The Contented Little Baby Book

A father's experience of Gina Ford's The Contented Little Baby Book. This was written by Andrew Clover in the Sunday Times. Familiar?

I’ve been rereading The Contented Little Baby book by Gina Ford, which teaches a clear system that will make all babies content: 1) Wake them at dawn. 2) Feed every three hours. No more. 3) When you put them in bed, don’t jig, don’t sing – get out. Like Marxism, it’s a seductive theory, but, in practice, this happens. . .

1 Baby can’t wait three hours. Baby takes the view that if God didn’t want her to suck those things, He wouldn’t have filled them with rich, creamy milk. If she doesn’t feed every hour, Baby cries. So does Mum. Mum feeds Baby.
2 Baby manages to sleep, unaided. Then Baby gets a cold. Babies are contractually obliged to get 136 colds a year. She also gets mild jaundice.
3 One night, Mum tells Dad to put Baby down. Baby screams. Dad thinks: let her settle herself. Mum thinks: why is that cretin doing nothing?
4 Dad returns to Mum. She says: “Did you wind her?” “Yes.” “Check nappy?” “Yes.” Mum strides to Baby’s room. It has a rich farmyard odour. Mum picks up Baby, who unleashes a burp that shakes the very foundations of the house.
5 Baby screams. Dad pops outside. He pretends that he’s emptying the bin. He’s smoking. Inside, the screaming stops.
6 Dad enters to find Mum feeding Baby. She’s looking guilty but violent, like a lion that’s just slaughtered an antelope. Dad says: “G F says . . .” “That woman,” Mum says, “had no children of her own.”
7 Mum weeps. Tears plop onto Baby’s gleaming yellow head. “Shall we take her to hospital?” asks Mum. Dad, terrified, says: “No. We must all sleep.”
8 Mum calls the hospital. She asks if it sounds like her child has pneumonia. Dad tries to get hold of the phone. Mum gives the look alsatians have before they take out the postman.
9 Mum says: “Will you drive us to hospital? Or do you want us to get the bus?”
10 Dad drives them to hospital. At A&E, they see a woman who’s got her ear in the pocket of her jeans. Baby sleeps soundly.
11 After three hours, they see a doctor. He says: “Baby has a cold and a spot of jaundice. She needs rest.”
12 They drive home. Dad knows there is no animal more dangerous than a woman who’s been proved wrong. He says nothing, but acts wounded. Then he sleeps in the spare room. Mum forgives him, but expects him to do a hell of a lot of laundry. She vows that if she ever catches him not winding Baby again, she’ll divorce him. Better still, she won’t – she’ll stay with him out of spite.
13 At a party, she tells other mums that Dad is a devotee of G F. The mums couldn’t hate Dad more if he’d just confessed to torture. “That woman,” they say in unison, “had no children of her own.”

So true. Every new mum I know buys the book, none of them stick to it. It's too cruel!