The Contented Baby with Toddler Book

I recommend this book to any mom who is having a second child very close to their first as part of their repertoire of books and advice out there. It is worth a look. But absolutely use common sense when applying any schedules or feeding advice with your children. The exact schedules on this book probably work best with bottle fed babies than breastfed ones. But there is other advice that is very good like the establishments of routines, giving you ideas of what to do with your toddler in detail. That can be invaluable early on when your need the most help.I had my daughter when my son was 21 months old. I had been mostly following Sears’ “The Baby Book” and some of their advice was working, but some was not. I had become a bit disillusioned with their ideas, even though some of their advice we still use. At the time, I met a lady from the UK who mentioned the Gina Ford books and how she was following her advice with great success.Up to that point I had been hesitant to try anything other than attachment parenting, so I was not very well informed on having a routine. I was also nervous about being able to nurse my daughter while attending to a little toddler. At first I tried this out almost exactly as it was written with a few variations to suit our lifestyle and my desire to breastfeed on demand. Funny thing was that my son responded well to the routine, and my baby did too.Eventually, I took what worked for us from the book and incorporated it into our lifestyle and left out the things that did not work. In the end we are neither strict attachment parents nor are we too strict with our schedules, but we DO have a schedule. But please remember my caveat that one should also read some other ideas before implementing. Happy parenting!

If you are familiar with this author, this book is a combination of The New Contented Little Baby Book and The Contented Toddler Years. Gina Ford outlines how to fit your toddler's eating, sleeping, and playing schedule in with the addition of a new baby. She gives great ideas for what you can do with your toddler, say, while you're needing to feed a newborn. Her ideas and insight have been used in our home since our firstborn arrived in 2008. When we were expecting our second 16 months later, this book was a tool that I relied on, to give me insight to my toddler's transition with a new baby, as well as ideas for guiding me throughout my day (i.e. preparing a snack for my toddler before I got ready to feed the newborn, or getting my toddler's dinner ready and coordinating with me sitting to feed the baby). A lot of what Gina Ford suggests throughout this book (i.e. a toddler under 2 years isn't usually threatened with a new baby; they don't experience this unless they were older) I found to be spot on, true. It's easy to follow, easy to read, and a great support for anyone nervous about moving into the world of becoming a mum/mom of two.

We have a 14mth old and a 6 week old so this book was particularly relevant for us. There is definitely overlap between this book and the Contented Baby and the Contented Toddler Years but still contains tons of practical suggestions. We don't tend to follow all of the routines to the 'T' but rather look at the themes of positive or negative associations and/or behavior to watch out for.I loved Gina's Contented Baby as it was super helpful when you are home with a newborn and pretty clueless as to what to do. The same applied with introducing the toddler to the newborn and trying to sync their schedules so that you stay sane. Like with all childcare books..... You will agree and disagree with certain components of the text but overall her advice is sound, reasonable and down to earth. She has a no-nonsense approach to how to deal with your children and that resonates with my husband and I as we are more traditional and old fashioned in how we parent. If you are super new-age, liberal and don't believe in structure or discipline.... Don't get this book or any of Gina Fords as the content will be way off target for your style of parenting.

i'm a working mom so some of the things Gina writes about don't fit for me but nonetheless her basic frame work has made my life and my daughters a very happy one, i highly recommend her books

I bought this book because it sounded amazing. Anything I could do to help meet my infant's needs and keep my toddler running his life full speed ahead was somehting worth trying. However, this book did not work for us.First of all, the schedules do not allow for nursing at will (commonly practiced in the US). In fact, to get the baby feeding on a schedule, Gina Ford recommends giving the infant (of only six weeks old) cool boiled water to get between feedings. All medical research currently points to the fact that babies do not need water nor should they have it. Their little bodies are growing and need all the nutrients they can get, not filler. She then says that if the water doesn't work, add half a teaspoon of sugar to it. This goes against every bit of my instinct!The trickest part about the schedule is that Gina Ford has the babies on a 'schedule' from birth. However, medical research has shown that babies aren't really able to form a solid schedule until they are four months old. They will get on cycles, but not a set schedule.Finally, after getting the book and trying to figure out where Gina Ford's information was coming from, I was unable to find any credentials (in the book or on her websites). Although she has years of experience working with children (and I would be the last person to discredit personal experience), I have a hard time taking her advice when it contradicts specific medical research.

Gina's methods make sense and they do work, although I will have to buy a hard copy of this book, as I can't put flags on pages in my kindle, for those times when we are so tired and forget what we should be doing.

Read the contented little baby book before my first was born, so thought I would have a look through this follow up book now that second baby has arrived.In general I find the Gina Ford routines, or rather the style of writing, too prescriptive (I find it unnecessarily for her to stipulate the specific activities toddler should be engaged in at certain times of day for example). Having said that, there is some very useful information in here, in particular I appreciate the guidance on sleep requirements at different stages of the first year.I have several friends who follow Gina Ford's routines to the letter and swear by them, and others who wouldn't touch this book with a barge pole. But for us, a happy medium seems to work well, and i would definitely recommend reading this book if you are interested in establishing any sort of routine with your little ones.

I already have the contended baby book so was hoping for a little more guidance with my baby's routine to include school runs. Sadly this book doesn't really give you much to help and the routines are almost identical to the contended baby book so I've donated it to a friend and I've continued to use my old book.

I love GF and used the contented baby routine (quite loosely!) with child 1, but found this book to be a repeat of the baby book with little new info / info on toddler issues. Wouldn’t recommend it, just get the original book.

an essential for moms

Not as useful as her other books unfortunately. Also found it one week later for a quarter of the price in Aldi!