Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches

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Book Description
I didn't write this book because mothering little ones is easy for me. I wrote it because it isn't. I know that this is a hard job, because I am right here in the middle of it. I know you need encouragement because I do too.

This is not a tender reminiscence from someone who had children so long ago that she only remembers the sweet parts. At the time of writing this, I have three children in diapers, and I can recognize the sound of hundreds of toothpicks being dumped out in the hall.

This is a small collection of thoughts on mothering young children for when you are motivated, for when you are discouraged, for the times when discipline seems fruitless, and for when you are just plain old tired.

The opportunities for growth abound here but you have to be willing. You have to open your heart to the tumble. As you deal with your children, deal with yourself always and first. This is what it looks like, and feels like, to walk as a mother with God.

About the Author
Rachel Jankovic is a wife, homemaker, and mother. She received her bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts & Culture from New Saint Andrews College, but mostly reads cookbooks now to avoid story grip (being highly susceptible). In 2003, she married her husband Luke, and they have five children who know how to party. Their little posse includes Evangeline (5), Daphne (4), Chloe (2), Titus (2), and Blaire (5 months). Rachel loves color, fabric, yarn to knit with, kids to laugh at, and laundry (not so much).

Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn

Order "Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn by Penny Simkin, April Bolding, Ann Keppler, Janelle Durham, Janet Whalley" Here

Book Description
Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn: The Complete Guide is already one of the bestselling pregnancy books on the market, with more than one million copies in print! Now newly revised and redesigned, this comprehensive, authoritative “bible” provides expectant couples with abundant, valuable information about pregnancy, labor, birth, the postpartum period, and newborn care.

This award-winning book presents the latest research-based information on pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood, including:

• New information on complementary-medicine approaches such as acupuncture
• Updated information on interventions during childbirth
• Revised statistics and discussions on cesarean birth and vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC)
• New advice on informed decision-making, one of the hottest topics in maternity care today
• Plus much, much more!

Your Infant Sleeping Through the Night by 9 Weeks

Order "The Baby Sleeps Tonight by Shari Mezrah" Here

Book Description
The Baby Sleeps Tonight teaches anyone, no matter how sleep deprived, how to create order and predictable happiness by getting baby to sleep through the night by nine weeks. Sleep schedule specialist Shari Mezrah helps new parents regain control over their lives, guiding them from pre-birth through the toddler years with a plan to ensure that baby and the whole family--sleeps tonight.

• Proven scheduling system of efficient feedings, naps, and wake-times
• A troubleshooting guide answering the toughest sleep questions
• Checklists and helpful tips to stay ahead of baby's needs and take control--essential to a good sleep plan
• Real-life success stories of parents who have found peace through the plan
• Simple, effective solutions discussing a wide array of childcare issues that affect sleep
• Strategies to customize the plan to your family's needs

The Baby Sleeps Tonight offers a proven system for taking back control of your life, your sleep, and your happiness.

About the Author
Shari Mezrah, "The Sleep Mom," is a sleep schedule specialist and mother of two who developed the innovative The Baby Sleeps Tonight program in 1999, and published her first book, The Baby Sleeps Tonight: Your Infant Sleeping Through the Night by 9 Weeks (Yes, Really!) in April 2010. Through her Tampa-based consulting practice, BabyTIME, Mezrah has helped hundreds of families worldwide turn chaos into calm and regain control over their lives by getting babies and toddlers on schedules and sleeping through the night. In addition to schedules for feedings, naps and wake times, she provides successful techniques for soothing and stimulating, making transitions and mapping out plans for caregivers, among many other challenges new parents face. She appears as a nationally recognized expert on the syndicated talk show "Daytime," in addition to being featured on ABC, FOX, NBC and CBS. Mezrah is a much sought after guest speaker for hospitals, pediatricians, child psychologists, ob/gyns and parenting organizations. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa and has been active with the Alpha House of Tampa, a nonprofit organization focused on empowering pregnant women and moms in crisis. Mezrah holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication from California State University.

