt like a first time mum again and i was shocked by her methods as i have strongly written before so i wont go there again but as you say everyone to there own if you find it usefull then you go girl !! but i have a worry that baby will get to three and you will wonder where all the time has gone and look back and wish you had done those cuddles that you wanted to do but felt that the "routine" would be upset so you never !
im not an airy fairy go with the birds kind of girl and i have a sequence of event that tell my baby whats happening next so i suppose you could say i have a routine but not one that is set by a timetable and although i do wake my baby from her afternoon nap its because she sleeps better if she only has an hour but that was trial and error with her not cos i read i should i never dream fed her and she has slept very well for a breast fed baby so the sequence is the key i think
fea x
fea x
I sort of follow this routine, and I have found as a first time mum with no friends who have babies this age ( I am 31 so most friends have no kids or older kids- and those with older ones have forgotten the baby stage!) I have found it really useful as a guide, and as such I have adapted it for me and my baby. I was trying to remember how I came about feeding him at certain times etc, but he fell into his own time pattern which happened to be 7am/10am so forth- but if he needs feeding earlier or later than I take his lead on it, I certainly don't shove a bottle in his mouth becuase a book tells me too. I use Gina's advice on settling him etc- although I find some of it- such as no eye contact utter madness!
I think if you have a certain level of intelligence you can take from it what will be useful and develop your own routine, based as closely or loosely to hers as you wish.
My little boy settles well at night but I am having trouble settling him for his lunchtime nap, I am not bothered where he sleeps, cot if we are at home, or his bouncy chair, car seat or pram if we are out. I am wondering if because I don't settle him in same place for his nap it is affecting his sleep. I know he is over tired, and he is grumpy in the afternoon without his sleep, so any advice, gina fans or not!??
Thanks
C x
Mine was the same, and I used to take him out in the pram or sling some days. Since I stopped doing it and put him down in his moses basket every day at that time he has eventually started to settle sooner, today he even lay there awake amusing himself for half an hour before nodding off. Dont get me wrong, it involved a fair few days of having to keep going back to settle him and even giving in to the dummy (I did try do the exact same things each time in the same order including holding him the same way each time). I have noticed that if after an hour of being awake I start winding down the interaction so as not to overstimulate him he goes down easier. I try follow his lead on that, if he starts looking like hes not interested I ease off. So either hes getting the hang of his afternoon nap or the heat lately has been knocking him out and as soon as it goes he'll be wide awake again.....
I am struggling with the lunchtime naps, he used to go down a treat, but lately he is not sleeping and it doesn't matter what i do, even if I let him fall asleep on me and then move him to his moses basket, he wakes. I might have to try to settle him at lunch the way I do in the evening. I am finding he is so unsettled due to the heat, he is restless and off his food- and he loves his milk!! Last night he would not take his full feed, therefore woke earlier in night and this morning for his bottles. I have got so used to him sleeping 11.30-4.30 that a 3am wake up was a shock!! Esp as I had a friend over and had had a glass of wine!!
Do you have a hotmail address? Though if you did we could give each other a bit of support sticking to this!!??
Good luck tonight! I am off to make some bottles before the next feed!
C x
I have a question, I'm trying to follow the Gina ford book but I am breastfeeding, my LO is 7 weeks old - I feed my LO at 5 and then again after her bath for her to settle at 7 which she does well at and doesn't wake up again till 10/10:30 but then when it comes to the next feed I don't know if I'm supposed to unswaddle her or whether oys supposed to be a dream feed? She's a pretty sleepy feeder so only does 10 minutes before she's fallen asleep and then she obviously won't go till 7 she wakes up again in an hour for more food and is hard to settle, how can I break this?