Baby steps: the great parenting debate that’s dividing the nation

In February this year, Ford, who described the "relentless and personal attacks" against her as libellous, instructed lawyers to have the website removed. But yesterday it was revealed that Mumsnet had apologised to Ford, with the promise to prevent further attacks on her name. While the details of the settlement remain unknown, it is understood Ford received a contribution from the website's owners towards her legal costs.

The case highlights not only the grey area of defamation law and the internet, but reinforces just how polarised attitudes are as to what constitutes good parenting. When Ford's book was published eight years ago, its impact on liberal parenting methods was explosive. Since the 1970s, many parents and nursery nurses had been giving babies and children a greater role in their own care, whereas previously infants were controlled rather than listened to and understood. The Contented Little Baby Book reintroduced that old-fashioned sense of nurture with a highly specified routine for infants and parents - a technique more familiar to older generations.

According to Ford, who was born and brought up in the Borders, babies should be fed at regular intervals, roughly every two to three hours during the first week, rather than whenever they cry, and should be put down for their naps at the same time each day. They should be woken if they oversleep, and should be left to cry - for a controlled period of time - to teach them to fall asleep on their own. Her book was, and continues to be, a bestseller.

Her approach is largely based on her previous work as a maternity nurse. For instance, she points out that premature babies cannot wake themselves up when they are hungry, and need adults to assist them in the process, approximately every three or four hours. Given this, Ford argues, the act of waking an older baby for a feed causes them no harm whatsoever, even though it might be temporarily unpleasant for parent and child.

Ford's detractors say her approach stifles babies' personalities and places the needs of the mother first. One leading childcare specialist, Sheila Kitzinger, has accused Ford of taking a "harsh, disciplinarian" approach.

However, educational psychologist and Herald columnist Dr Richard Woolfson says that while he understands the criticisms levelled at Ford, he has met many parents who swear by her methods. "Many of the parents I have spoken to who have turned to Ford have only done so when they started to experience problems with their baby's sleeping and feeding patterns," he says.

"They have said that, after introducing her routine, their baby has responded positively and their lives have been turned around. She takes a very polarised view, although that doesn't mean the method itself is wrong. Personally speaking, it didn't suit the approach my wife and I took to parenting, but if you're comfortable with it then good luck to you. If not, don't take it up.

"The difficulty with parenting is that we're not talking about an exact science. It is a combination of good practice learned from other people, personal experience and the personalities of parents and baby. Routine is very important in a child's life, but I do believe flexibility is required too. A slavish approach doesn't generally work.

"You can't tie down human development with a precise set of rules. Most parents choose the middle ground. You have to adapt for each child, and as you grow as a parent your parenting methods change."

The case for Gina Ford's methods
Lucy Smith, 30, is the mother of seven-week-old Archie. She and her husband Aiden, who live in Edinburgh, have been following Gina Ford's plan since their son was one week old. Here she describes how The Contented Little Baby Book has helped ease the pressure of early parenthood.

Gina Ford's book was recommended to me by some friends who found it really helpful when they had their children. It is very, very strict, telling you to do this and don't do that, so we decided we would adapt certain aspects of it to suit our lifestyle. We certainly haven't followed it to the letter.

Although I structure Archie's day pretty much according to Ford's routine, I will be flexible when I think it's called for. The plan is all about training your baby to feed and play during the daytime and sleep for the majority of the night. So far with Archie, the system has worked really well.

The majority of the day he feeds and is awake, and right now Archie is sleeping through the night and only waking once for a feed. He is still at the stage where I feed him five to six times a day, roughly every three to four hours. He wakes at 7am and he goes to bed at 7pm - but again, we are not slavish to these times.

I know the controversy about Ford's methods is about you actively waking up your baby to feed them, and it's not nice the first few times - especially when they look so peaceful and content. But if it means we both get some decent sleep then I'm afraid it's got to be done. I know a lot of midwives and doctors think babies should be demand-fed, but that means Archie could be up feeding three or four times a night and I'd be exhausted and unable to look after him properly during the day.

It's not about forcing your baby to sleep throughout the night; rather it's about feeding them as much as possible during the day so that, at night, they can catch up on the sleep they would perhaps have had during the daytime.

Gina Ford says a baby should always go to sleep in their cot, in a darkened room, but we haven't gone for either approach. We've adapted things slightly. We will, for instance, let Archie sleep in his pram if we go out to lunch or for a long walk.

Another thing Ford isn't keen on is having visitors over, or mother and baby going out during the first few weeks. Personally, I just felt I couldn't do this. It is very important that I see people and get out - and my family, who live abroad, came over to visit us. So Archie has been handled by people a fair bit, another thing Ford advises against, but I don't think he has suffered.

If you followed Ford's advice to the letter, life would be very strict indeed, but within the adaptations we have made, it has really worked for us. It's been great. I'd recommend it to anyone."

...and the case against
Jan Patience is the mother of Ciaran, now five, and Mia, three. She says Gina Ford's methods simply didn't work for her.

Although I didn't know it then, one of the best pieces of advice I was given in the fug-bound early days of my firstborn's life came from a friend with three young children. "Ignore all the advice," she said. "Miriam Stoppard and co don't know anything about you or your baby. Follow your instincts and you'll be fine."

Ironically, when I read her e-mail, I'd just been online, ordering Gina Ford's Contented Little Baby Book. I'd heard about it at a first-time mums' group. We'd all been talking about sleep: how little we were getting - or, in a few lucky cases, how much - and what to do when the little darlings just wouldn't settle. Taking note of my health visitor's raised eyebrows, I scribbled down the name "Gina Ford" for future reference.

Like many older mums, I'd been used to running my life in a semi-organised fashion, but the mental and physical chaos that followed childbirth (failing at breastfeeding; a baby that wouldn't settle; a Caesarian section wound that wouldn't heal) had me weeping in frustration at the smallest thing. I felt out of my depth and I needed a guru.

When Ford's book arrived, I read it from cover to cover - or, to be precise, I kept re-reading bits because my powers of concentration were shot to pieces and the nanny-knows-best tone and feeding timetables had me scratching my head in disbelief.

I would like to be able to tell you my baby became contented as a result, but I would be lying. Ford does talk sense - many of her tips on feeding were incredibly useful, and I cherry-picked advice from among the pages and pages of prescriptive control-freakery.

But for me, what didn't work was this obsession with control, be it controlled crying, controlled feeding or controlled sleeping. The only thing she didn't tell you to do was go to the toilet (although I can't confirm this because I handed my copy of The Contented Little Baby Book to a jumble sale last year).

Her methods work for many people, but they were not for me. I know I'm not alone in disliking being told how to think, which is probably why the Mumsnet debate flared up in the first instance.

In the end, I found a middle ground that allowed me to relax and to enjoy my baby. I broke all the rules by feeding him when he cried a particular cry, cuddling him when he cried another type of cry, and generally making our own flexible timetable. I did the same thing with my daughter, who was an even whingier baby.

Today, older if not wiser, I like to think I have two contented little children - no thanks to Gina Ford.