I make no apologies for saying how hideous/barbaric/abusive I think this is - but given the potential impact on the future "human behaviour" I figured it was relevant to this forum. (Afterall, some of these abused children will later grow up and buy horses.....)

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11000-2007210878,00.html

Good Lord! Is this woman for real? No cuddles? Fed once every four hours? In it's own cot in a separate room? This woman clearly has not had children of her own and a good job too. I hope people have more common sense and intuition than to take her advice.

And if she's watched the animals on the farm... then she didn't learn very much.

Wooooo - scarey lady!

Unfortuntately she does seem to be for real - apparently there is a Channel 4 TV program on the cards, although some child protection groups are trying to have it stopped.

I agree, I really hope people are more able to rely on their instincts but obviously there will always be those who look to gurus, especially if used by celebrities (and we all know they are stable role-models!). Sleeping through the night and the "feeding on demand" issues seem to be the biggest subjects new parents stress about so I can imagine people getting sucked in by her arguments. People just seem so crap about realising that even if you allow your baby to "dictate" 100% to you in the early days, you can still shape the behaviour a bit more round to a balance at a later stage. As with horses, no-one teaches behaviour, they teach methods!

On a related note, a few months ago I was talking to my Alexander teacher about the sleep issue and insomnia in the latter stages of pregnancy. She has a naturopathy background and her take on the insomnia was that it's not so much insomnia but the body preparing you for your baby's sleep/feeding patterns. Except of course most people fight it because we don't use our instincts and listen to our bodies. I've never heard this before from anyone else but it made such perfect sense. Nature never ceases to amaze me, even (or maybe particularly!) in my own body.

Catherine
(Off on holiday tomorrow, hurrah, so off-line for a week or so)

Absolutely agree with your Alexander teacher and funnily enough I was talking about this insomnia in pregancy with a friend the other night and guess what Chris said? That is was the body's way of preparing for sleepless nights with baby! And he told our friends that the only piece of advice he would give them was "to follow your own instincts". Pretty good huh!

Have a really great holiday

Don't really post much these days, but had to respond to this. A baby in its own cot in its own room? Do you think she knows (or cares) that the Foundation for Studies into SIDS (sorry, forgotten their proper title) recommends that a baby should sleep in the same room as its parents until it's 6 months old? How can she say that each baby is an individual and then advocate this 'one size fits all' approach? GAAAAAAHHHH! People like this make me very cross indeed.

ETA: Have a wonderful holiday Catherine. Hope you might be coming up to our neck of the woods when you get back?

Ha ha - Sam, I thought this one might tempt you out of lurkdom!!!

Yes thanks, we had the most fantastic holiday. Escapist bliss, the perfect antidote to real life, just what we needed. Bit of a shock coming back, it's bloody freezing! Last time I was in a heavy shower of rain I was also in the Indian ocean keeping warm (smiles smugly!). Managed the odd CZ-stretch though, did our first ever scuba dives which terrified the life out of me. Somewhat "laid back" approach to the safety instruction.... And we braved the local buses which is more of a CZ-stretch/threat to life than it sounds.

Looks like I have a meeting near Liverpool on the 5th July and will aim to incorporate a day at Jodrell as well. So will be on the scrounge for a bed for the night if that suits you... Hurrah, looking forward to it.

Helen, see you Friday (and please send me directions if you have them - I only have a postcode at the moment which generally means I'll get lost)

Catherine
(Catching up with posts and will respond to the new ones v soon)

Oh my God, that Claire Verity really was the evil witch that this article lead us to believe she would be. She was featured on the recent "Bringing Up Baby" program on Channel 4 as a representative of the "Truby King" method and it was just so heart-wrenching hearing the baby crying, ignored, upstairs while the parents sat crying and helpless downstairs - all because the "expert" was there telling them what to do. I was just willing them to tell the bitch to leave their home and let them get on with trusting their instincts. But sadly no...

Claire Verity gladly admitted to being a bitch but justified what she did by "it works". Oh well that's ok then. Maybe burying them under the patio would work too, is that just as acceptable? Having said that, there is a part of our selfish quick-fix culture that has people thinking that they "need" their baby to sleep through the nights from a very young age and so fuelling this sort of guru market.

I didn't see the last 20 minutes or so (joys of husbands getting their hands on the video record button...) but I think I'd probably seen enough. It was just the "method" mentality all over again, even with the more ethical methods included for comparison. If only parents, horse-owners etc etc could learn to rely on instinct and understanding of behaviour rather than following the rules so blindly. Anyhow, I don't need to preach to the converted....

To be fair, I understand that the parents used in this film chose their methods in advance without pressure from Channel 4 or gurus and were happy with the outcomes. I can't help wondering whether they would have "given in" to instinct though had they not had the highly-paid "expert" on hand to tell them what to do. And whether or not these parents were happy is kind of irrelevant when the message being put out to viewers is so appalling (ok, being I'm shamelessly unobjective there!)

On a more positive note, I've also heard that child psychologist Dr Tanya Byron has stopped her participation in programmes (eg House of Tiny Tearaways and Little Angels or whatever they were called) purely because of the way other people's problems have become such a part of entertainment. Good for her!

