Rating: 
Summary: A Great General Reference
Review: No detail is too small for Dr. Spock, which can be a great comfort to a new parent. This book calmed my fears and saved many calls to my child's doctor. While some of Dr. Spock's views are extreme, such as vegetarianism for small children and letting your child scream it out, this book cannot be beat when it comes to the nuts and bolts of day to day parenting concerns.
Rating: 
Summary: Shockingly disappointing and a bit bizarre...
Review: I ran out and purchased this book on name recognition alone - after all this IS Dr. Spock! After the first gentle chapter, reassuring all new parents that we know more than we think we do and we should trust our instincts, this book takes some very strange turns. The first is Dr. Spock's views on vegetarian diet for babies. We are most definetly NOT vegetarians, but this book made me feel almost guilty about not raising my baby in a more "healthy" fashion. What's more, he offers almost no nutrition and diet information for us omnivores (as if you don't follow his advice and become a vegetarian, you aren't worth addressing). The second weird part was his advice on sleep issues - particulary dealing with an infant who cries to the point of vomiting in her crib. His solution (page 526)? Ignore it and let her cry herself to sleep - you can clean up the vomit later! The third - and most bizzare - offering is on children in the parents bed: he advises against it, which is fine, and then goes on to say that it is acceptable for the child to come to the parents bed in the morning to spend a few quality snuggling moments before the family starts their day as long as - get this (page 522) - "IT DOESN'T MAKE EITHER PARENT UNEASY, FOR EXAMPLE, BY STIRRING UP SEXUAL FEELINGS"! I'm not sure who his target audience is, but my husband and I are definetly not part of that group. My advice is to skip this book and purchase "The New First Three Years of Life" by Dr. Burton White (for developmental issues) and Caring for your Baby and Young Child" by the American Academy of Pediatrics (for child health issues)
Rating:
Summary: GOOD book to have on hand.
Review: I got this book used on amazon and it was worth the money. I looked in it all the time when my daughter was just born, I found answers to all my questions. I use it now and then now for things, when I don't know what's going on. I would get this book, but try buying it used. It's worth having on hand.
Rating: 
Summary: A good basic
Review: There have been times when reading this book has been very helpful to us, and I do recommend it as a basic source of information. The main drawback I found to the book is the overly agressive (to my vantage point) emphasis placed on a vegetarian diet. I like vegetarian dishes, but I am not a firm believer in vegetarianism and do not appreciate the way the book speaks about nutrition and foods only in terms of what a vegetarian meal should contain for an infant, toddler, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Informative and easy to read. Great reference book.
Review: It's an easy read and a great reference to many different things. It covers such a wide range of subjects such as nursing, crying, feeding the baby, development, etc. It provides a good foundation about what you need to know but it doesn't go into so much detail that you lose interest. It's laid out in an outline format so it's easy to scan the bolded subject line and decide if you want to read the rest of the paragraph. Because it's in a reference format, it's easy to jump from section to section. It's perfect for me since I only read in 10-15 minute increments at a time (when I'm nursing).I wish I had this book before I had my baby because it provides such a great overview.
Rating:
Summary: This book is second to me after the Bible.
Review: I use this book at least once a week. Even with my second child, I still use it as much as I did with the first. This book has so much info in it. It's great to have it for those times in the middle of the night when you hate to call the doctor. I bought one for my sisters and friends too. It's a great gift for new moms.
Rating:
Summary: There's something wrong.
Review: Why would any loving parent buy a book written by such a terrible parent? Research his personal life and you will be enlightened. Just because he was a doctor, did not make him a good father. We see the title 'doctor' and blindly believe what we're reading. "Oh", you say, "He was dedicated to the greater good of informing the masses". Wrong, wrong, wrong. He should have reared his children first, then written a book about it.
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate child operational guide
Review: Spock's book will help you to survive the first couple of months. And it will be the case if you have the first one!
Obviously every parents are strugguling to define whats the best for the baby. Even the most simply conditions will be questionered inside, like what is the tempeture that the best for the baby, etc... But the biggest help is coming when your baby start to do something painful. Like cry through the night. And I tell you, it will be a real diasaster bacause you havent got a clue...and you just take Spock's book, open up the relevant item, SORTED!