The Guy's Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth & the First Year of Fatherhood

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Book Description
In high school, Michael Crider was the jokester, the drummer in a band, the Howie Mandel impersonator. Fast-forward ten years and the funny man has married and become the family man. The Guy’s Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the First Year of Fatherhood—Crider’s candid, down-to-earth account of his transformation—proves that even without much sleep, he has kept his sense of humor completely intact. From the moment he hears the unexpected news that the pregnancy test is positive to the end of his son’s first year of life, Michael Crider is awed, anxious, and all-too-human. In between these milestones, he endures the aches and pains of his wife’s pregnancy (which had a clear impact on his own bodily comfort), swallows his pride when bunny wallpaper replaces his beloved Budweiser mirror, has a short and only partially-appreciated stint as her labor coach on the Big Day, and experiences every one of his son’s “firsts” as though they were his own. Honest, informative, hilarious, and heartwarming, The Guy’s Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the First Year of Fatherhood is a must-read for all new parents.

About the Author
Michael Crider is the author of The Guy’s Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the First Year of Fatherhood, and The Guy’s Guide to Dating, Getting Hitched, and Surviving the First Year of Marriage. He lives in Tennessee with his wife and son.

Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep

Order "On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep by Gary Ezzo, Robert Bucknam" Here

Book Description
The infant management concepts presented in this book have found favor with over two million parents and twice as many contented babies. On Becoming Babywise brings hope to the tired and bewildered parents looking for an alternative to sleepless nights and fussy babies. The Babywise Parent Directed Feeding concept has enough structure to bring security and order to your baby's world, yet enough flexibility to give mom freedom to respond to any need at any time. It teaches parents how to lovingly guide their baby's day rather than be guided or enslaved to the infant's unknown needs.

The information contained within On Becoming Babywise is loaded with success. Comprehensive breast-feeding follow-up surveys spanning three countries, of mothers using the PDF method verify that as a result of the PDF concepts, 88% breast-feed, compared to the national average of only 54% (from the National Center for Health Statistics). Of these breast-feeding mothers, 80% of them breast-feed exclusively without a formula complement. And while 70% of our mothers are still breast-feeding after six months, the national average encourage to follow demand feeding without any guidelines is only 20%. The mean average time of breast-feeding for PDF moms is 33 1/2 weeks, well above the national average. Over 50% of PDF mothers extend their breast-feeding toward and well into the first year. Added to these statistics is another critical factor. The average breast-fed PDF baby sleeps continuously through night seven to eight hours between weeks seven and nine. Healthy sleep in infants is analogous to healthy growth and development. Find out for yourself why a world of parents and pediatricians utilize the concepts found in On Becoming Babywise.

About the Author
Gary Ezzo, M.A., serves as the executive director of Growing Familes International. He and his wife Anne Marie have authored a number of parenting curriculums translated into fifteen different languages and utilized by more than two million households. Robert Bucknam, M.D., F.A.A.P. is the founder of Cornerstone Pediatrics in Louisville, Colorado, where he resides with his wife Gayle, and their four sons. Whether Ezzo and Bucknam are working with new or expectant parents or pediatric residents in training, they always find a receptive audience looking to Babywise as a refreshing alternative to sleepless nights, fatigued moms and bewildered dads.

Proven 3-Month Program for Maximum Fertility

Order "Making Babies by Sami S. David, Jill Blakeway" Here

Book Description
MAKING BABIES offers a proven 3-month program designed to help any woman get pregnant. Fertility medicine today is all about aggressive surgical, chemical, and technological intervention, but Dr. David and Blakeway know a better way. Starting by identifying "fertility types," they cover everything from recognizing the causes of fertility problems to making lifestyle choices that enhance fertility to trying surprising strategies such as taking cough medicine, decreasing doses of fertility drugs, or getting acupuncture along with IVF. MAKING BABIES is a must-have for every woman trying to conceive, whether naturally or through medical intervention. Dr. David and Blakeway are revolutionizing the fertility field, one baby at a time.

About the Author
Sami David, M.D., is a reproductive endocrinologist. He was the first doctor in New York state to perform a successful IVF, though he now focuses on more conservative approaches to infertility.

Jill Blakeway, L.Ac, is a Licensed Acupuncturist and Board Certified Herbalist, and founder and clinical director of The YinOva Center, an alternative health service for women in New York City.

