They call her book "the bible", and its author "Auntie Gina". Her followers meet in small groups, usually over afternoon tea, to debate her teachings: some say they'd never have made it through without her, others that she has changed their lives. Occasionally, one of them will admit to having had a lie-in until 9am - and baby too - and they'll all giggle and admit that Auntie Gina wouldn't like that. No, she wouldn't like it one bit.
These are the disciples of Gina Ford, mothers whose lives have been transformed by her Contented Little Baby Book - the book that has put routine back into the lives of Britain's parents.
"For years routine was a dirty word in childrearing," says Ford. "But I believe passionately that there's no comparison between a baby who is demand-fed, and a baby who is in a routine from day one. Today's parents have been brainwashed into thinking it's damaging to let a baby cry for more than 10 minutes. But that's nonsense.
"The other problem today," she goes on, "is that everything is regarded as 'normal': there's no one who will tell you when things could be improved and help you to change them."
Until now, that is, with the advent of Auntie Gina. Her claim is that her followers are the happiest mothers in the country, and their babies are the happiest babies: because they are being raised the Gina way. Like Delia Smith's recipe for cheese soufflé, the Gina way never fails. Follow her advice about bedtimes and sleep times and feed times to the letter and you will not have a baby who is difficult, who keeps you awake or who cries endlessly for no reason at all.
"Gina's babies", as they are invariably called by their delighted parents, are No Trouble At All.
Auntie Gina is looking fairly contented herself today, as well she might given her runaway bestseller and a second book, From Contented Baby to Confident Child, about to join it on the shelves. There are other reasons to be cheerful: the website she's developing; the network of supporters she's setting up; and the endless TV offers (think Barbara Woodhouse and the Two Fat Ladies rolled into one).
But being in demand is nothing new for her: until her new career as a parenting guru, Ford was so success ful as a maternity nurse that she became the Red Adair of the neonate.
"Some of my clients earned less than me," she says. Not many, though: some of her customers counted their annual earnings nearer the seven than the six-figure mark, and were she to name names (she won't), it would sound like the contents list of Hello! magazine.
Ford fell into maternity nursing by chance. She used to babysit to boost her income while studying hotel management, and found she had rather a flair for looking after her charges. One of the families asked her to come and work for them, and Ford decided to give it a go. Ford has read her Penelope Leach and her Miriam Stoppard, but she is a self-taught expert who knows what she knows through watching babies. She might have left hotel management, but it has never quite left her: she watches the waiting staff like a hawk during our lunch, criticises and comments, sends back her main course, says it was never like this in her day.
Babies, one suspects, come in for similar no-nonsense treatment: Ford is a bossy know-all rather than an empathetic supporter, a dictator rather than an enabler. She claims her schedules can make a woman into a confident parent, but the exact opposite would seem to be the case: she quotes mothers who phone to ask what to substitute for leeks in her recipes. She says some of her fans have begged her to write the follow-up book because "they can't manage without it".
Does she like "her babies", as she calls them?
"What a naff question," she says, before claiming that she "goes all gooey" when she sees one. Yet Ford's philosophy is all about taming the little horrors, letting them know who's boss. You don't manage that by coming over all soppy and sentimental.
Asked whether, as a non-parent, she's qualified to offer us pearls of wisdom, she is defensive. If you had a heart attack, she asks, would you rather be treated by a doctor who's had two himself, or one who's treated hundreds of heart-attack victims?
You can see her intent: parenting gurus of recent years have invariably had their own children, and draw on their own experiences. This may be enriching, but it also limits them: Ford's proudest boast is that she's been in at the deep end with more than 300 families, and is able to draw on more experience of babies than most of her rivals on the parenting bookshelves.
"What I did in developing my routines," she says, "was to watch the easy, settled babies, and to use the natural routines they seemed to be in as a blueprint for the babies who seemed more difficult to deal with."
Every day, Ford says, she hears from dozens of mothers who love what she's done for them. Even her fans, though, concede that her routines are terribly complicated. "You certainly have to work at it," according to one former client. Ford's instructions for breastfeeding a four-week-old are draconian: up by 7am, feed to be finished by 7.45am, nap in his room at 8.45am, woken an hour later, 25 minutes at the breast at 10am, play on his mat at 10.30am, in bed by 11.45am, awake again by 2pm, feed now but must be over by 3.15pm, walk at 4pm, next feed to be over by 5pm, bath at 5.45pm, feeding by 6.15pm, and "fully swaddled and in the dark, with the door shut, no later than 7pm".
If only I'd known! My babies were breastfed anywhere and everywhere, stayed in a sling while I did the washing up, slept beside me on the sofa in the evenings before sleeping in my bed, and were blissfully unaware of what it meant to be swaddled. Ford seems genuinely amazed.
"All I can say," she says, "is that you were very lucky. Not everyone has such easy babies as you obviously did. And not everyone works at home."
In fact, I don't think my babies were particularly easy, but it is true that it's easier to dispense with routine if you're a home-based mother. Part of Ford's success is down to the fact that "go with the flow" mothering won't suffice for the large number of working mothers with small children. If you've got to be up and out by 8am for a hard day at the office you need to have slept for a few hours first.
But if the Ford approach has its advantages, it also has its illusions. Babies aren't "controllable" as she would have us believe. There is no blueprint for parenting: you write your own rules and make your own mistakes.
You also have to follow your heart, because childrearing is an emotional as well as a practical experience. But Ford is little interested in this: she believes love comes naturally, and doesn't need to be written about in books. For many new parents this is not the case: learning to love their baby is the most difficult lesson of all. It doesn't fit into any routine, but isn't this what matters most?
• From Contented Baby to Confident Child is published next month by Vermilion. To order a copy for £5.99 (rrp £8.99) or The Contented Little Baby Book for £5.99 (rrp £8.99), freephone 0800 3166 102 or send your order with a UK cheque payable to The Guardian CultureShop, to 32-34 Park Royal Road, London, NW10 7LN. Please add 99p for UK p&p.
