Why I abandoned the baby book everyone swore by
When I had my oldest daughter, while living in London, there were two books that seemed to define the parenting culture in the world around me.
One focused on babies. The other on older children.
The first was The Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford. The second was Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua.
The underlying message of both was the same: with enough structure, discipline, scheduling, and control, parenting could produce predictable results that suited our lifestyle. In these books, children were, in many ways, treated almost like little robots designed to fit into our lives the way we envisioned they should.
This is the story of the first one.
The Baby Guru
Gina Ford was considered the “baby guru.” She carried credibility by proclaiming that she had helped look after over 300 babies as their maternity nurse — none of whom, of course, were available to comment on how they felt about her rules. With rigid sleeping and feeding schedules, she promised exhausted new parents that their babies could sleep through the night by 8–12 weeks, sometimes even earlier, provided you followed her instructions precisely.
Apart from your entire life revolving around your baby’s feeding and sleeping schedules, you were also expected to resist picking your baby up immediately when they cried at night. Instead, parents were instructed to wait.
Five minutes. Ten minutes… up to twelve minutes. In my world, it felt like a decade. For any parent, sitting there listening to your baby cry desperately for milk (or a cuddle) is excruciating. For anyone without children, try sitting completely still and doing absolutely nothing for ten uninterrupted minutes. It is a surprisingly long time.
And that was only the beginning. As I remember it, the rules went something like this. No eye contact with your baby after 10pm, in case they got the idea that night time was for engaging — life after 10pm was supposed to be utterly boring. Feed only at the allotted times. Never cuddle your baby to sleep. Never share a bed. Your baby should sleep in their own room, which should be completely dark. And if it’s past 7am and your baby is still asleep? Wake them. (Whatever happened to “never wake a sleeping baby”?)
There you have it. Rules, rules, rules. Here I was, finally meeting my long-awaited baby girl, and now I was told to keep her at arm’s length much of the time, and on a strict timetable.
Our Own Rhythm
To be fair (and mostly thanks to the pressure around me), I did try parts of Gina Ford’s philosophy, like many parents I knew — mainly attempting, from the start, to get my daughter onto some sort of schedule. Her book was such a phenomenon (and so hotly debated) that we even discussed her methods in my antenatal class. That was simply what was done in my circle at the time. Nobody really questioned it, and I hadn’t yet learned to go against the norm and trust my own instincts. Some mothers followed her methods religiously. Others partially complied. I ended up abandoning pretty much all of her instructions — my gut kept overruling the book — and my baby and I slowly found our own rhythm instead.
That rhythm amounted to a complete 180 from the manual: my daughter ended up sleeping beside me in a Moses basket — a major “no-no,” at the time. Very often she fell asleep on my stomach, which was probably “huge no-no number two.” (To this day, I occasionally yearn to have a baby asleep on my tummy.) When she cried at night, I was there to pick her up within seconds. It just felt like the right thing to do. (I know the safe-sleep guidance has since changed, so check what’s current.)
Truthfully, I probably could have let her cry it out a little longer sometimes. But I also loved the closeness. There was something deeply comforting about this tiny little person I had waited so long to meet, needing to be fed and cuddled. Gina would probably read this and be mortified.
I also discovered that having a baby I could carry around with me everywhere felt oddly liberating. After months of pregnancy where, toward the end, I felt more like a beached whale who needed regular rest, I finally felt free again…
Free to move through the world with my new little partner in crime.
You Do You
As a mother of four, I often get asked for advice, because let’s face it, the more kids you have, the more you’ve probably seen. One of my dearest friends is having a baby, and my only advice to her right now is: you do you. You will figure it out, and you will do what works for you, because at the end of the day we all just want the best for our kids. For some, that may look like a strict routine and crying it out.
For this mother, I can tell you, I loved breaking every one of Gina’s rules. I fed my daughter when she was hungry and picked her up when she cried. I did try not to look at her or engage after 10pm, but I lasted about a minute. Every time I took a sneaky peek from behind my hands, clumsily covering my face, there she was, her big brown eyes staring back at me with a humongous smile on her face. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? I’m not a robot either, so of course I smiled back, picked her up, and snuggled with her until we were both fast asleep. (Yes, I know, “crazy,” I hear you/Gina say.)
And if my baby slept past 7am, let me tell you something else shocking: there was absolutely nothing that would get me to wake my sleeping baby, because, let’s be honest, we all need a little more rest every now and again, and there is nothing better than a sleeping baby!
So yes, I probably broke all her rules and more, simply because they didn’t fit my way of parenting.
And you know what? I’m pretty sure my kids turned out great.
Of course, babies grow up. And just as I’d made my peace with leaving one book behind, the second one arrived.
(Stay tuned…)