But Ford is not someone who believes in dwelling on the past. "I don't think about my childhood too much. What's the point? But I'm sure that a lot of the way I behave nowadays is to do with my childhood." Use the star chart for every success and offer a reward at the end of the day for five stars – an ice cream for pudding, for example 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. 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."

That she may be more preoccupied by the plight of the parents than the baby is suggested by her retort to accusations that her books encourage mothers to leave their infants to cry themselves to sleep. "I don't think that three nights of 20-minute bursts of crying is psychologically damaging. What I think is more damaging is that four out of 10 marriages are ending in divorce: people can't cope any more - and why can't they cope? Parents don't have any time to themselves in the evening and they're exhausted."

Why is Gina Ford controversial?

But when a couple of friends claimed that they’d had excellent results with the Gina Ford book ‘Potty Training in One Week’, I thought I’d give it a go. I had a week off work and so it seemed like a perfect opportunity. It’s probably worth saying that I really wasn’t a fan of Gina Ford’s baby advice, but her toddler advice seems a little more palatable. 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. In two recent surveys the Daily Mail listed Gina as one of the most influential women in the field of health in Britain today and The Times listed her as one of the top fifty people who influence the way we eat, exercise and think about ourselves. The Independent newspaper, in the feature ‘Power of one’, describes her determination to change attitudes of parenting this century. She is still as hands-on as ever, which allows her to have a unique and sympathetic understanding of the problems parents face and, more importantly, how they might solve them. Contented Little Baby is now a lifestyle choice for millions of people around the world. But part of this success is down to the fact that Gina still makes a point of talking directly to many mothers every week. Contain training to one room in the house (which I found incredibly difficult, and we ended up using two – the playroom and the kitchen/diner which has a nice washable floor!)

Keep in mind that the routines are strict. You’ll also need your partner on board with the idea – it’s a lot for one person to manage and you will need a break from time to time. Why is Gina Ford controversial?As Gina’s reputation grew, she was approached by a number of publishers, and in 1999 she wrote her first book, The Contented Little Baby Book. It was a runaway success, largely due to enthusiastic personal recommendation, its matter-of-fact style and practical approach appealing to fathers and mothers alike. With a new edition of the book published in 2006, it continues to be the bestselling parenting book in the UK, with sales of over half a million copies to date. It has also been published in the US and in several foreign language editions including Spanish, Hebrew, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish, Russian and Chinese. Since the success of her first book, Gina has gone on to write a further nine books and co-written two others, covering subjects such as Weaning, Feeding, Sleeping, Potty Training and Twins, as well as the popular Ella and Tom series of children’s books. 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." 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." 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.