Baby Books, Part 1

Hello there. If you read my 30 weeks post, you may have been sent here to look at this blog post. I hope to have several blog posts about books having to do with pregnancy and babies, because there are so many dang books out there, and I hope to give anyone who reads my blog a little advice on what has worked for me and Jed. I plan on going to the library one of these days and checking out several baby books, and then I can let you all know which books I think are the most useful. I've read through hundreds of reviews on Amazon.com for several books about raising your baby, and so I have a rough idea of which books might work for me.


Anyways, I wanted to talk today about the three books I've read so far.

1) What to Expect Before You're Expecting. Great book! Granted, I didn't have this book for very long before we found out we were pregnant, but in the months before as we tried to prepare and learn what exactly we could do to up our odds of getting pregnant, this book was invaluable. I am a huge fan of the format of the "What to Expect" books, so I like that. She's also very real in her writing, so she will kind of joke about things, and I like that a lot. The book has a lot of advice for dads when trying to get pregnant, and I love that. It also has a lot of advice on miscarriages and trying to conceive again after a miscarriage, which I think is important because sooooo many women go through that. So, I know that the majority of the world knows the general way of making a baby, but this book is great to give you lots of clues when your body has the best chance of conceiving and it helps you keep track of it so you can see patterns in your own body. Love it.

2) What to Expect When You're Expecting. Love this one too! I scoured over this book soooo much in the first few months of my pregnancy. I love that it is divided my month, so you can get a general idea of what will happen to you in each month. I love that it talks about what is happened to your baby each week, and then what is happening to your body as things change. Each month has questions and answers, which is awesome. The one thing that some people don't like about these books is that it can be hard to find your questions in the book. They aren't necessarily in the month you might think they are in or the index doesn't have that topic. Did I mention there was an index? Yes, there is, so it makes for some easy searching. But people are right, you might be in your 4th month and have a question the book doesn't address until the 6th month. But if you're like me, you read through this book well ahead of where you are in your pregnancy. There have been very few questions I have not been able to find an answer to, and if I couldn't, then I searched Google or asked someone, and I always found my answer. To sum up, I love this book, and I am so glad I have had this. I highly recommend this to everyone.

3) When Two Become Three by Mark E. Crawford. My best friend, Natalie, is taking a class and they had to read this book for it, and I'm so glad she told me about it! Seriously, this book was amazing. By the title you can assume that it talks about having a baby. The whole premise of the book is about how much your life, and most specifically your marriage, will change when you have your first baby. He gives lots of reasons why you need to prepare your relationship with your spouse for the baby, and then each chapter focuses on something to think about. The first chapter was about communication and conflict. I loved that chapter! Jed and I went over it a little together, but it's one we will definitely talk in depth about in the future. It gives great advice for any marriage (whether kids are in the picture or not) on how to have healthy conflict and effective communication. I can't rave enough about that chapter. I would buy that book solely for that chapter.

Then he talks about things like feeling lots of pressure, managing chores around the house, intimacy, relationships with family and friends, having a parenting philosophy, and stepfamilies. All great chapters. He also had two awesome chapters: one for the moms, one for the dads. I loved them both. He basically gives advice about how men and women differ and talks all about how the other parent feels with the new baby and why it's different than you are feeling, what sort of problems sometimes arise from not understanding each other, and all these perspective changing things. Both chapters are really awesome and I would read both, whether you are the mom or the dad in the equation, because it really helps your perspective.

I will also add two more things. First, he has a very readable style of writing. It's a little bit conversational and he throws in some funny things every now and then, so I was very comfortable reading his book. Also, he is a Christian author, so there were never moments where I thought, oh that really does not apply to our lives. He does not mention anything religious, but the whole tone of the book was just nice. He definitely values the same things we do (like the hopes of having me be a stay at home mom and Jed working.... whenever we can get to that part of our lives).

Anyways, I loved this book, in case the long paragraphs of me raving about it didn't give you that clue. It was really awesome, and I learned so much from it. I love the thought of preparing your marriage for such a big change, because no doubt it will change. Our marriage has already changed with me just being pregnant, so I can't imagine what will happen once we actually have to take care of this baby (it really is so much easier when it's inside of you... feeding is done automatically, no diapers to change, no spit up...). So, if you are going to have a baby, go get this book! It's less than $5 on Amazon so even if you are on the tightest of budgets (like we are) you can find change on the ground and in your couch to get this book!