As a knocked up chick who doesn't know SHIT about babies, I figured as I'm only a few months away from HAVING a baby, I should probably learn some basics about them. You know, things like how much they eat, what to do if they're colicky (what the hell colic even IS!), when they move to solids, and all that kind of stuff that I truthfully have NO FREAKING CLUE about.The problem though, has been finding relevant CANADIAN information (ie. noting things I could actually buy, or medicines actually found here) that's written in a format I won't grow immediately BORED of.
Because on my quest for said book, standing in many MANY bookstores, I found a whole LOTTA books. But these books? Well they all just prattle on and on and ON with advice, and the advice is one, WAY too damn long for anyone sane to maintain an interest in, and two, it's not written in layman's terms someone like me actually relates to.
And then I found THIS book - The Canadian Paediatric Society Guide to Caring For Your Child from Birth to Age Five (American version noted below). Now yes, the title IS a mouthful, but this book - well it's amazing. And even better, it's only $20. And yes, I will say you could probably find similar information on the internet, but I have this THING in my gut that says there's going to be times where I'm SO insanely frustrated already, and adding Google searches with a MILLION results to my woes just does not seem like something that'll help at that time. So I'm hoping that a handy-dandy well-focused book will be exactly what saves my day - AND my sanity.
The book first, is broken down by age. It of course starts with birth (and covers a LOT on the first 6 months), and works it's way up to 1 year olds, and 2 year olds, and further. Second, it breaks the sections down into petite little paragraphs that talk about practical things you can try to resolve issues you're having, to answer questions you have no clue about, and to just address the every day things that are going to come up like how many diapers you should expect at birth versus 6 weeks versus 1 year. Third, and one of my FAVORITE things about this book, is it does NOT default to "medicate this" or "medicate that" - they instead guide you through how to try without medicine, then with. And to address that little ringing in your brain about whether or not you should go to the doctor? Well, they have sections on the side of some pages that say "make a note for your next doctor's appointment if..." and "go immediately to the doctor if...".
Easy to read, and easy to use, this book gets a RAVING two thumbs up from me.
And for those looking for an American version of this book, I came across this - Caring for Your Baby and Child from Birth to Age Five. I can't unfortunately recommend it as I haven't read it, but it had 120 5 star reviews on Amazon which to me says, it's not shoddy.
I'd love to hear back though from those with other books they love or loved? Anything else I should be reading?
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3 chiming in:
You Canadians always have to do things so well, don't you!?
I'll look these over and see how I screwed up.
We had the American version of this book and it was extremely helpful.
I liked the way it looked at each age and what to expect and also had the index for easy reference.
It was quite valuable to me in my parenting experience and to my peace of mind for all three of my kids.
Two thumbs up here!
I've always loved Ann Douglas's "The Mother of All...Books." (Pregnancy, Baby, Toddler, etc.) She's Canadian, & writes in a very friendly way. She's also dealt with loss & wrote a pregnancy after loss book called "Trying Again."
The former nurse to one of the top recurrent loss specialists in my city (maybe in this country) once told me she disliked the "What to Expect" books, particularly for a Canadian audience, & recommended Ann's books to all their patients.
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