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
