What To Expect The First Year (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
I got this book at the Good Will and read it as my baby, born in April, went through his first year. It has a lot of good information about when babies hit milestones on average, ideas for games and toys that are appropriate for age, and some of the major concerns that parents run into in the first year. That said, I think there are a lot of better books out there for first-time parents, and I would not particularly recommend this one. First of all, some of the health-related information is out of date and doesn't conform to the standards set by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Here, I am particularly thinking of their section on introducing solid foods. The current research and recommendation by the AAP is that it is not only safe to introduce highly-allergenic foods before age 1 to children whose parents have no history of food allergies, but that introducing these foods early may actually help prevent common food allergies.* I hope this kind of stuff will be updated in the next edition, but as of this moment, the book is out of date, as are a lot of the materials on the corresponding website.Second, this book didn't support breastfeeding to the extent that I was hoping. They repeat over and over that it's best to breastfeed until at least age 1, but there's also a lot of material about weaning to the bottle or formula. That's fine, as it's information some families will certainly need, but I felt like I was constantly being told about how *hard* breastfeeding is. The book didn't provide never a lot of support for new mothers to continue breastfeeding after a year, and certainly didn't touch at all on the health benefits (for mother and child) of doing so. Breastfeeding is hard and it's important to acknowledge that, but I feel like its benefits are well-known enough that a book like this should really be supporting the breastfeeding relationship for as long as possible. Obviously, some people will not be interested in breastfeeding or will not be able to breastfeed, and that's fine, but there's a way to support those decisions without constantly pressuring those of us who are breastfeeding to stop at age 1. Additionally, there is some outright WRONG information about breastfeeding repeated over and over in the text, especially as concerns what's normal/average in terms of weaning. Their expectations for infant sleep also didn't line up with the books I've read on infant sleep that were grounded in scientific research.Finally, I felt that this book spent too much time on a lot of very rare and uncommon illnesses. It's great to have rare concerns listed briefly, and to provide resources for more information, but reading over and over about all the ways your baby could get sick is probably not a good idea for a new parent. It's stressful enough to handle a healthy baby; spending your energy processing information that you'll never need isn't worth it, especially since that kind of worrying can create emotional issues you really don't need. There is definitely such a thing as being TOO informed when it comes to certain topics. I say, give me information about the common cold, why vaccinations are important, what to do in a choking emergency or during a febrile seizure, and skip the several hundred pages on all the 1/10,000 ways my kid could get sick.*See http://aapnewsde.aap.org/aapnews-open... for one example.
I got this book after having my oldest was born, a little over 8 years ago. I started reading it, often going ahead of her age, curious of when my daughter would be doing certain things (the book is divided in chapters, by month, and each month you have a list of activities that your baby is likely to be doing at that specific age). I also read the end section of the book, which talks about illnesses and injuries. At times I wondered why I was reading all that stuff, as my daughter was very healthy and I was a very careful mo, and always at home with her, so it was not likely that she would get hurt. But eventually, I found out how true it is what the philospher L. Ron Hubbard wrote: "Be ready for emergencies, for if you are not, you will have emergencies". One day my daughter, who was about 9 months old at the time, was crying desperately, very odd thing for her. Thanks to the information gotten from this book, I was able to prompty "diagnose": she had an inguinal hernia. I called the children hospital and described the signs and symptoms (the book also teaches you what to take note of and what to describe when you call the emergency room, for speedy handling) and the doctor said it sounded like I was right and to bring her in. We did, and the matter got handled over the weekend, then I took my daughter home. When I brought her to her Pediatrician for a check of the area, a week later, he congratulated me for the way I handled it, and told me he was really proud of me being able to diagnose it correctly and getting it handled accordingly, saving my daughter a great deal of pain and complications. And all thanks to this book. Had it been one of the usual baby books, biased by one current of thought only and hard to read and understand, I wouldn't have read it! Instead it's very informative, easy to read and understand, and on many important issues (breastfeeding/bottle feeding, sleeping schedule and habits, etc) it offers several viewpoints and info on the various currents of thought.
What do You think about What To Expect The First Year (2003)?
Scott and I absolutely LOVE these books. We have all four of them (What to Expect BEFORE You're Expecting, What to Expect When You're Expecting, What to Expect the First Year, and What to Expect the Toddler Years) and we just love how much information they give you about starting and raising your family.This author has a great sense of humor, and her books are very comprehensive. In this book, every chapter is a month of your baby's first year, and in that chapter she outlines most of the typical things you can expect to happen during that month. There has hardly been a question or topic that Scott and I haven't been able to find when we look it up in the index.It's easy to read, easy to understand, and gives you a lot of advice and information on how babies develop during their first year. We would typically read part of a chapter every Monday for FHE and then try to be ready for the next chapter by the time Chris's monthly birthdays came around. I highly recommend this series of books.
—Marsha Stokes
Overall, a useful book but there are some organizational problems with it. Nothing major, though. I'm likely to purchase the next book in this series, because it gives nice examples of interactive activities that you can do with your child to work on development. Plus, it has recipes for those of us who like to make our own baby food, and it has FAQ throughout that in some instances, provides very useful and detailed information.I read the Sears book in conjunction with this one, and I found this one to be more open about different ways in which to rear a child. Sears seems to be stuck in one mode with little flexibility so I appreciated this book more to a certain extent, because it was less judgemental when it comes to parenting styles.The bottom line is as a parent, no one knows your baby better than you so if you find something that works, stick with it, regardless of what the pundits say.
—Sera
There is a lot of good information in this book, but it is also very preachy. I can tell the author is trying not to be biased about which parenting decisions she thinks are best, but she isn't very successful. I also think this book focuses too much on what could go wrong, which makes new mothers like myself (who are already neurotic as it is), more worried about rare diseases and risks than is truly warranted. Granted, I guess I am what people call a "crunchy" mom-- breastfeeding, cloth diapers, homemade baby food, etc. So, if you are not, you might love this book, and feel better knowing about everything that could go wrong. That comforts some people, and I understand why it would. But I often skimmed through the seemingly endless information on medical conditions my child is very unlikely to have.
—Lindsay
