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: #78 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

A Lifesaver!!!!
I bought this book whilst six months pregnant with my second child, and the moment it arrived I read it cover to cover.....WOW!!! If only someone had handed me this book with my first child I could have avoided so many tears (hers and mine)and had ample amounts of sleep. My son is now six months old and has been on Gina's routine since he was three weeks old - He was down to just one night feed by six weeks and was sleeping through the night from three and a half months. My husband and I have plenty of couple time in the evenings and eight hours sleep every night thanks to Ginas routine as our son is in bed, clean, fed, happy and sleepy at 7pm!! I am so thrilled with our sucess following Ginas rountine that I've been purchasing this book for any of our relatives and friends that are now expecting!! Buy it and more importantly FOLLOW IT!!!

This book is essential reading for all first time mothers (AND FATHERS!)
Molly was born 4 weeks ago. In the hospital the midwives had me propped up in bed demand breast feeding. I went 47 hours without sleep. I seriously began to think I was going to drop her. She fed CONTINUOUSLY! I was a wreck and she was irritable and cranky. I decided to start feeding her every three hours as Gina recommends whether or not she demanded it and gave her a soother after feeds to satisfy her "suckiness". The transformtion was amazing. She became calm and content within 48 hours. My mother isn't alive to help me out with advice and help and my mother in law has a typical mother in law relationship with me so this book had all the brilliant up to date information that got me through that terrifying journey home with my little pink bundle and got me over every hurdle since.

Gina has been there for me with this book 24/7. And yes the routines seem strict, but the way I looked at it was... I'm going to have to get all this stuff done every day anyway, might as well have a bit of structure and routine to our day and that allows us to plan. If I want to go somewhere with Molly I do it during her 3.30 nap and she snoozes happily in the car seat while I get on with whatever. If friends want to call I tell them that she's asleep after 7p.m. and I dont have a feed till 10.30p.m. why not call around after dinner for coffee and desert (they must bring dessert though!)My husband & I have qualiy time with her and with each other.
The proof of the pudding is in the fact that Molly hardly ever cries. She doesn't need to! She has parents that can pre-empt her every need and are calm, well-rested and confident. THANK YOU GINA!!

Can't praise it enough
Lots of people read the book and say 'its too rigid, i wont have a life', well thats certainly true of having a baby. But far from this, we found it was the opposite, it gave us a life.

I had a 57 hour long labour and terrible birth, and I needed someone to tell me my baby was tired - even though he looked far from it, and that he'd be hungry...we needed someone to tell us what to do, because when we got out of hospital, we weren't in any state to work it out for ourselves.

our baby boy has thrived on it. he's never hungry, overtired or upset, because he's in a routine that suits his age perfectly.

we've been able to go out from very early on, and be confident that our son will sleep soundly and not wake for the babysitter. 8 months on, and plenty of our friends haven't had an evening out!

I agree with the previous reviewer, it is for the mother, but its also for the baby. parents need their own lives, if the parents are happy, the baby will be too.