Hellobee

Ever since my grandfather taught me how to read and gave me free reign of his gigantic library, I have been a huge book nerd. I am also a planner by nature and an operations manager for a living, so when we found out we were expecting, it was unquestionable that I was going to load my Kindle with as much reading material as I could about what to expect and how to deal with it all. For those who are like me, or are just looking for some resources or fun reads, this is my essential reading list. I present this with a caveat that I know people like and hate some of these books with a passion. Descriptions and opinions of the books here are my own, and I always encourage everyone to read more about a book and its approach to decide if it’s for you.

From the Hips: A Comprehensive, Open-Minded, Uncensored, Totally Honest Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and Becoming a Parent: This was my absolutely favorite book for all things pregnancy, birth and the first year. It’s informative on all approaches – medical, non-intervention, etc., it’s beautifully outlined so that you can read as in quickly or as in depth about any topic you may be looking for, and (my favorite part!) it has comments and tips from real women that provide views on all sides of every issue, question and approach. It s not nearly as in depth as some other books (see next item), but it was still a great, informative read for an information junkie like me.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting: This perhaps best known read for all things pregnancy, and its older toddler sister, What to Expect the Second Year, have both been great resources for me on preparing for pregnancy, childbirth and now, the toddler years. The books are both very straightforward, very academic in nature but without being overly scienc-y, and cover every topic you can think of that’s relevant to pregnancy, childbirth, etc. I am a personality type who like to know everything that can possibly happen in every scenario, no matter how crazy and unlikely it may be, so reading about scary diseases and complications didn’t phase me nor made me lose sleep at night, but people who hate this book often comment on its tendency to be alarmist and condescending. I don’t disagree with these assessments, necessarily, but it was a good source of information nonetheless.

The 90-Minute Baby Sleep Program: Follow Your Child’s Natural Sleep Rhythms for Better Nights and Naps: There are a ton of sleep books out there, all with different philosophies. We have been pretty lucky that Baby Carrot is a fairly good sleeper, so I admit, other than getting a basic verse of the usual sleep training terms through message boards and blogs, I really haven’t read much on sleep issues. This book, however, was a life saver in the first three months. I was utterly lost on figuring out what Baby Carrot’s tired cues were, so even though I never kept her up intentionally, I also just assumed she would fall asleep when she was tired, which resulted in overtiredness and chaos for all of us. The premise of this book is that babies function on a 90 minute cycle and should nap about every 90 minutes (or increments thereof, as they get older). And I swear, the book was spot on. I’d clock Baby Carrot from the time she’d wake up and then soothe her to a nap 90 minutes later and all the chaos subsided! I even noticed my own sleep rhythms to run in a similar 90 minute increment after I read this book. This approach became less relevant after Baby Carrot moved to 2 naps and we got to know her cues better, but the book was hugely helpful in getting us to see those cues.

The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two: Dr. Sears is well known in the baby literature community, but his approach is definitely not for everyone. I don’t consider myself an attachment parent, which the Sears’ philosophy leans toward. I wasn’t able to breastfeed, I didn’t babywear beyond running an occasional errand, nor was co-sleeping for me – all principles this book focuses on heavily. That said, I did find holding my baby a lot more than noises in my head (well meaning moms, mostly) told me was healthy (“she’s going to be OK without you if you always hold her!”), we did end up co-sleeping through most of month 2 and some of month 3 because Baby Carrot just wouldn’t sleep anywhere other than on Mr. Carrot or me, and I most definitely couldn’t cope with any kind of cry-it-out approach. So hearing that all these things were healthy and I wasn’t going to spoil my baby and ruin her forever did help a lot. Some of the advice is a bit dated (ie, giving a formula-fed baby a bottle of water each day is not necessary), but it”s also a very informative book on all things baby related – illnesses, behaviors, etc. No matter your philosophy on child-rearing, I do recommend it.

Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies? The Surprising Science of Pregnancy: This book is really entirely for fun, especially if you’re into fun (albeit questionable) science like Freakanomics. It’s a super fun, light read that tackles questions like “do you really carry girls higher than boys” and how does the season your child is born in predict their personality. It’s full of fun facts and conjectures that will make you go “hmm” more than once, though take all with a grain of salt and really read it for fun.

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Now that Baby Carrot is a toddler, I have a long reading list lining up on my Kindle (now only to find the time to read all these books!) These are some books that people way smarter than me have recommended I read – I haven’t tackled them yet, but if anyone is reading these too or has other books they’d recommend, please share!

Touchpoints: Birth to Three: This book was recommended to me by a friend that’s a child development specialist after I expressed interest in reading more on how children learn, how behaviors form and what they mean. This is an older book, written by the well-known Terry Brazelton, and  focuses more on behavior and psychology rather than basics of childcare like the previous books I mentioned. Currently, this is a huge fascination for me so I can’t wait to dig in to this title, as well as a similar, more recent one by John Medina called Brain Rules for Baby: How To Raise  Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five. 

Positive Discipline: The First Three Years: This book was also recommended by a friend, this one a teacher. As someone who was raised with a pretty iron fist, and as someone who’s prone to her own temperament, my worst fear in raising Baby Carrot is that I’ll do something that will diminish her self esteem, and I especially fear making her feel like she’s unloved. I do believe in discipline, but I also want to approach discipline with a firm but practical approach that avoids the kind of confrontation and negativity I grew up with. I’m excited to read this book for that reason.

What are some of your reading essentials?