Whether you see Gina Ford as the Great Satan or as the Patron Saint of Modern Mothers, hardly any parents are neutral about her. For first-timers there is no escaping The Contented Little Baby Book. On five separate occasions, my partner and I were told that we "must" use it by zealous, if well-meaning, other parents (we did not take their advice). Now comes her new book, Potty Training in One Week (to some parents this title may seem as plausible as World Peace in One Week). Seriously, no working in partnership with you then? The copying to the letter sounds like something my 80 year old aunt believed along with feeding on the potty. Yes consistency is important but if the child has the right chemical to allow them to be toilet ready a couple of days is plenty. But, most of all, it is a form of restitution: she is giving mothers the experience her mother did not have. "A lot of my success is that I mother the mothers because when you're feeling frightened, or alone, or unsure, you don't want to sit and analyse; you want someone to come along and say, 'This is the plan. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else.' That's when you want someone to take control." Gina Ford is a name that often splits many parent's opinions. For many, the parenting guru’s method are considered controversial, but it promises to ultimately provide what most new parents dream of – a baby who sleeps through the night. In 2004 Gina recognised that, despite the wealth of parenting information available, many mothers still felt isolated. In an effort to fill the gap, Gina launched ContentedBaby.com and, in the process, created a wonderful, supportive and dynamic on-line community.

Ford was the only child of a single mother, born 42 years ago on a farm in south-east Scotland. Her father left the family soon after her birth, so she and her mother were desperately short of money. "We were so poor we didn't realise we were poor," she says. "To me, working-class people were posh. We were like peasants compared with them." The idea is that your baby should be able to sleep through the night by eight to 10 weeks. Plus, this method allows you to plan your day around your baby’s feeds and naps, giving you time to do whatever you need to or catch up on sleep. It's worth noting however that the NHS recommends starting a routine after three months. She paints a grim picture of what can happen after the arrival of a baby. "Father comes home from work; he has had a stressful day at the bank or the building society; the kid's screaming its head off; the wife looks a mess; he thinks, 'My God, what happened to that sexy, bubbly woman I married three years ago? Look at this old hag: she's got droopy tits, she's got wrinkles.' She throws the six-month-old at him and all she can go on about is what a rotten day she's had. By following nine different routines that match your baby’s natural rhythms, this method claims to avoid the issues that bring on endless tears such as hunger and tiredness. From 10.30am until 6.00pm, no wee or poo in pants at all. I must say though, I have raised my daughter using the Montessori method and with makaton, she understand anything you say and follows any command you ask of her, she started off her self observing adults using the toilet, sitting on her mini toilet in the lounge, then dragging it to me and sitting on it with her clothes on, I ignored it and observed the situation, but then and this happened 3 times she would crouch down and poo in her nappy, that was my que, she had realised when she felt like that she needed to sit on the potty. We also had a fisher price toilet in the lounge since she was 12 months and a potty seat in the toilet, she sat on these on a daily basis via play, I never encouraged it, I wanted it to be her choice.She directly relates the fact that she is an insomniac - a handy trait for a maternity nurse - to having slept in her mother's bed: she never learned to get a proper night's sleep on her own. You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to make the connection between this experience and her vocation - despite no formal training as a nurse or a nanny - as the childrearing guru who wants to disentangle us from our children to help them sleep regularly and to establish clear "boundaries". Gina’s first appointment was to help a mother whose baby had sleeping problems and Gina’s years of hands-on experience led her to solve this particular family’s problems within a few weeks. On the strength of this gift with babies, and her proven practical ability, she was recommended to other families and her reputation escalated. For years she was one of the most sought-after maternity nurses, specialising in caring for newborn babies and toddlers with serious sleeping and feeding problems. She would live with families for anything from two weeks to six months, and was on duty 24 hours a day, six days a week. During this period Gina was nominated by Harpers & Queen as one of the top ten maternity nurses in the country. She worked in many parts of the world with hundreds of different families, from leading lawyers and high-flying bankers to newspaper editors and other media personalities.

Her intense identification with the agonies that her "over-permissive" mother suffered may be what fuels her almost strident tone in trying to persuade modern mothers to take the advice that she believes will protect them from breakdown. "A lot of the jokes are that the book [The Contented Little Baby Book] is for control freaks and I think that there's an element of truth in that. I'm not ashamed of that. Why should we not be in control of our lives? We live in a world that is going out of control; a little bit of self-control is good." Gina believed passionately in not only nurturing the child, for which she had a particular talent, but also ensuring that the mother was well cared for too.Encourage the child to sit on the potty every 15 minutes, ideally for a period of 5 -10 minutes each time (which was very intense). You are advised to stretch out the time periods once you can see how often your child needs the toilet Gina’s work took her first to London and then overseas but, wherever she was, she still found herself drawn to families and called upon to baby-sit or take on the role of temporary nanny. After several years Gina returned to England and, given her skill and passion for working with children, decided to pursue a new career in childcare.

When I put it to her that her books might be an unconscious attempt to provide her mother with the tools that might have prevented her depression (and her father's departure soon after her birth), she replies: "Yes, yes, I think so. If my mother had had my book, I probably wouldn't be the way I am. I would be a solicitor or something, with three kids, and that would be no bad thing because it is quite difficult being the UK's leading childcare expert and being childless. People do love to have a dig at that." I am a nanny, this is no special way of potty training, most nannies and nursery nurses put children straight into pants, and sit them on the potty every 15 mins to start with and then increasing it.

What is the Gina Ford method?

Fans of the method say it can help your baby sleep for a full 12 hours from just a few weeks old, but you’ll need a fair bit of willpower and self-discipline. So, is it right for you? What is the Gina Ford method? We had always used a different brand of nappy for bedtime and thankfully she didn't demand an un-holey night-time nappy to use for daytime wees. My daughter is 20 months, I started potty learning today, you should look this up, it is better than potty training. I basically have 20 pairs of asda pants for her, I got rid of all body suits and just have bigger girls vests on her, and I bought 6 pairs of nice leggings in a sale and some plastic mothercare pants, the sort you put over terry nappies.