Book recommendations for first time mums and dads ?

[Jools1]

Hi

Have been browsing Amazon and looking at their selection of pregnancy books - just wondered if anyone had any particular recommendations - both for me and for DP, who is slowly coming out of the catatonic shocked state that my announcement caused on Thursday and is starting to ask questions

The Rough Guide one looks good, and I think I've heard other people recommend the one by Lesley Regan, but that is 3 years old now - not sure how much difference that makes ?

Thankyou

I thought the Lesley Regan book (Your pregnancy week by week?) was brilliant and also one called something like First Time Parent by Lucy Atkinson.

i would recommend the following.....

won't need it just yet but essential for when baby's born

excellent yet lighthearted

very detailed

good luck!!!

The Kaz Cooke ones.
(will keep you sane and make you lol)

As above - The Rough Guide to Pregnancy by Kaz Cooke is great - light-hearted, funny but also informative and helpful.

I didn't like What To Expect When You're Expecting - I found it rather preaching - "Every mouthful of food you're putting in your body is effecting your baby, so stop eating cake" blah blah blah....

The Kaz Cooke one is fab and the What To Expect is, as PP said, really doom and gloomy though very thorough.

Of course as new parents what you'd probably like is a "manual" style book for when the baby's born which will tell you exactly what to do, I know I did, but in mine and many parents' experience this kind of book can end up being a stick to beat yourself with when your baby doesn't do what the book says they should. I found The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland a fantastic book which helped me remember the only expert on my baby was me and increased my confidence to follow my own instincts.

I liked Birth and Beyond - it's a bit pricey, but it's like an encyclopaedia of pregnancy/baby-related information, very easy to dip into.

I also liked the Rough Guide, and the Best Friends Guides are a fun read.

Another vote for Kaz Cooke's Rough Guide to Pregnancy - the only way that made me laugh (and it has all the stuff you need to know in it too)

The pregnancy bible - for facts and figures.

I second the Birth & Beyond suggestion, I caught my dp looking stuff up in it while I was pregnant, and I am still using it now, ds is 7 weeks. It's encyclopaedic and kind.

Oooo OP are you Jools Oliver??

lol VG

I bought What to Expect... and found it quite useful, but annoyingly American; they'd hardly made any effort to make it a UK edition, so a lot of the info was complete bollocks, e.g. monthly doctor's appointments where your doctor will do all sorts of tests. For some reason that really pissed me off, even the fact that they couldn't be bothered to Anglicise the slang, so it's full of words like bassinet and layette that just don't get used here. Lazy!

Really liked the Rough Guide to Preganancy, and hated anything by Miriam Stoppard (very rigid and preachy).

DC1 is now two weeks old and I love "What to Expect in the First Year" . Yes it is American, and there has been no effort to adapt it for UK procedures re check up schedules etc, but the advice seems to sensible and sound, and less rigid than some of the UK based advice.

I seem to be the only person in the world not to have liked the Rough Guide! I found the fake diary irritating and the information confusingly laid out. I loved the Best Friends' Guide but it's turned out to be pretty irrelevant to my experience of pregnancy (eg I have not and will not be wearing stirrup pants, nor going to hospital at the first signs of labour!).

It's a baby book rather than a pregnancy one but Babies for Beginners has been really readable and seems to contain all the useful stuff

bikerunski, I agree about "What to expect in the first year", I'm finding it useful too - possibly advice on babycare is less specific to place, so it matters less that it's so US-centred. In the pregnancy version I thought it was quite unhelpful that so much of the advice re. labour and delivery was based on the US template, as it's quite different from the UK model.

Thanks everyone

I think I might buy the Rough Guide now, and get something more detailed once I've got past the 12 week mark - feels like tempting fate otherwise ....

Birth & Beyond
Anything by Miriam Stoppard
Mumsnet books

The Rough Guide to Babies is ace - informative and not at all preachy.

Conception, Pregnancy and Birth is excellent for straight forward information but I could have done without the advice on how to travel on trains (something like "don't stand near doors as they may fly open, though of course this also applies if you are not pregnant")!!

Blooming Gorgeous is blooming bonkers: e.g. "if you keep your legs looking great you can wear fashionable and atractive styles all the way through pregnancy". I tried but was more absorbed in dealing with indigestion, piles and bleeding gums!

Second the recommendations for What to Expect and The Best Friend's Guide.

Your DP might like the Haynes guide here. Got it for my brother when they announced they were expecting!

Babies for Beginners by Roni Jay is fab too for later on if you're the type who has never changed a nappy.

Your Baby Week by Week is really good for once the baby is here. It's not manual a la GF or Baby Whisperer, just a really practical and informative guide on what will realistically happen as your baby develops for the first six months.

Loved Blooming Birth - lots of ideas about how to give yourself a decent chance of being positive about the labour you have.
All my pre-birth reading was on pregnancy or birth which made the enormity of life after birth with a real live baby even harder to handle than it inevitably is. But you're on Mumsnet already so you're much better prepared already than I was!