Review: Great Expectations: Baby's First Year

We've received a copy of Great Expectations: Baby's First Year here at Super Cool Baby. The book bills itself as an "All-in-one resource for health & safety, month-by-month growth, nutrition, intelligence & development, and baby gear. It is written by a mother-daughter team: Sandy Jones and Marcie Jones. Both are mothers, and Sandy Jones has written many other baby books. The book was written in consultation with Dr. Michael Crocetti, Director of Clinical Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

The book is broken down into five basic sections: The baby's first year, a baby maintainence guide, a baby gear guide, a new parent's guide, and a medical and safety guide. While the book starts with labor and delivery, this topic is largely glossed over, and well covered by other books. When we reach the parts about your baby's first days and weeks the book starts to get interesting. The book discusses practical topics like informing your insurance company of your new addition, or making a simple chore checklist so that anybody who stops by can help without having to ask what to do. Many parenting topics are discussed too, like dealing with diaper blowouts, and breastfeeding. The book discusses each day of the first week of your newborns life, then the first month is broken down by weeks and so on. These chapters focus on things that you can actually expect, and avoids topics that would make you unecessarily fearful. One frustrating part of this section is that some topics are a little too prescriptive. While you may share the authors ideas on crying-it-out, breastfeeding, and attachment parenting, it would be useful if the book presented alternatives as well. This section does have a lot of worthwhile information, so if you're having difficulties with any of those topics, I would recommend seeking other sources as well.

The second section, the baby maintainence guide, contains lots of helpful information on breastfeeding (including a fantastic guide of which over-the-counter medicines are safe to take while breastfeeding), bottle feeding, solid foods, and so on.It also contains lots of practical information on changing diapers, bathing your newborn, and sleeping. The section on sleeping is very sparse considering the complexity of the topic. So, be sure to check out many of the other fantastic books on this topic (such as Happiest Baby on the Block, and Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child) for more information.

The baby gear guide is basically a list of the types of things you should buy now (car seat, crib), things you should wait to buy (baby swing), and things you should postpone until you need it (breast pump, high chair). Some of their recommendations don't necessarily make sense but its a great overview of what you do need to buy before the baby comes. The rest of the section details each of those products and what you should look for and what you should look to avoid. Brand and model names aren't mentioned, which should increase the lifespan of the book.

The new parent's guide is just like the first section, except that it focuses in on what is happening to the mother. The long recovery period is detailed, and helpful tips on a variety of topics are offered. Many topics here are glossed over, but there is definitely a lot of useful infomation here. When reading it I thought to myself "gee, I wish I had thought of that" a few times, and "yep, that's exactly what happened to us" more than a few times as well. There is also a fantastic section on heading back to work, if that's something you're considering. It explores choice between daycare and in-home care (nanny, au pair, etc). There's lots of information on how to interview and hire an in-home careperson.

Finally, the medical and safety guide is where this book can start to scare you. However, i think it does a really great job here. Instead of simply listing all the things that can go wrong (it does list some important problems and the symptoms to look for), it chronicles what's going on at each of your baby's pediatrician visits for the first year. This section gives you a great starting point on what questions you should be asking, and what sorts of things you should keep an eye out for. The baby safety guide is all about keeping the environment in your home and yard safe for your child. Much of the information here boils down to commonsense.

Overall, I think this book is excellent. You'll probably be reading a lot before the birth of your child, but if this was the only book you read, you would be well prepared. The book definitely qualifies for the highest compliment I can think of: I wish I had read it before Anderson was born. Instead I had to learn everything in there by myself! So, if you're expecting, be sure to add Great Expectations to your bookshelf.

September 24, 2007

Review: Great Expectations: Baby's First Year