Bringing Up Baby: Three Steps To Making Good Decisions In Your ChildÂ’s First Years

Rating:
Summary: Know your baby - Know youself!
Review: Bringing Up Baby offers parents what they need most - help in making decisions that fit THEIR family and THEIR child. It asks parents to look at their beliefs and desires to gain knowledge about themselves. It asks them to learn about their child by watching their child. Instead of taking the advice of an expert, parents can feel confident making tough parenting decisions that are right for their family. While offering plenty of information, the authors do not provide one-size-fits-all answers. The text is easy and quick to read so busy parents can get support without giving up lots of time. The appendix gives typical behaviors and ways to think about typical dilemmas that come up in the first three years of life. I think that parents will refer to this book again and again. It is a welcome addition to the Parent Library at my infant/toddler center.

Rating:
Summary: Great support for parents of babies and toddlers
Review: I would have loved to have this book when I was a new parent. The authors lay out the most important decisions that parents face. I appreciated the straightforward questions presented that guide readers through the process of making thoughtful decisions about parenting. Readers are not told what to do, but rather what to think about. The authors suggest taking a three step approach to parenting. The three steps include: 1. Develop self awareness, 2. Tune into your child, 3. Make sensitive and effective decisions. By taking the three step approach, parents will be better prepared and have more confidence in their parenting.

The section on developing self awareness was especially helpful. It explained how our reactions to our children's behavior may have more to do with our assumptions and past experiences than the behavior itself. I also enjoyed the section on temperament and how children respond to their world in different ways. Readers are encouraged to use what they know about themselves and their child to make sensitive and effective decisions to support healthy growth and development. The final section on sharing care with other adults was very useful. It provided reassurance and tools to have a good relationship with other adults in my child's life.

I am happy to recommend this book to both new and experienced parents.


Rating:
Summary: Useful, practical, insightful, and rewarding reading
Review: The collaboration of Claire Lerner and Amy Laura Dombro, Bringing Up Baby: Three Steps To Making Good Decisions In Your Child's First Years is not a complicated manual for rasing a child but rather an easy, "parent friendly" 3-step approach to understanding what an infant or toddler is thinking and what it means. Using this information, any parent can make effective decisions for their child's healthy development. Nicely organized into chapters focusing upon developing self-awareness, tuning into a child, the process of making sensitive and effective decisions, making shared decisions with the other adults in a child's life, promoting a child's healthy development on a daily basis, Bringing Up Baby is useful, practical, insightful, and rewarding reading for any parent wanting to do the best that they can for their infant or toddler.


Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Advice for Parents of Infants and Toddlers
Review: This book is very different from a lot of "how-to" parenting guides. It starts by encouraging parents to be self-aware, to understand what motivates them and where they find support in the tough task of parenting. The book goes on to help parents understand what makes their child unique, and how to tune in to his or her specific needs by observing and responding.

The book is written in a way that's very accessible to parents. The authors use lots of examples, stories, and pictures. There are several little scales to help you rate things like your child's activity level and temperament. And the advice is practical and useful without being preachy.

All in all, this is a very useful parent guide. It encourages you to use what you already know about yourself and your child to make good parenting decisions in your child's first few years. I'd highly recommend it to all parents of very young children.