Posted by
Havefaith
17 yrs ago
Dear All,
We are first time parents. Could you please recommend any books on parenting, feeding, etc? Thank you.
HF
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Penelope Leach - "Your Baby and Child"
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"The last is an A-Z book on children illnesses, symptoms and treatments. I have one from Miriam Stoppard which was very helpful at 3am when I didn't want to load up the PC and spend 20 minutes trolling the net for an answer!"
Excellent book indeed!
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-sa
17 yrs ago
Second What to expect... and Baby whisperer. Also read Penelope Leach and Elizabeth Pantley. Couldn't go beyond 2 pages of Gina Ford because I felt like crying at the thought of making my baby cry. I read all of them and do go through them occasionally when I feel unsure, but have been following my own instinct like Cara. It really works the best. Starting a schedule for first 3 months was too much for me - at that age I felt they only cry for a reason.
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Dear cara, sa, grasshopper, axptguy38,
Thank you for your help. I will pick a couple of these books and follow my instincts (great advice!)
HF
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i, of course as some of you might know, absolutely 100% loved Gina Ford book - tho we never really let our kids cry it out - we used Baby Wisperer techniques for that... So i would say Gina Ford routine (spot on) with a degree of your own judgement thrown in. And second What to Expect..
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My issue is that as a guy, I am poorly endowed with instinct when it comes to babies and toddlers. So I had to read the books. Nowadays I mostly ask my wife and our helper. They know what to do.
For the record, we let our kids cry it out. But I never felt it was cruel. Also you have to be careful that they're not wet, soiled, hungry or sick.
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Z
17 yrs ago
I can't recommend "The Portable Pediatrician" by Laura Nathanson strongly enough. It is much much more detailed than the What to Expect series -- and it covers up until the kid is 5. She also has this amazing section called "Window of Opportunity" which has really been amazing. We bought it when our first was 6-7 months old, and we thought it was quite good, but before our second was born, I actually read the stuff that she has to say about the first 6 months and it was revolutionary. For example, it turns out that there is a window of opportunity for teaching kids to go to sleep that totally bypasses the need to decide whether or not to let them cry it out.
I felt like Baby Whisperer was a little patronizing. Sure, she had some good stuff to say, but nothing beats PP.
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-sa
17 yrs ago
Idsllvn, you have twins so I can see why you would want to follow Gina Ford. But... I now have enough friends whose breast milk supply went down drastically and now have to supplement with formula or shift to formula because they tended follow her routine to the T and forgot to listen to their child's hunger pangs when they needed a feed every 1-2 hours sometimes. Early on with the baby you are trying so hard to make sense of this new life, breast feeding is so bloody painful in the beginning, the babe is also learning to latch on, sleepless nights on top of it that a book like Gina Ford can misguide a lot of people in my opinion. And ofcourse, there are others who are better prepared for the shock of new experience like you, Idsllvn, who manage to find the happy medium.
Axptguy... I think its different with guys. My husband whom I always considered a softee would let the newborn cry it out if I let him- it came as a shock to me. He is my greatest support yet he has the ability to tune the baby out when he has something more interesting than a crying baby which I find incredible. And this is just not my husband, its most men I think!
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"My husband whom I always considered a softee would let the newborn cry it out if I let him- it came as a shock to me. He is my greatest support yet he has the ability to tune the baby out when he has something more interesting than a crying baby which I find incredible. And this is just not my husband, its most men I think!"
One could draw interesting anthropological/evolutionary conclusions from this. Women are simply more in tune with baby's needs. ;)
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"it also comes from evolution, i believe. women are the ones who carry the baby for 9 months. then we breastfeed. there isn't much that a man can do at that point other than get his wife a drink and a magazine or the tv remote!"
I had this great vision of a caveman handing his wife a remote made of stone, along with the morning edition of the Bedrock Times.
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