Which Parenting books do you recommend?

[fionas]

For pregnancy - the obvious fiction of the characters made Up The Duff a sometimes irritating read but I did like the chick lit style and it's a good one if you want your partner to read SOMETHING about pregnancy. For labour - I found the Juju Sundin book (sorry, can't remember the name) very helpful and common sensical.

What to Expect In the First Year - didn't mind it; liked the specifics of the month-by-month sections.

How To Raise An Amazing Child by Tim Seldin (President of the Montessiori Foundation) - currently reading this, some useful tips so far.

But really, just give your customers a card with the bellybelly web address on - not so good for profits though!

[fionas]

Sorry, forgot - I've just read Misconceptions by Naomi Wolf. Found the bits on dividing baby responsibilities fairly between partners very interesting. No real solutions offered but glad to know I'm not a complete nutcase when I go berserk when DP feels it necessary to ask me what should go in the nappy bag!

[mrscricket]

Haven't had a proper chance to sit down and read properly but wanted to say a HUGE thankyou to everyone who has contributed so far . I am going to sit down and go through it all tonight and then start to do some ordering for my section in the shop! The comments are great - I think I will print these pages for the other staff in the shop to read so they can do some recommendations as well. Keep them coming girls!!

[BellyBelly]

I think the problem with the 'Up the Duff's' and the 'What to Expect' fall short in really helping women about the guts of the birth stuff - that is the consensus in the industry also. Yes it might have some fun/interesting reading but ALL bookstores I have seen (commericial ones) fall dangerously short providing books which give women tools and skills for birth. New Active Birth should be in every pregnant woman's bookshelf for example, its the BASIC stuff women need to understand that getting of the bed is one of the best things they can do for themselves, which gives them less pelvic space, is more painful etc - its an essential. Yet these commercial best sellers are on the shelves and this is not healthy and not conducive to empowering and educating women.

[Cherie]

My favourites:
New Active Birth (Janet Balaskas)
Spiritual Midwifery (Ina May Gaskin)
Babylove (Robin Barker) - I thought I would hate this one because it's fairly mainstream, but I actually like it. The author is very laid back about milestones (I've found other books seem to set unrealistically high expectations) and fairly gentle in her approaches to sleep.

I hated:
Contented Little Baby Book - I bought this one because I wanted to buy something on the 'routine' end of the spectrum. Bleugh! It has some seriously bizarre ideas that would only work for naturally calm and compliant babies.

[OldMate]

A little disappointed that there are no male oriented books on the suggested lists. When we found out DW was pregnant, we bought a couple of books, one directly aimed at me. I was the first one to finish reading mine, and the first one to finish one of hers too. DW really enjoyed Kaz Cook, but I would have to agree with the sentiment that it shows that other people go through this, but doesn't supply much solid advice.

I recommend:

Not Rocket Science: DADS (because bringing up kids ain't hard)

[Smoke Jaguar]

Yep, OldMate, there IS the title, "So, you're going to be a dad", and we hated it. Well, most of it. It's supposed to be a funny spin on pregnancy and early parenthood. Not a lot of it applied to us and the way we intended to birth and parent as it subscribes a lot to the medicalisation and Western fear of birth, as well as separated sleeping and talk of 'sleep deprivation' (which we haven't really experienced because of our parenting choices). So, you won't find me recommending it, as a result!
My DP read the Marie Mongan book, so that he'd know what I was doing in labour etc.
The other books he bothered to leaf through were not specifically for women (anyone can read Pinky!).
I'd say, OM, that you are in a minority of partners - none of the dad's I know really did much reading of their own, sadly enough! So, it's not a deliberate exclusion of books for men here, it's a lack of decent material as well as not being in our experience that men WANT to read these books
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll look into this title for DP!

[BellyBelly]

For blokes - Men At Birth by David Vernon. The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin.

Sadly many dads books are pretty much not 'helpful' in the sense I would have liked, but men like to be humoured which most of the books contain!

Parenting could really be applied to either gender and also Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph has a section for dads, so both partners can apply the ideas. In fact there are lots of good Steve Biddulph books which are worth the read