Thursday, August 18, 2011

Baby book overload

When I found out I was pregnant my first instinct was to read all I could find about pregnancy, childbirth and babies. This began what has been a very love/hate relationship with pregnancy/baby books. Over the past 5 months I have read the following books:






















However, I'm feeling really fed up with these books. Part of the problem is I have read books with such dramatically different philosophies that my head is fairly spinning. I feel like it's important to read about these different philosophies and perspectives but then I have a really hard time sorting through all the information and opinions. It doesn't help that Dr. Sears and the la leche league say you can only feed on demand while the Whisperer says you have to put your baby on a schedule. The Happiest Baby on the Block is all about swaddling while others say it can be bad for your baby. You add all these different opinions with what people you know say and it can be so hard to sort it all out. People have told me to go with my instinct but I honestly don't know what it is on so many of these things. And I don't feel like we "fit" clearly into one camp or the other. I don't know that "attachment parenting" as described by Dr. Sears is for me but I do find myself agreeing with some aspects of it and at the same time I don't know how I feel about the crying it out method. I also struggle because I feel like so many books are written for stay at home Mom's and trying to factor in my working Mom schedule doesn't seem to fit. I think for now I have decided I'm done with parenting/baby/pregnancy books. Friday I will be 6 months pregnant and I think I'm going to spend my remaining months reading novels and decorating my nursery. Maybe stopping the information overload will allow my own instincts to kick in. And I hope when Margot arrives we'll just have a sense of what will work for us.


How did you deal with the info overload when you were pregnant???

4 comments:

  1. I only read the Happiest Baby on the Block. In my personal opinion, these books did nothing for me but mess me up and have me second guessing my instincts. So I am done with all parenting books. It will be easier to trust your instincts once your baby arrives. You will try a couple different things and find out what works best for you family.

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  2. It was nice b/c one of the first books I read recommended only reading one or two baby books so that helped. Also, AJ & I would read the daily paragraph (or so) reading from the "What to Expect When You're Expecting" app, and that was wonderful because we'd both be getting the same info & both be learning the same thing at the same time. It was fun every week reading what fruit or vegetable Ransom was the size of! Concerning what camp to be in, I think Margot will help you figure it out as you discover what kind of a person she'll be like.
    One nice thing I read in a baby book (no camp loyalty required) was that you only get one firstborn, one first-time parent experience so enjoy it.
    Yes to enjoying the rest of your pregnancy!

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  3. Welcome to parenthood. If there was only one right way to do it... there would only be one book. And we all would read it. :)

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  4. Along with far too many baby books come far too many opinions. Here's mine. The BabyWise book is horrible - what were the Ezzo's thinking? The Sears book is amazing!!! Pure genius.

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