Newborn book suggestions

[arianasky]

Hello, I'm 24 weeks and looking for a book on newborns with advice etc there are so many out there I don't know where to start. If anyone could suggest any please I'd be so grateful, thank you.

It might sound a bit naff because it’s a celebrity book but I loved Holly Willoughby’s baby book and found it really helpful. She approaches things from her own experience but also explains how other people do things differently and what official guidelines are on things - she’s also had there children and makes it clear that they were all very different.
Some baby books are like reading a dry text book or are pushing a certain agenda or method - this was just a lovely easy going read, with a balanced approach, not over-complicated. There’s a fair amount to learn about babies, but looking after one is by no means rocket science! I was well prepared having read it.

For newborn/baby sleep specifically I'd recommend the gentle sleep book by Sarah Ockwell Smith and Let's Talk about Your New Family's Sleep by Lyndsey Hookway.

For breastfeeding I'd recommend The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by La Leche League. Their book on sleep called Sweet Sleep is also excellent.

For development / activities I liked The Wonder Weeks book.

Feeding and sleep is really all you need to be prepared for when it comes to newborns ... The books above will help you figure out the right approach for you and won't prescribe strict schedules, they help us tune into our own instincts around it. Sleep especially can be a minefield and people have vastly different approaches so it's hard to recommend without knowing what sort of person you are, but the science / evidence supports a gentle and responsive approach for infant wellbeing so those books above will help you with doing that 🥰

Best of luck, my main bit of advice is try to enjoy it and not worry too much, the newborn phase passes quickly!

Thank you both 💕 I feel like there's so much information out there it's best I start reading up 😂 I will go check out all your suggestions now thank you

Watching this thread with interest! I’m 26 weeks and also keen for some recommendations!

Would definitely recommend an antenatal class too for all the basics! Like how to bathe etc haha xx

I was given a volunteer of What to Expect When You're Expecting and the second one, WTE in the first few months or something. I opened neither.

I had loads of things I wanted to know about but just Googled whenever something specific came up. Having a book there covering everything which meant tons of irrelevant stuff was pointless when I had a phone and Internet in reach at all times.

A volunteer? A copy! That's quite some autocorrect there.

Thank you, Ive got some antenatal and baby care classes booked for next month so hopefully that will help aswell 😂

So much depends on how you want to parent, what your baby is like, what family support you have and what support is available locally.

I was given a copy of the Womanly art of breastfeeding when I was pregnant and found it awful - patronising, misogynistic, not actually helpful for dealing with BFing problems. I hurled it across the room in tears several times! It was pretty damaging to my mental health and I wish I'd thrown it out as soon as it arrived.

A much later find was Emily Oster's Cribsheet which offers evidence-based advice for the first year. She doesn't tell you what to do, but weighs up the evidence for various things (eg feeding, sleep, childcare) which was a refreshing change from a lot of the other books which are trying to get you to parent in a certain way.

And the book that made all the difference was The baby book: how to enjoy year one. I saw it in a bookshop when DD was about 3 months and bought it because I was utterly miserable and hating having a baby. The book is gentle, kind, reassuring, helped me have the confidence to implement a basic routine which then gave our days structure.

Good luck!

Just want to say a word of warning on Cribsheet - she misses out a tonne of evidence regarding breastfeeding and sleep, many infant sleep and breastfeeding specialists take issue with this book. It claims to be evidence based but it isn't really. I loved her book about pregnancy and birth but severely disappointed by Cribsheet. It felt like she advocated sleep training simply because she did it - it was that blinkered. As someone who knows a lot on the subject this was very clear to me.

I read a LOT about baby sleep and the only book I read that truly dives into all the research on sleep including sleep training and it's affects is the book by Lyndsey Hookway I mentioned above, Let's Talk About Your New Family's Sleep. And Sarah Ockwell Smith is also great for tips and information regarding sleep.

If you don't like the sound of Womanly Art another great book about BF is The Food of Love by Kate Evans. It has cartoons! I loved both.