Product Description

The prospect of bringing a tiny baby home for the first time is daunting. Horror stories of sleep-starved nights, inconsolable crying and feeding on demand can make any proud parent fearful of the future. Maternity nurses have long been used as live-in babycare tutors who will settle your baby as well as boost your confidence; this book promises to do the same and for a fraction of the price! Gina Ford uses her years of experience in caring for hundreds of different babies to produce a plan that will ensure your baby is happy and contented. She believes that simple routines can avoid months of sleepless nights, colic and feeding difficulties that many people believe are a normal part of parenting. Her babies feed regularly and well, never have colic and sleep through the night at six to eight weeks. Practical and calm and using lots of parent-friendly schedules and time-plans, The Contented Little Baby Book has already worked for hundreds of mothers and babies all! ! over the world. Now it can work for you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
If you are still struggling to get your newborn to sleep through the night, still getting up throughout the night to feed the little one, or perhaps you are feeling as if no end is in sight, you need to read Gina Ford's The Contented Little Baby Book. It may be the only thing you need to bring peace back into your frazzled existence with your tiny baby, or babies.

After all, this book promises to teach parents tried and tested methods to get their baby to sleep through the night by the time they are 10 weeks old.

For parents who are craving their first night of unbroken sleep, Ford's book may be the answer.

Ford's methods conjure up the image of a strict and loving old nanny from yesteryear. Her techniques go against the grain of many currently popular parenting philosophies. For example, Ford, an experienced maternity nurse, is against demand feeding, believes in the necessity of waking a sleeping baby in order to establish a daily routine. Her philosophy may not be the norm today, but Ford is confident of her methods based on years of experience handling hundreds of babies.

Providing an hour-by-hour, week-by-week guide on how to get a new baby into a routine, the book includes feeding and sleeping schedules based on a baby's age. The Contented Little Baby Book provides so much information that it may be necessary to keep this paperback book handy for reference should you employ Ford's techniques.

Experienced parents may not benefit from Ford's methods, but first-time parents may learn a lot from her ideas, and for the discerning reader of parenting books, this one is a must have. For the reader who would like to weigh other parenting methods before adopting Ford's techniques, the following books may be of interest: The Baby Book, by William Sears, M.D. and Martha Sears, R.N.; What to Expect in the first year, by Eisenberg, Murkoff and Hathaway; and Your Baby and Child, by Penelope Leach. --Abbe Jacobson

The Telegraph
`This book could be your salvation!'

You Magazine (Mail on Sunday)
`Gina Ford is the Delia Smith of parenting...'

Customer Reviews

Love it or hate it
I found this book to be badly written and quite difficult to follow. The same points could be communicated using half as much paper and the author seems to spend an awful lot of time blowing her own trumpet.
Don't let this put you off though, the underlying theory of the book is a good one but it is not presented simply. I perservered and found that by referring back to certain parts it made a little more sense.
I almost wore myself to a frazzle trying to implement the routines exactly as laid out in the book when I got straight out of hospital and in the end I adjusted and simplifed the routines a little, wrote them on the noticeboard (so my husband knew what was going on!) and everything just clicked.
My little boy has almost completely dropped his night feed at 8 weeks and was sleeping five to seven hours pretty much from ten days old.

The most valuable tip in the early days was to express in the morning so my husband could do the 11pm feed, allowing me to have a bath and get to bed around 9pm.

My advice would be to read the book, and take some of the ideas and fit them into YOUR routine, otherwise its pretty difficult to even leave the house as every minute is accounted for.
Good luck.

An absolute godsend
I bought this book when my baby was 8 weeks old and was very sleep deprived. I was very sceptical about it and was convinced it wasn't going to work but I have to say it did. I followed the routines for feeding but adapted the more strict bits to suit myself and my baby. The result was (and still is!) a very happy contented baby who at 12 weeks slept through the night. Getting those evenings back is priceless! I am proud to admit to being a control freak and found the book an absolute godsend. I would recommend it to all new mums who have no clue about what they are doing!!I am now using Gina's book for weaning which again has proved an absolute success.

Try it and see-thank you for our happy, contented baby!
We bought the 'Baby Whisperer' when pregnant with our 10 week old daughter and loved the idea of an 'easy' routine which was led by baby and was not rigid. We were particularly interested in the self soothing as we wanted our daughter to learn to do this fairly quickly as we had seen too many frazzled parents rocking/singing/pacing their babies to sleep. Our little one was a baby who showed no signs of tiredness until she was totally 'overtired' and we just could NOT seem to preempt her. I developed PND and was so worried that she would not sleep on her own and we would be constantly having the soothe her. I had heard alot about Gina through NCT lessons and other friends and knew that the book was either love it or hate it but decided to give it a go. Within one day She was a changed girl...instead of waiting for a yawn (which never came!) we placed her in her moses basket at the 'correct' time with some nature sounds and fully swaddled and she drifted off into a happy and long sleep! Hooray!

We do not follw Gina to the letter as our little one needs a bit more sleep than suggested for her age but it has worked miricles for us as we now have a lovely evening, a lovely 2 hour break in the day and she has been sleeping through the night from 7 weeks old. I must admit that I love a routine myself and it has really helped me relax as it is like being told what to do. It wouldn't work if you are a more 'take it as it comes' person.

I am so proud of our contented baby and often have comments like 'you are so lucky' and 'isn't she an easy baby' but they were not around pre-gina when she was overtired and fractous!

I would reccommend trying the book and seeing...it can't hurt (just ignore the breast feeding advice as it is quite complicated when it doesn't have to be-I don't express) if you take the 'bossy' tone with a pinch of salt.