IN THE all-out war over how to raise our young, the armies are massed for a crucial skirmish. On the one side are the mums and dads who pander to their babies' every whimpered need, smothering them in loving attention. On the other are the stern parents who lock junior in the nursery on the first night home from hospital, ignoring his crying for his own good.
Stoking the controversy is the Channel 4 programme Bringing Up Baby in which three experts - Claire Verity, Dreena Hamilton and Claire Scott - test theories of child-rearing from the 50s, 60s and 70s on newborn human guinea pigs and their hapless par
ents.
All three approaches on offer have their critics. Scott's "continuum theory", which takes its inspiration from Amazonian Indians, requires the mother to carry the baby around all day in a sling, but is seen by many as too demanding. Others view Hamilton's Dr Spock-inspired parenting-by-instinct approach as failing to establish sufficient boundaries.
But most controversial by far is the technique favoured by £1,000-a-day maternity nurse Verity who, according to your stance, is either the salvation of the high-flying working mother, getting even colicky babies to sleep through the night, or a childless harridan forcing vulnerable first-time parents to engage in practices tantamount to child abuse.
For every advocate of Verity's tough love regime for newborns (and fans are said to include the Duke and Duchess of Wessex), there are 100 outraged opponents who believe leaving babies unattended to cry in the garden for hours makes a mockery of motherhood and leads to a life-time of low self-esteem.
Last week, these tensions boiled over in dramatic fashion. Verity was banned from speaking at The Baby Show at Earls Court in London amid threats of a protest from angry mothers. Verity had to call in security at a public appearance, such was the venom she encountered. "That woman is a witch," said one critic in an internet posting last week.
So why do so many parents seem to feel the need to justify our own approach to child-rearing by denigrating someone else's? And in future years, what will you say when your child asks: "Mummy? Daddy? What did you do in the baby wars?"
With child-rearing edging up the political agenda, and confidence-sapped mothers turning to books for guidance, spats over parenting styles are becoming increasingly heated. The internet has spawned a legion of sites where women "chat" about their experiences as parents. But where once the very act of giving birth gave mothers an unspoken sense of sisterhood, the atmosphere these days is far from the supportive chumminess of a traditional mums 'n' toddlers coffee morning. Instead mothers square up to each other with the ferocity of pit bull terriers: alpha mummies versus beta mummies; yummy mummies versus slummy mummies; breast-is-best-ers versus bottle feeders; Penelope Leach-ists versus Gina Ford-ists.
On mumsnet.com the accusations levelled at Ford - an Edinburgh-based author who believes in establishing routine - were so damning she sued the website in an action that was eventually settled out of court. Even so, the vitriol aimed at Verity - whose technique involves avoiding eye contact while feeding and restricting physical contact to 10 minutes a day - is unprecedented.
A campaign to discredit Verity and get the "exploitative" programme scrapped has won support from organisations such as the National Childbirth Trust, the Association for Infant Mental Health and the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association. Hundreds of complaints have been made to Ofcom and a petition to be presented to the House of Commons now has around 1,800 signatures.
"Truby King [on whose theories the Verity approach is based] was discredited long ago," says Clive Dorman, who runs the socialbaby.com website and is spearheading the anti-Verity campaign. "Science has moved on and we now know that depriving newborn babies of comfort for hours on end damages the part of their brain that governs empathy - and that can have far-reaching consequences both for the baby and for society. What Verity is advocating is completely wrong and the danger is new parents will see her in action and think they should ignore their own instincts and follow her example."
Joanna Donaldson, who has a three-month-old son Ben, says if she had watched Bringing Up Baby when she was pregnant she might have "cracked up". She adds: "We are further down the road now and I feel a bit more secure and relaxed with the way things are going. But imagine if you were at home with a baby that was a few days old, and you were feeling a little bit hormonal, how it would freak you out."
To Annette Glanton, who has a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Ailbhe and a seven-month-old baby Miriam, the idea of leaving a small child to cry is anathema. "Before my first daughter was born, I suppose I knew I wanted to look after her according to my instincts and I had no intention of leaving her alone in a darkened room," she says.