Was just going to post the following petition info:

--------------------------------
Clive Dorman who wrote the 'Social Baby' has started a petition seeking urgent action to stop babies and children being experimented on for the sake of good TV.

On the petition he says:

'TV broadcasters seem unable to embrace current knowledge of early brain development and how babies form secure attachments.

Channel 4's Bringing Up Baby explores three different parenting styles, most worryingly, Truby King. The programme showed seriously distressed infants, and sobbing parents being told to neglect their new baby as part of a routine ("it will soon stop"). It felt close to viewing child abuse. It is neglectful in 2007 to advise a new parent to bring baby home from hospital, shut them in their room at 7.00pm and leave them to cry.

The Children's Project, Unite/CPHVA and others wrote to Channel 4 / Silver River Productions. They refused to say who their experts are, yet feel confident they are protecting the best interests of infants.

BBC's Baby Borrowers removes infants from their parents so that teenagers can pretend to be parents. They too don't see anything wrong.

This being the case, there is either an ignorance of the emotional needs of children, or no will to embrace current thinking. Whichever it is, there is an urgent need to regulate how babies and children
(and their parents) can be portrayed in the media.'

Please sign the peition with us if you too feel that newborns should not be abused in this way.

Link: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/parentingshows/

---------------------------------------------------

Didn't realise it was a series, you mean I have to sit through more of it?!

C4 defends Bringing Up Baby

Robin Parker
12:00pm

Channel 4 has defended its child-rearing experiment Bringing Up Baby
as a responsible programme after the first episode attracted more
than 450 complaints.

Ofcom has received 367 calls and emails from members of the public,
who have raised concerns about the ethics of subjecting newborn
babies to three child-rearing techniques from the 1950s, 1960s and
1970s.

C4 said it had received a further 90 responses from viewers.

Cot death charity the Foundation for Sudden Infant Deaths also
condemned the programme after its broadcast. It said that one method
featured ~V allowing a baby to sleep in its own bedroom from day one ~V
doubled the risk of cot death and was strictly against the Department
of Health's guidelines.

The charity's director, Joyce Epstein, said: "Parents today are
bombarded by all sorts of contradictory childcare advice, and C4
should have made clear that there is evidence that some of the
Bringing Up Baby mentors' advice carries a risk."

A C4 spokesman said: "We take the welfare of children in this, as in
any series, extremely seriously. We were aware that views in this
area were wide-ranging and the breadth of approaches available to
parents are exactly what this series is about.

"A number of leading childcare professionals were consulted,
including an eminent paediatrician, who fully supported the
programmes, and we are satisfied the programme was responsible."

The broadcaster is to press ahead with the remainder of the four-part
primetime series.

I saw this last week, and after throwing things at the TV (really - luckily it was only the cushion I'd been hiding behind)I couldn't bring myself to watch this week. The barbaric woman telling parents to leave their child in the garden for 3 hours ("No, you don't need the door open!") is apparently paid £1000 per day for her services. I can't think of anything to say to that that isn't going to turn into a rant.

A very sad moment last week - the seven year old older sister of the baby who said she wanted to cuddle the baby, and was told she couldn't. By the end of the programme, I was ready to weep.

I only heard about this programme today, from two people at work. Both were disgusted by Truby King's methods and were also apparently willing her to tell this 'expert' to leave.

I wonder how on earth they got away with such an appalling experiment with such poor controls? I'm glad to hear that people within the industry are starting to see sense, but this makes Big Brother look like a fairytale! I haven't even seen any of it yet, but from these comments (and what I heard today) I'm not sure I'll watch it. I'd hate to damage the telly.

I'm sorry, this is shamefully off-topic and utterly gratuitous but kind of funny nonetheless. Just shows what you can get up to in the 10 minutes that you've "allowed" your client mother to cuddle her baby. Yuck!

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/3009_nanny_bedded_jagger.shtml

(And if you've bothered to do a websearch and find her site you'll see that funnily enough she chooses to use the young, glamour photo instead of the "this is how I really look photo"! That's not just a gratuitously bitchy comment (no really!), but doesn't it tell you something about the level of honesty with which she's working)

Just to add - I understand from reading elsewhere that Claire Verity might not actually be such a true representative of Truby King as was made out. That wouldn't surprise me - post-war Britain was a very different place with mothers under different sorts of pressures. I'm sure that the genuine Truby King stuff of the day had some good stuff in it, say like Henry Blake's books on horse behaviour. But times change and I think the real tragedy is that Verity hasn't been able to pick out the good stuff and leave the out-dated, unethical stuff well behind her.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2748754.ece

One of the comments below the Times Article:

"Does it really matter? HER 'babies' are sleeping from 7PM to 7AM. Are yours? What's a few made up qualifications when your newborn babies are sleeping ALL the way through the night AND you can have thirty guests over for a party?

Marie, GLASGOW, "

Yep, I agree. Scary stuff indeed. I don't understand how anyone could trust a perpetrator of such controversial methods, when she doesn't even have any children of her own. That's like me taking horse advice from my boss. She also looks worryingly like Vanessa Feltz, but that's immaterial!