Heading Home with Your Newborn

Order "Heading Home with Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality by Laura A. Jana MD FAAP, Jennifer Shu MD FAAP" Here

Book Description
This fully updated guide offers "parent-tested, pediatrician-approved" advice for new parents finding themselves overwhelmed with the reality of caring for a baby in the first eight weeks of its life. The second edition features a wealth of new information on topics such as vaccines, child care providers, babies and learning, car seats, safe sleep, cord blood, what to keep in the medicine cabinet, postpartum depression, and organic formulas. With wit and humor, the pediatrician moms allay the feelings of anxiety, guilt, and inadequacy that inevitably plague first-time parents home alone with a newborn, providing authoritative yet compassionate advice for the sleep-deprived and overwhelmed. From "Going with the Flow" (the trials of breastfeeding) and "What Goes in Must Come Out" (a discussion of "pee and poop") to "Fever: Trial by Fire" and "Seeing Yellow: Jaundice," this handbook provides solid, practical, balanced guidance that will enable parents to feel confident about their parenting skills.

About the Author
Laura A. Jana, MD, FAAP, is a pediatrician and national health communicator who has appeared on ABC and Fox News, NPR’s The Parent Journal, the Nancy Grace Show, and the Today Show. She is a founder of Primrose School of Legacy, an educational child care center, and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Executive Committee for Early Education. She is an expert on Dr. Nancy Snyderman’s www.BeWell.com social network, an early literacy advocate for Reach Out and Read, and a cofounder of Amazing Me Books and the Dr. Spock Company. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP, is a pediatrician, the editor in chief of Baby and Child Health, and a medical editor for www.HealthyChildren.org. She has been featured as a medical expert on numerous national and local television and radio shows such as the Kids Healthworks series on the Discovery Channel, and in parenting magazines, newspapers, and medical publications. She is a former national chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Young Physicians and the American Medical Association Young Physicians Section. She lives Atlanta, Georgia. They are the coauthors of Food Fights.

The Expectant Father

Order "The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-Be by Armin A. Brott, Jennifer Ash" Here

Book Description
This indispensable book explores the emotional, financial, and even physical changes the father-to-be may experience during his partner's pregnancy. Written in an easy-to-absorb format and filled with sound advice and practical tips for men on such topics as, how to make sense of your conflicting emotions, how pregnancy affects your sex life, and how to start a college fund. This volume reassures, commiserates, and informs. It also incorporates the wisdom of top experts in the field, from obstetricians and birth-class instructors to psychologists and sociologists. This new edition features the latest research on many topics (and there's a ton of it), from expanding sections on overcoming infertility, in vitro, artificial insemination, and other tech-assisted pregnancies, especially where dad is not the biological parent, to updating the sections on childbirth to reflect the fact that about 80 per cent of deliveries are now done with epidurals and new information on c-sections as well. Sections on prenatal communication and education are also be expanded. There will be an overall, top-to-bottom review of the content to make sure all the information is relevant to today's young and senior dads.

An information-packed guide to all the emotional, financial and physical changes the father-to-be may experience during the course of his partner's pregnancy. Incorporating the wisdom of top experts in the field, from obstetricians and birth-class instructors to psychologists and sociologists, this book is filled with sound advice and practical tips for men, as well as New Yorker-style cartoons that will keep anxious fathers-to-be chuckling.

About the Author
Armin A. Brott is a nationally recognized parenting expert and author of Abbeville’s New Father series, including: The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year; Fathering Your Toddler: A Dad’s Guide to the Second and Third Years; Fathering Yout School-Age Child; and The Military Father. He has written on parenting and fatherhood for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and dozens of other publications. He also hosts “Positive Parenting,” a nationally syndicated, weekly talk show and lives with his family in Oakland, California.

Jennifer Ash is the author of Private Palm Beach and a contributing editor to Town and Country. She and her husband Joe, and their son Clarke and daughter Amelia make their home in New York City.

Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy

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Book Description
This new Mayo Clinic book on pregnancy provides you with practical information and reassurance on pregnancy and childbirth. Compiled by Mayo Clinic experts in obstetrics, it offers a clear, thorough and reliable reference for this exciting and sometimes unpredictable journey. This comprehensive book includes:

• A month-by-month look at mom and baby
• In-depth "Decision Guides" to help you make informed decisions on topics such as how to select a health care provider, prenatal testing options, pain relief for childbirth, and many others
• An easy-to-use reference guide that covers topics such as morning sickness, heartburn, back pain, headaches and yeast infections, among others
• Information on pregnancy health concerns, including preterm labor, gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, along with an overview on being pregnant when you have pre-existing health conditions such as asthma, diabetes or hyperthyroidism

About the Author
Mayo Clinic took root in farm fields near Rochester, Minn., in the late 1800s. It grew from the medical practice of a country doctor, William Worrall Mayo, and the partnership of his two sons, William J. and Charles H. Mayo – affectionately known as Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie.

