Baby and Toddler Books Authors

                                          

• Gina Ford
• Dr. Sears, who coined the phrase ‘Attachment Parenting’
• Baby Whisperer, Tracy Hogg 
• Dr. Linda Sonna, author of 'The Everything Toddler Book' and more.
• Christopher Greene

When my son Jamie was 5 months old I took him to his first swimming lesson. I had seen babies swimming under water and I was really keen to have my new wee babe do just that. We first time mothers all looked on in horror however when the teacher suggested that we put our babies heads under in that very first lesson.

“The babies are fine with going underwater,” said the teacher, “It is usually the mothers I have to talk into it!”

So here was the challenge – would we listen to the teacher, to this ‘baby swimming expert’ and dunk our babies, or would we listen to our motherly instinct and take our babies home immediately and NEVER return to the pool with them again?

This is what happens I think when mothers open these prescriptive parenting baby and toddler books looking for answers to their much sought after questions. They dip into the book with their pre conceived and idealistic ideas and come up coughing and spluttering when the expert suggests they do something that just doesn’t feel right. 

I believe this is how we, as first time parents, should read these books. We should read them with an air of caution. We are the mother of our baby. We are with them 24/7 and we have our motherly instinct to guide us. At times we just merely need to have our thoughts affirmed for us. At other times we need to be given a whole new way of looking at our babies. Maybe they are a lot more capable than we really understand.

Well I did it, I have to say. I decided to trust the swimming teacher and was totally thrilled to see my 5 month old baby happily swim underwater from the teacher to me. 

From that day on Jamie proved to me that he was a total fish and loves to swim. I will always be grateful to the teacher for guiding me on this occasion and encouraging me to let him swim underwater, something I thought he would take months to learn.

Several authors of baby and toddler books strongly oppose each other. Each author offers advice and guidelines on a variety of topics from feeding to sleeping. Gina Ford for example recommends a strict routine with parents leading the baby. While Dr. Sears’s belief in attachment parenting encourages parents to be baby led. 

As a new parent you may be unsure what your parenting philosophy is. My suggestion to you is only ever use the books written by these ‘experts’ as guides. If you are having concerns with your baby sleeping, then read the section on sleep in each book and see which one feels right for you. Each family is different and each baby is different. It is hard to imagine that any one baby and toddler book would be a good ‘fit’ for any one baby or toddler.