Parenting Book Recommendations
For Christmas, I received a couple of parenting books that I am so eager to dive into:
- Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
- The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families
- Making a Family Home
I read about a hundred pages of Simplicity Parenting (which I highly recommend!) but I finally had to cajole myself to put it down and instead read about birth. With so little time left before our due date (about a month and one week), I really need to prioritize other things, such as making sure we have everything we need for the baby, getting the car seat installed, finalizing the baby's room, putting the finishing touches on organizing our house, finding a pediatrician and a back-up obstetrician, preparing myself for the birth, resting, enjoying alone time with Matt, getting all the supplies we need for our home birth, getting my classroom ready for my maternity leave, taking care of all the paperwork associated with my maternity leave, get my blogs ready for my maternity leave, etc.
The problem is that I get random recommendations from people and then I immediately put a hold request on them through the Houston Public Library system. Instead, I simply need to jot the title on a centralized list and then read all those books while I'm spending hours upon hours breastfeeding.
So, please recommend away! I've gotten many, many good titles of parenting books from you all, but please leave them in the comments section again so I can be sure to add them to my centralized list.
Thank you!
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11 comments:
Yeah, first, enjoy the birth books. You never know. Double Check everything with your gyne. Wait till baby will be there... The last weeks, even days before delivery can be hard...
Sara, might I suggest that you read SOMETHING about C sections? Obviously this is not your intention, but you never know. I'm sure that if your baby's health were in jeopardy that you would do it. It didn't even cross my mind that I would end up with one, and I was completely unprepared for it.
I know my ex read through "What to Expect When You're Expecting" for *both* of our kids. That might be one to consider.
I have really enjoyed:
Living Simply with Children
SuperBaby
Einstein Never Used Flashcards
Emotionally Intelligent Parenting
I'm also excited about Soule Mama's book Rhythm of the Family out in August.
Also, I just started reading Birthing From Within and I think I'm going to really enjoy it. I can't remember if you recommended it but it would probably be a great book for you right now.
Are you practicing any visualizations about the birth? I think that could be very helpful. When I was on the crew team in college we would visualize a whole race and imagine being in a lot of pain but pushing through it and staying strong and focused. It seems like something similar could be helpful for birth preparation.
A must read: "Our Babies, Ourselves"
I want to agree with Carrie. We planned a Bradley birth at the hospital (and were able to do that, fortunately), but did research c-sections online a bit as part of our planning. We learned, for example, that there are different techniques for stitching, and one (single-layer, I think) was riskier than the other (dual-layer), as far as future pregnancies. It gave us peace of mind to know we'd considered this possibility & knew what we wanted if we were put into this situation.
In re: Carrie's comment above, see this blog post on c-sections from a doula:
http://sarahvine.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/birth-plan-for-emergency-cesarean-how-can-that-go-well/
There are so many good parenting books out there. And just as an aside, I would say don't put too much pressure on yourself to read a ton of books while breastfeeding in the first few months. With all three of mine, I have only had the attention for tv in the early months, and I am not a huge tv watcher.
I have had three natural births, and the best advice I can give for the weeks before birth is spend some quality time with Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. Just keep reading those stories and reinforcing your sense of child birth as a powerful, positive thing. Worked for me anyway.
Baby-Led Weaning by Gill Rapley and The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding are good ones to read...
My favorite parenting books so far:
Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn, Connection Parenting by Pam Leo, Mitten Strings for God by Katrina Kenison. Another good one: Let the Baby Drive by Lu Hannessian.
Just wanted to give a plug for goodreads.com in case it's helpful for you... I started using Goodreads to keep track of my list of "to-read" books, as I was doing the same thing as you and having issues when all the books were ready from the library at the same time.
Another neat thing about Goodreads is that you can also keep up with what your friends are reading! I've found this fun for the leisure-reading books.
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