Recommending reading for an academic TTC?

[AlternativeOpinion1]

So far I've read

What to expect before you're expecting - this was ok but USA centric with lots of irrelevant info or weird stuff on sex positions for gender selection.

How to give birth like a feminist - interesting as a research piece but I read enough theoretical stuff in a week and hoped it would be more practical. Again USA orientated.

Unsure if there's anything out there that's either aimed at career women or academics or something that you ladies enjoyed?

Done a good long Google and Amazon search but little joy.

Thanks!

Just a non-recommendation from me. Do not read We Need To Talk About Kevin.

Why love matters and anything from the how to talk series.

Second what @EasterBuns has said

Also
The Science of Parenting
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read
The Continuum Concept
Pinter & Martin's "Why It Matters" series

The politics of breastfeeding by Gabrielle Palmer

Thanks so much! I've ordered Why Love Matters to get me started.

Nothing.

All the research suggests that increased maternal education predicts positive child outcomes. Breastfeeding, reading books, talking lots to kids, consistent and kind discipline all correlate with maternal education. You have done the work of becoming the mother you will be.

At the end of the day, parenting is interaction between you and another person.

Be yourself. Take it day by day. Go into childbirth and parenting with a flexible mindset. Sleep as much as possible and assume people are trying their best. Being a good parent uses the same principles as being a good person.

To some degree I agree Caroline but to me (of course it's very personal) there have been two further aspects to parenting, which maybe academics are well placed to engage with and where I've found books have come in useful:

1. Understanding how dominant parenting narratives are often driven by myths and interests - good books on this are The Politics of Breastfeeding, Why Your Baby's Sleep Matters, Unconditional Parenting (Alfie Kohn), The Continuum Concept.

2. How having children prompts you to understand more deeply your own childhood and past - good books for this are The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, and The Conscious Parent (Shefali Tsabary).

Would love to hear of more books in these sort of categories if anyone has any further recommendations.

I think you cannot know what type of parent you will be. You might think because you are a (possibly) left-leaning academic you will be super-into attachment parenting and no-cry and all that stuff. I loved the idea of being a barefoot hippy type, as my own mum was. I had my first and was totally lost with the crying, the endless demands and the loss of myself. The book that helped me the most, after I put the baby in a routine for my own sanity (not the babies, she was an adaptable and lovely little thing) was the Contented Baby book which practically makes me a pariah (as it's quite rigid in terms of routines, feeding etc). I found having a routine, having someone to tell me how to do breastfeeding right, how to structure naps and so on fitted with that I personally needed to get through those early endless days.]

Second baby fitted perfectly into the routine of the first and both used to nap for a couple of hours together every afternoon.

Since then life hasn't been easier, the How to Talk books are excellent but I came to them too late really and wished I'd read them earlier. I didn't find the book you wished your parents had read one all that, but friends have enjoyed it.

As for books about academic mothers, there is one, I've read it but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called but there's lots about looking at the moon whilst you write. I never write at night, but I have written a book mostly at children's playcentres, so it's the same kind of thing only noisier.

In terms of analysing parent-child relationships, Nancy Chodorow's is a classic but I'm not quite sure that 's what you need when you are pregnant!

Rebecca Asher's Shattered: Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality might give you some food for thought about how you structure the division of labour in your household (she argues a lot go from equal before birth, to something out of the 1950s after birth with the mother becoming the default parent).

Food for thought!

That's interesting Nearly. I was exactly the other way around (in terms of expectations before child and the parent I ended up becoming).

I very much enjoyed Bump by Kate Evans. It's a very different kind of book - imagine a cartoonist presenting the whole physiology of pregnancy and birth - but it covers everything in a no-nonsense, science-led manner

Sample chapter here that looks at unmedicated / pre-20th century birth.

Thanks all for the book recommendations and the general advice and reassurance. I always have been an 'analyst' type but there are great points here about not overthinking and going with your gut.