The book is extremly well structured, easy to find what are you looking for and SPOCK HAS ALWAYS RIGHT!
Rating:
Summary: Conservative, Informative, and Practical
Review: I am an attorney, not a pediatrician nor psychiatrist. When my wife and I were expecting our first child three years ago, we recognized our lack of experience and our need of reference material on how to raise a child. Advice from the Grandparents, while well-intentioned, needed to be "double-checked" for accuracy. This book was in our first order of "how to"s. The topics are broken down in numerical paragraphs, and are often very concise. This works well for us, when we get the crazy idea that our child may have some rare disease or condition, or that he isn't developing on schedule (at least, not according family members). We can then get a brief bit of insight, usually enough to reassure us. The advice is conservative, informative, and practical. As with any suggestions, you may wish to compare it to what is being told to you by your pediatrician, the Grandparents, and other sources. We found this to be a good reference, and return to it when needed. It is the second best one we have, after the American Academy of Pediatrics guide from birth to age five (also a "must have"). I would recommend this text as a nice supplemental reference.
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Summary: After 50 Years Still the Best Book On Child Development Ever
Review: This book, originally published fifty years ago and revised a number of times, remains the classic in the field just as Benjamin Spock remains the dean of published pediatric authorities. Yet no book has been more misunderstood and misinterpreted. The truth is that Spock's ideas, controversial when originally published, have become so mainstream that one would be hard pressed to find a book on baby and child care that does not incorporate or utilize Spockian theory. The book is a guide to the care and development of children from birth to five years. While it is chock full of useful information, such as methods of feeding infants, sleep issues in babies and toddlers and toilet training, the real value of the book is it's discussion of the psychological development of children. At the time the book was published, the prevailing theories of childcare focused almost exclusively on methods of parental control, that is to say discipline. The experts of the day sought to teach parents how to control their children's behavior but not how to understand that behavior. Spock changed all that. By couching his Freudian approach to child development in folksy and simple language, Spock brought the theories of Freud to the entire nation. Certainly parents would have been horrified to read straightforward Freudian ideas about the Oedipal complex and such things. Spock simply asserts that girls learn to be women by imitating their mothers and flirting with their fathers and vice versa. In this manner, Freud's child development theories were accepted into the mainstream. The first sentence of the book states "Relax. You know more than you think you do." This sums up Spock's common sense approach to the role of parents in caring for and guiding the behavior of their children. This is more true today than when the book was published. So many parents are caught up in trendy ideas and theories that they fail to step back and observe what is really going on. Spock's discussion of child psychology, while Freudian based, is not so narrow. His book is filled with numerous examples of the behavior of babies, toddlers and young children and parents' appropriate or inappropriate responses. Contrary to popular myth, Spock does not ignore the necessity of discipline. Indeed, throughout the book, he urges appropriate discipline. He demonstrates, through example, why young children after the first birthday misbehave. Sometimes, it is an attempt to manipulate the actions of the parents. More importantly, as Spock demonstrates, in the period we call the "terrible twos" and also for children approaching the age of 3 and a half, disobedience is usually an attempt by children to discover the boundaries of their own autonomy. As such it is a vital and necessary part of human development. Spock's great innovation is accepting this as natural. He does not call children who disobey naughty or bad. But at the same time, he urges parents to set appropriate boundaries and enforce them. The failure to enforce the limits of a young child's autonomy is what leads to spoiled children. As Spock points out in his characteristically folksy way, even the children know something is wrong when they are allowed to get away with such actions. As I stated above, Spock's approach to childcare is virtually universal. No modern child psychologist or pediatrician would argue that the meaning and reason for child behavior is unimportant to the effort to raise healthy adults. Doctors like Stoppard and Brazelton are full fledged Spockians. Even the super-famous Dr. Ferber lifts his complicated method straight out of Spock's simple idea that a little crying will not harm a baby. Indeed, a point Spock often makes is that happy and sane parents are the most important factors in raising happy children. This book is extremely valuable and makes fascinating reading. It should be read by all parents and parents to be. It should be read first cover to cover and then re-read as one's children approach the various ages covered in the book. It remains one of the signature influential works of the 20th Century and I can't imagine it ever going out of vogue. Read this book!
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