At first sight it just seemed a bit of mildly shaming celebri-tainment: like a spat between two Spice Girls or a Westminster giggle about Ming Campbell's socks. Gina Ford, a somewhat humourless author of babycare books based on strict routine and herself fresh from a bruising legal row with critics, chose to wade into the even more hardline “maternity nurse” Claire Verity. On Channel 4 Verity promotes a version of the hoary old Truby King system, with rigid feeding routines unconnected to infant hunger, long hours whimpering alone in a pram, and a ration of ten minutes' cuddle per day.

Ford joined a chorus of disapproval, even writing to the NSPCC. Verity sniped back: “It has been my life for 23 years, unlike Gina Ford who has not worked in real-world babycare this century” (well, to be fair, it's only seven years since the millennium, and Ford must have been on non-stop book tours). Verity crows: “I challenge her to take me on, and see if she can really give us a contented baby.” Daisy Goodwin, the producer of Bringing Up Baby, merrily says she would love an onscreen challenge: “Bring it on!”

At this point the whole thing stopped being just an amusing bitch-fight between two (childless) women who make money out of modern parenting insecurities. I got upset. For one thing, no such experiment would be worth a damn: babies are too diverse. For another, the Royal College of Paediatricians expresses concern at Verity's methods; and the Ofcom complaints line and online forums all hum with fury at babies being left in distress for TV's sake. Drama directors are not allowed to make infants cry; why should documentaries?

This matters, even more than the Times report that Verity is not as qualified as is claimed, since various awarding bodies have never heard of her. Moreover — though less relevant — she informed a Sunday paper that she had kitchen-worktop sex with Mick Jagger within 48 hours of starting to look after his infant, which might explain why she has little time to cuddle babies (one heart-freezing quote: “I can't understand why anybody needs to touch a baby or pick a baby up”).

So no, it isn't funny. But it is important, because the rise of bossy baby-gurus is a symptom. Maternal confidence is running unhealthily low. Natural responsiveness to babies is actively discouraged; formulaic managerialism, which wrecks everything from education to broadcasting, is seeping into motherhood. We are encouraged to see babies as a management challenge, and fit them into complex working lives (who can forget the government statement of 2005 citing the “real problem” that only 48 per cent of mothers of children under two — two! — are in employment?) The idea of applying ergonomic timetables to babies suits the anxious professional woman, and makes media stars of those who promise to make early motherhood efficient.

This urge to codify has always been around. My own post-natal fretfulness was cured by Christina Hardyment's classic history of childcare writing, Dream Babies (originally “From Locke to Spock” but now updated). It chronicles how philosophers, anthropologists, doctors, nannies and know-alls from Hannah More to Paula Yates have lectured new mothers. One man advocated firing off pistols next to babies and dipping them in cold water to “harden” them; others condemned cuddling, preferring “a manly handshake”. Mrs Sydney Frankenburg said you should never point things out to a toddler, lest blood rush to the brain and imperil healthy teeth; Truby King worked out his four-hourly feeding regime on bucket-reared calves.

Social change as well as personal battiness affects the theorists: when houses got smaller and servants extinct, they advocated the pram in the garden; when women were needed for the war effort, mothers were warned against “stifling” closeness and nurseries praised; when they were shooed back home the gurus backed Bowlby's “attachment theory” and cautioned about disaster if mother strayed from child.

I was so amused that I even wrote a book of my own, on the principle that I was no barmier than them, and less bossy. But as Hardyment says, it is high time we treated all babycare books with the critical spirit we apply to novels. Dr Spock's opening words “Trust yourself” remain the best advice of all.

And that is the problem now. New mothers lack self-trust; too much shrill advice is given, too little practical help. They are whipped out of hospital, see less of the health visitor, live farther from parents, and must earn the mortgage. All this makes it harder to pick up the subtle cues that babies offer. Even before the first smiles a baby offers looks and gestures that tell you what it needs and which routine (or lack of it) works. Some babies do actually fit the Gina Ford model; a lot don't. Some set a weird pace, but with reasonable practical support a new mother can often nap when the baby does. If she can relax a little, watch out for actual illness or misery and ignore morale-sapping competitive mothers, that's it. Sorted. A baby does not give a damn whether it is dressed in cast-offs or cashmere, or whether the buggy is a charity-shop bargain or a £2,000 limited edition in hand-embroidered leather. A baby just wants to have its simple needs, emotional and physical, met by someone who loves it.

That is not, I admit, going to make anybody a TV series, a string of bestsellers or a thousand quid per day and a free go at Mick Jagger. For that you need to be bossy, doctrinaire and certainly not waste career time having babies of your own. But if such pig-obvious ancient wisdoms are too widely ignored, we are storing up trouble for the newborn generation, and sadness, guilt and frustration for the present one.

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