"So that's more or less the approach I've taken with both of them. When Miriam cries I lift her and I feed her on demand. Of course my babies don't sleep through the night, but then I never expected them to. And since I'm lucky enough not to have to work I see no advantage of getting them to. It can be exhausting, but I treasure the close bond it has given me."
Glanton, from East Kilbride, stops short of criticising Gina Ford, but she would not consider following her regime. "I have a good friend for whom it works very well, but I would have to be pretty desperate to try it myself."
This kind of debate is one that is all-too familiar to Fiona McLintock, a mother-of four, who runs ante-natal, aqua-natal and baby massage classes at Scotstoun Leisure Centre in Glasgow. She is frequently approached by first-time mums looking for the key to perfect parenthood.
"I think we all obsess far too much about how we bring up children," says McLintock, whose youngest son Jack is eight. "Women think there must be a magic formula for creating the perfect child - and they want to believe they have found it - so they end up judging those who take a different approach. But there is no such thing as the magic formula and no such thing as the perfect baby - every family is different."
The storms whipped up by Claire Verity - and Gina Ford before her - show most people are far from tolerant when it comes to other people's parenting. Since the Channel 4 programme aired, mums have been queuing up to vent their spleen in the most vituperative of terms. "Claire Verity should be reported to the Human Rights Commission" is amongst the more reasoned of the internet posts provoked by her performance.
Controversial scenes from the Channel 4 programme include one in which a father who asks permission to kiss his baby daughter is told by her: "No, I don't want you touching it", and another in which a sobbing mother begs in vain to be allowed to lift her twins who have been crying in the garden for three and a half hours.
Verity also insists babies should be placed in their own room from birth - advice that flies in the face of that given out by the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths - which recommends they should sleep in a cot in their parents' room for the first six months.
Clive Dorman says Bringing Up Baby represents a new low in car-crash TV, exploiting newborn babies and first-time parents in a cynical attempt to boost ratings. But Channel 4 is unrepentant. Commissioning editor Hamish Mykura claims professional advice was sought before filming began to ensure no child would be harmed and insists the programme is a genuine attempt to "resolve" the conflict over which parenting styles are best.
That may or may not be so. But with all sides in the debate more strident than ever, it seems every new contribution simply fans the flames.
Are you a mother superior or child of the revolution?
What kind of parent are you? Take our quiz to find out.
Your toddler's bedtime has passed and there is no sign of him settling down for the night. Do you: A. Put him in his room, rub Vaseline on his door handle and turn up the volume on the television so you cannot hear his screams?
B. Sit him in a bouncy chair in front of the Teletubbies with a bottle full of Vimto?
C. Walk the house for hours on end with him swaddled in a sling?
D. Light up a spliff and share it with him, while introducing him to your Jimi Hendrix collection?
Your child seems reluctant to give up his dummy. Do you: A. Snatch it from him. He shouldn't want it, he doesn't need it and his tears are nothing but a cunning ploy to outsmart you?
B. Forbid him from taking it on play dates. But douse it in sugar at night?
C. Tie all his dum-dums to helium balloons and let them drift skywards, only to find them draped over bushes the following morning?
D. Don't be daft - you never got around to buying him a dummy. Or a blankie. Or a cot?
You have been asked to provide cake and candy for the toddler group's Christmas fayre. Do you: A. Leave junior in the kitchen to bake his own cake - he's nearly four now, for God's sake?
B. Buy a walnut cake from your local bakers for £2.50 and present it as your own?
C. Stay up all night baking gingerbread and Battenberg - after all last Christmas everyone was raving about Tabitha's mother's effort?
D. Intend to turn the oven on, but wake up the next morning with a splitting headache and an empty bottle of vodka beside you?
Mostly As: Are you related to Claire Verity?
Mostly Bs: You aspire to being a yummy mummy, but it is just too much bother.
Mostly Cs: Is it possible you are trying just a little bit too hard?
Mostly Ds: If there were an award for laid-back parenting, you would get it.
