What's on your parent-to-be Essential Reading list?

[AKMD]

If you're a compulsive reader and are munching through the equivalent of a small library of books on babies, what have your read and what would you recommend? Here are mine:

The Contented Little Baby Book [runs and hides] - I found this really useful for tips on what to look for when I was buying baby items and giving me a general idea of what a baby is supposed to do. I put the routines onto spreadsheets but didn't use them after DS was born and I realised that he hadn't read the book too.

How to Raise a Brighter Child: The Case for Early Learning - which, despite it's somewhat scary title is not about being a Tiger Mum but is in fact about the way a baby's brain develops and how you can stop them being bored and frustrated. Great book.

Baby Led Weaning - so much easier than doing purees.

What to Buy for Your Baby - good at telling you what is worth buying at what not to bother with.

One pregnancy magazine or another for keeping up to date with new products and what's happening at each stage of pregnancy.

I won't be reading any books. Much better to do it your own way, I always find.

I'll be refreshing my memory with 'What to Expect when you're breastfeeding...and what if you can't' by Clare Byam-Cook. Brilliant book - I swear its what enabled me to successfully breastfeed DC2 after not managing to get the hang of it with DC1. Will be reading it in the next few months (currently 32wks with DC3).

I also followed 'What to expect- the first year' with DC1 (Murkoff & Mazel) & found it both useful & quite amusing too - much more lighthearted than other baby books I've read.

I have binned my pregnancy books (ie what happens each month thru preg etc) as they always have a hideous section at the back about every possible thing that could go wrong with mum / baby / labour / pregnancy etc etc. Scared the wits out of me with DC1, never bothered reading it with next 2 pregnancies!

Wonder Weeks - talks about developmental leaps in the first year

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child - not the stuff about sleep training but which explains how sleep develops and changes in a baby and child.

Oh and Ina May gaskin's book on childbirth - putting aside the hippy elements it gave me a positive attitude about labour - that it's normal and our bodies are designed to do it. I felt more confident and less scared having read it.

Motherwise 101 tips for a new mum

Absolutely nothing!!!! Seriously, every book says something different and I could tell when DW had been reading one of the "help" books because I'd get frantic, stressed emails at work. The only author worth reading is Kaz Cooke as she doen't take life too seriously, which is a good way to approach pregnancy and parenthood.

A few I haven't heard of here... obviously more time needed on Amazon!

Bumpsadasie I think there's a difference between slavishly following the dictum of whichever book you happened to read last and getting information from a wide range of sources in order to make informed decisions. I try to relate what the book says to my own situation and see whether it would help or not. The second book on my list, for instance, has helped me an awful lot in my relationship with DS by helping me to find outlets for his toddler curiosity that don't involve destroying the house and by helping me to apply toddler standards rather than adult standards to him. It's helped my blood pressure a lot!

Another vote for ina may gaskin, just got me into a great headspace and am re reading it. I have binned all the clb, baby whisperer etc after they sent me mental but have kept Penelope leach's your baby and child.....just consistently reassuring

I preferred the tips in The Baby Whisperer to those in Contented Little Baby.

I enjoyed BLW, but I appear to have lost it. Been through the bookshelves and cupboards but still can't find it. DS is 4 months so situation is not desperate yet.

Before DS was born I borrowed and read quite a chunk of 'what mothers do, especially when it looks like nothing' and I think of it often on days when nothing gets done.
www.amazon.co.uk/What-Mothers-Do-Especially-Nothing/dp/0749926201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313958083&sr=8-1

www.amazon.co.uk/What-Mothers-Do-Especially-Nothing/dp/0749926201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313958083&sr=8-1

corrected link

I second the 'what mothers do' book, easy to read and very reassuring

My mum bought me Dr Miriam Stoppard's Complete Baby and Childcare after I had DD,
I wish I had had it before to flick through as I have found it incredibly useful.