Rating: 
Summary: lots of expertise, little advocacy
Review: This book fit in nicely with the books that fit our parenting philosophy, which is off the AP bandwagon but in touch with current academic research on attachment and limits. And that's what's best about Nathanson's writing: it's soundly informed and appropriate for our culture.Our newborn had transient tachypnea, and this was the only book we found that discusses it. Her position that you shouldn't let a newborn cry alone (but that it's possible to spoil a six-month-old) fits nicely between my mother's Spock-influenced rigidity and some of our friends' overindulgent parenting. We took her advice and introduced a "reminder bottle" at 2 weeks and now our baby goes easily from breast to bottle, finger to pacifier with ease (and no crying at any stage). Unlike Dr Sears, Nathanson presents medical concepts for their own sake. She presents the variations of thought about fussiness and colic one by one, without using them to justify AP or scheduling--thus we could use them to understand the situation rather than spiral into self-doubt and sleeplessness. Her advice on breastfeeding actually has answers instead of rephrased attempts to convince us to do it. I'm not sure this is a good choice for readers who see parenting as a cultural revolution, because Nathanson's advice is firmly centered in mainstream culture. But more importantly, it's broad and consistently helpful in its presentation of current pediatric knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: Reassuring Resource
Review: This is one of the most well-worn books in my house. It's reassured me through countless colds and scrapes on the part of my two kids. The developmental sections are helpful, and the parenting parts are no more than suggestions of various alternatives you might not have thought of. If you're very dogmatic about child-raising this book will annoy you, as the author will invariably discuss some child-rearing technique you don't like and think no one should ever use, but I personally had no problem ignoring the parts I wasn't interested in and benefiting from the rest, and I'm glad she wrote a comprehensive enough book to let me do that rather than making arbitrary decisions like "I hate pacifiers so I'm not going to say anything about them." My only complaint was the illustrations are extremely ugly. Maybe a child drew them, but they certainly don't add anything.
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