The brothers' innovative ideas and tireless work in learning and creating new surgical techniques attracted international attention. Physicians from around the world came to watch the Mayo brothers perform surgery.

The Mayo brothers invited other doctors to join them, forming teams of medical experts. Today, Mayo Clinic – one of the world’s oldest and largest multispecialty group practices – comprises more than 45,000 physicians, scientists, nurses and other staff at its three locations in Rochester, Minn., Jacksonville, Fla., and Scottsdale, Ariz., and its regional community-based health care practices.

What to Expect the Second Year

Order "What to Expect the Second Year: From 12 to 24 Months (What to Expect (Workman Publishing)) by Heidi Murkoff" Here

Book Description
Heidi Murkoff’s What to Expect has delivered again. Announcing the arrival of a brand-new member of the What to Expect family: What to Expect the Second Year. The essential sequel to What to Expect the First Year, with 9.7 million copies in print, What to Expect the Second Year picks up the action at baby’s first birthday, and takes parents through what can only be called “the wonder year”—12 jam-packed (and jam-smeared) months of memorable milestones (from first steps to first words, first scribbles to first friends), lightning-speed learning, endless explorations driven by insatiable curiosity. Not to mention a year of challenges, both for toddlers and the parents who love them, but don’t always love their behaviors (picky eating, negativity, separation anxiety, bedtime battles, biting, and tantrums).

Comprehensive, reassuring, empathetic, realistic, and practical, What to Expect the Second Year is filled with solutions, strategies, and plenty of parental pep talks. It helps parents decode the fascinating, complicated, sometimes maddening, always adorable little person last year’s baby has become.

From the first birthday to the second, this must-have book covers everything parents need to know in an easy-to-access, topic-by-topic format, with chapters on growth, feeding, sleeping, behaviors of every conceivable kind, discipline (including teaching right from wrong), and keeping a toddler healthy and safe as he or she takes on the world. There’s a developmental time line of the second year plus special “milestone” boxes throughout that help parents keep track of their toddler’s development. Thinking of traveling with tot in tow? There’s a chapter for that, too.

About the Author
Heidi Murkoff is the author of the What to Expect(r) series and author of Eating Well When You're Expecting, The What to Expect Pregnancy Journal Organizer, What to Expect the First Year, The What to Expect Baby-Sitter's Handbook, and the What to Expect Kids series from HarperCollins. Her interactive website is www.whattoexpect.com, and she lives with her family in Los Angeles, California.

What to Expect the First Year

Order "What to Expect the First Year by Heidi Murkoff" Here

Book Description
America's bestselling guide to caring for a baby is now better than ever: announcing a two-years-in-the-making, cover-to-cover, line-by-line revision and update of the 6.9-million-copy What to Expect the First Year, the bible for taking care of a newborn through the milestone of his or her first birthday.

The Second Edition incorporates the most recent developments in pediatric medicine. Every question and answer have been revisited, and in response to letters from readers, dozens of new Q&As have been added. The book is more reader-friendly than ever, with updated cultural references, and the new material brings more in-depth coverage to issues such as newborn screening, home births and the resulting at-home newborn care, vitamins and vaccines, milk allergies, causes of colic, sleep problems, SIDS, returning to work, dealing with siblings, weaning, sippy cups, the expanded role of the father, and much more. An updated cover and all-new black-and-white line illustrations complement the fresher book with a fresher look.

About the Author
It all started with a baby…and a book. Heidi Murkoff conceived the idea for What to Expect When You're Expecting during her first pregnancy, when she couldn’t find answers to her questions or reassurance for her worries in the books she’d turned to for much-needed advice. Determined to write a guide that would help other expectant parents sleep better at night, Heidi delivered the proposal for What to Expect When You’re Expecting just hours before delivering her daughter, Emma.