Claire Verity

Who is Claire Verity?

Claire Verity is a British baby care professional who specialises in the Truby King method. Her clients have included Jerry Hall and Sting. She featured as a mentor in the 2007 Channel 4 documentary series, Bringing Up Baby.

Her methods, such as advocating Truby King's tenets of minimal cuddling at bedtime and no eye contact with the baby while preparing the baby for bed, have generated controversy in the media and Blogosphere. Advice that has attracted controversy includes:

⁕Four-hourly feeding of newborns. This is felt by some parents and child care professionals to cause distress for infants and problems for mothers in establishing breastfeeding. Other parents and child care professionals confirm that establishing scheduled feedings have been beneficial to both parents and the babies.

⁕Early weaning. WHO and UNICEF currently recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, citing studies that conclude that weight gain is not diminished by waiting until 6 months to introduce solid food. Claire Verity suggests that the researchers may not have accounted for the weight of babies,. In the British Medical Journal, critics of the current WHO guidelines confirm that the 6-month recommendation is probably best in most parts of the world but suggest that in areas where water quality is good and birth control is widely available, solids can be safely introduced anytime after 17 weeks.