I love to read and I love to learn, so when I was pregnant I stocked up on some good solid reading. Yes I had subscribed to all the web newsletters and week by week updates, but for me personally I need to read a book, to feel the ink, to glide across the glossy photos for it all to sink in.
There are millions of ‘baby’ books and you will learn new information in all of them, but I will review the three best books that I read and how they helped me.
There is a reason this book is in it’s fourth edition, it is superb.
The new book contains a lot of information on cesareans, which account for almost 30% of deliveries in the UK and Ireland. It has a week by week development of your baby and also week by week changes to your pregnant body. It covers all aspects of pregnancy from conception to delivery, problems, solutions and the need to know info.
I like that it lays out the information and does not try to influence you into a particular way of thinking. It is something you will dip in and out of and open every week or so. It answered more questions than my random google searches… and there were a lot of those. I left the delivery part until my third trimester as it scared me so much, but I felt empowered after reading this.
I LOVED this book. From the very first page to the end, it is funny. Lucy gently guides you through some of the basics for your first baby and also boosts your ego and assures you things will go horribly wrong and perfect in the same hour! It addresses the needs of the baby, but also the parent. The best chapters for me were - what happens immediately after the birth and what to do when you get home. It provides reasons why babies cry and even the useful diagrams on how to hold a newborn, winding and feeding. It goes through baby development, sleeping, feeding, games to play with your baby and a huge amount of baby concerns.
The moment I knew this book was for me? When I read the top ten new parent worries and the number one question was “Will my baby die? (Yes, we all worry about it.)”
Don’t think about it just buy it!
Now this one is probably a little controversial. I will write a post soon on our baby’s routine and how we started it, why, and how we got on. This book was given to me with the advice “you don’t need to be as strict as this, but it is a good guideline.”
At first reading of the book I thought, wow this author is a b***h. It sounded so mean, like your baby was robot, it seemed like every minute of the day was dictated by this book and the routine that she guarantees will work.
If you are an organised person, someone who likes routine, who works to deadlines and who understands time keeping then having a baby will turn you upside down and when that happens reach for this book. It helped to put order on life with a chaotic newborn and within one month I got the result I worked for, my baby slept through the night.
**This post was not sponsored - this is my own opinion**
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Fab post, there are so many baby books out there it is hard to know which ones to go for. We had the first one, though an older edition so it is great to know that it has more info on c-sections now. The second one sounds great and I would have loved to read it when I was pregnant or had a newborn as it sounds really useful! I know what you mean about the bottom one, I have read excerpts before and thought it sounded overly harsh, but you can;t get the full story from an excerpt so I am really glad it worked for you! We like Dr Ferber who is another controversial one but his book has helped us looads! Thaks for sharing with #MaternityMondays
ReplyDeleteFab post, I think there is definitely a place for baby books. I've read loads and pick and choose what I like from them. Thanks for sharing, and thanks for linking to #MaternityMatters. Sorry I am so late in replying! x x
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