Here I have listed some books I like or have been recommended which you might find helpful and enjoy. If a book sounds interesting to you, please click on the cover to purchase from Amazon.co.uk. This is a way I can earn a small contribution for Mummy Zen so I’d be very grateful for you buying here through the site.
RECENTLY READ
A handy household guide full of easy steps to be more green. See the author’s guest post here for more about the book.
An enjoyable read based on Gretchen Rubin’s year-long project to increase her personal sense of happiness. She tackles a different area of her life each month and the small changes she implements make a big difference. Read my post highlighting a few parts of the book here.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Here are some books we have enjoyed with our son and some recommendations from friends. They are all for young children (age 0-3 probably):
PREGNANCY
I found all three of these books a great help throughout my own pregnancy:
What to Expect is a very thorough guide to pregnancy, with answers to any questions or concerns you might have.
The HypnoBirthing book is well worth a read even if you are not doing a HypnoBirthing course / birth. It’s easy to read and encourages you to look at birth as a natural process that your body is built for.
Your Pregnancy Week by Week is, as the title suggests, a weekly look at you and your growing baby. Lots of illustrations and helpful tips for getting through pregnancy.
GENERAL BABY & PARENTING GUIDES
Gina Ford is a name known to us all and whilst her rigid routine isn’t for everyone, I know lots of mums for whom it does work very well. A reader of Mummy Zen recommended her baby with toddler book and found her routines to be more flexible in that book than in some of her others.
The Baby Whisperer focuses on identifying your baby’s type and parenting to that type. A gentler approach than Gina Ford.
Again, the What to Expect series is good for general reference and indications of milestones, challenges and changes to expect from your baby each month. I’ve enjoyed and found it helpful reading each monthly chapter to see what kinds of developments my son is likely to make and also to look up specific questions I’ve had about particular stages.
SLEEP
The Sleep Lady is helpful as a guide to the sleep patterns day and night that your baby is likely to follow. There are suggested routines and advice on how to encourage and extend your baby’s sleep and how to cope when travel, sickness, moving house etc upset your baby’s usual sleep routine. This book was especially useful to me for the first few months of my son’s life and now I mainly use it to refer to for information on nap schedules / patterns at specific ages.
The Happiest Baby on the Block is written by pediatrician Harvey Karp and is famous for his ’5 s’s’ as techniques to calm crying babies.
Also writtten by a male pediatrician, Healthy Sleep Habits offers helpful guidance on a wide range of common sleep issues from infancy through to adolescence and with very do-able suggestions. I like the impartial tone this book has and his approach is very down-to-earth.
A reader of Mummy Zen recommended The Sensational Baby Sleep Plan, which aims to get your baby sleeping 12 hours a night, uninterrupted by dream feeds. It has good tips for settling your babies to sleep both during the day and at night.
EAT
Annabel Karmel gives tons of recipe ideas, as well as listing what your baby can eat as they move from one weaning stage to the next – an indispensable weaning book to have around! I resisted buying this at first but then when my baby’s meals started lacking variety and I needed some inspiration, I bought this book and it certainly has plenty of options to try.
If self-feeding rather than spoon-feeding is the approach you want to take for weaning then Baby-led Weaning has plenty of practical tips to get you started.
Gina Ford provides a step-by-step guide to the weaning process with daily plans and recipes which are popular with babies.