Recommended Books

[ChaCha]

Some suggestions pls for books that will help with the first years, in particular the first 12 months.

I've read something about the Baby Whisperer from the ladies on my antenatal thread. Would appreciate all recommendations.

I like the Baby Whisperer - have been fortunate enough not to have to use it that much but I like the tone it is written in and I have used it to refer to things like how much sleep dd should be having etc. There's also a great section on bottle/breast feeding which I found great when dd wouldn't latch on and we ended up bottle feeding - it put everything into perspective.

Also like What to expect the first year - a month by month guide of what should be happening and is always useful to refer to for things. Read it a lot in the first few months, only dip into it occassionly now dd is 9 months but really good to have to hand. Will soon be purchasing 'what to expect the toddler years' - scarey !!

I loved the Baby Whisperer - I did what I did with all these books, read it, and used the bits that agreed with me, rather than trying to follow her rules rigidly.

I found the Baby Whisperer good...probably the best bit if advice for me as a new mother was in watching the baby to catch the yawns..by the second yawn, and certainly the third, the baby needs to be in bed!!

The What to Expect books are great! Both 'Expecting' and 'First Year' cover most common problems and questions, and are totally non-judgemental on however you choose to do things.
As DS has got older, I haven't bothered with it so much, but for the first six weeks or so, they were invaluable.

As for Gina Ford... if anyone is cruel enough to buy you her book, my advice is to take a deep breath, take the book out into the garden and set fire to it.

Am disagreeing about the Gina Ford book. We found it pretty good, although we didn't follow it religiously. I found a routine really helped us get a life back, we used what we thought were good ideas and discarded the rest. However, I reckon I am in a minority here remembering previous Gina Ford threads.