Your Baby and Child by Penelope Leach

Rating: 5 out of 5

This book by Penelope Leach is intended to be a baby bible. A one stop book that covers virtually everything that is baby related from birth to five years old. This book covers everything from sleeping to development, feeding to playing, health to crying, and may more subjects.

Your Baby and Child has been a international best seller for twenty years. The book has been kept up to date and across the latest research, theories, and advice for raising children and babies. Penelope Leach is a research psychologist who specializes in child development. She is also president of the National Childminding Association, research advisor to National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, founding committee member of UK branch World Association for Infant Mental Health, and a mother and grandmother. Needles to say Penelope Leach has lots of experience in the art of raising children.

Ms Leach breaks the book into age groups which makes it easy to read and find the section you need when you come across individual problems (such as teething). At each stage she covers everything you will need to know and expect to find at the stage your child is going through. There is a comprehensive table of contents at the start of the book which assists you in finding the information you require.

The advice is practical and none judgemental. Penelope Leach presents both sides of an issue and has advice on what to do no matter what you decide, for instance she handles the issue of breastfeeding or bottle feeding with compassion and facts. She does not tell you what you should do or make you feel guilty. The information is presented clearly and in plain English. It is also based on the latest research and statistics.

This is an excellent beginners guide. If you have very little experience with babies and children this is the book for you. The book goes through nearly everything you need to know about caring for a child. I would recommend this book for all new parents and even experienced parents.

Gymboree The Parent's Guide To Play

Rating: 5 out of 5

Stuck for ideas on how to entertain your child? Want games that are educational and develop your child's skills? This is the book for you. It has 170 games and activities that cover the ages of birth to two. All the games have been proven to help with your child's development as well as keep them entertained.

Gymboree has been providing fun, educational and age appropriate programs to children for 30 years . They have early child centres in 30 countries. It was started in 1976 by a Californian mother who was trying to find activities she could provide her child with.

The book is broken down into age groups so it easy to find fun and relevant games for your child. Most of the games and activities are simple involving every day items around the house such as the good old pots and pans as musical instruments. This is handy if like me you don't have a lot of space for endless amounts of toys.

Each activity also has valuable information on what it helps to develop like fine motor skills, language and balance to name a few. There are also useful facts scattered through out the book based on research, like the importance of reading stories to babies to develop their language skills.

There is a bright coloured picture that shows you the activity and gives you an idea of how it should be done. Colour coded pages make it easy to find the age you need to find activities for. The book is easy to navigate and understand.

This is an excellent resource for any parent. I highly recommend it.

Sleeping Like A Baby by Pinky McKay

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Pinky McKay is an Australian parenting expert. She is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and Certified Infant Massage Instructor. Pinky is also a mother to five children.

In her book Sleeping Like a Baby, she provides down to earth, realistic advice which is based on scientific evidence. She advocates a more natural and intuitive way of raising children such as co-sleeping, and breast feeding. Her advice goes against current trends of raising babies, which seems to advocate going against your instincts, and forcing the baby to do what you want (like the crying it out method). Her advice to me makes sense and seems right. However at no time do you feel lectured or pressured.

Lots of subjects regarding babies are covered in this book such as communication, sleep, feeding, and sleep environments. It talks about issues from newborn to toddler. The focus is on sleep and the factors that can effect sleeping habits.

Pinky discusses baby body language and the different stages of sleep and wakefulness. Each stage is fully discussed and some basic indicators of each stage are provided. She also gives advice on what you should do with your baby in these stages. For instance Quiet Alert stage is the best time to play with your baby. Some basic signs your baby is quiet alert are wide, bright eyes, looking at you directly, and 'cooing' noises. This section to me was very helpful in fully understanding a babies body language which is one of the few ways they can communicate.

Another point covered is sleep issues. She breaks down by age what can cause a baby to wake in the night, such as new development milestones or teething. This section was interesting to read as she explains what are the main causes of sleeplessness in that age bracket. She also suggests strategies to combat it. Though she points out that a baby is constantly growing and changing and so too is it's sleep patterns, and this is perfectly natural.

Pinky has clearly done a lot of research and has many studies to back up her advice. The end of her book also has lots of useful Internet sites and contact numbers for organisations that deal with various subjects like breastfeeding, SIDS, Depression, and Safety.

The biggest thing Pinky teaches in her book is that it's ok to let baby set the routine. It also teaches you that all those things we find natural to do with a baby (such as rocking to sleep) feel natural for a reason, they are natural. Also, finally, that we as parents can not completely control their babies sleeping habits. That while he might sleep perfectly now, in a week, fortnight, or months time it could all change again, and it is perfectly normal for this to happen. Her approach certainly helps you drop the guilt and stress about doing things "wrong".

I will definitely be purchasing her book Toddler Tactics.

Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Age Group: Under 5

Hattie is a big black hen who lives on the farm. One day in the bushes she sees a nose. "Goodness, gracious me! I can see a nose in the bushes" she exclaims and this is where the story starts.

This is a delightful book written by the beloved Australian children's author Mem Fox. The premise of the book is that Hattie observes a nose in the bushes, she tries to warn her fellow farm yard animals but no one believes her. It has a rhyming, almost lyrical style to it that makes it easy for very young children to follow. The art work is basic but colourful.

If you have a talent for voices this would be great for you. There are lots of different animals that comment through the book and doing them in funny voices I am sure would delight young children. If like me you do not have such a talent, the simple and repetitive dialogue makes it
easy to read aloud. You cant help but fall into a sort of sing song or chanty voice when reading this book aloud.

A wonderful book that would be great for young children learning to read.

The Accidental Sorcerer (Book 1 Rogue Agent Trilogy) by K.E.Mills

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

Gerald Dunwoody is a wizard. Not a very good wizard but enough of a wizard to get him a job at Department of Thaumaturgy as a magical inspector. However when he blows up Stutterly's a premier staff making factory its time to lay low and wait for the scandal down.

He heads off to New Ottosland to become the court wizard. At first everything seems perfect although the King is a vain, self centred, arrogant bastard. However Gerald quickly realises the Kingdom is in danger and it is up to him to save the Kingdom and the Princess. How can he save a nation when he can barely perform a basic spell?

Mills has done a good job creating this new world. The technologies that exist are consistent with having magic at your fingertips. For instance a crystal ball is used as a telephone like device. There is a big contrast between Ottosland and New Ottosland. new Ottosland is a bit of a backwater and has not progressed very far technology wise.

There is a wonderful humour through out the book making it a fun to read. It is not a heavy going fantasy book. Mills writing style flows smoothly and is easy to read. It is not light and fluffy the whole way through as the story does turn serious. I have seen reviews where this is a problem but for me it wasn't, for me it was just the natural progression of the story.

The characters are funny and well rounded. Reg the bird is a crack up. The growth of Gerald and Melissande is realistic and believable. Geralds character in particular has to deal with some heavy issues.

I really enjoyed the book and will look forward to reading book 2 and 3 in the trilogy. I would recommend this book if you don't like your fantasy to heavy.

Save Our Sleep by Tizzie Hall

Rating: 2 out of 5

Save Our Sleep is for anyone who is having sleeping issues with their baby. It is written by Tizzie Hall who is an internationally renowned baby whisperer and has spent 18 years working with parents resolving issues with their babies.

I had heard about this book through various people and was a little dubious about it. From what I had seen and heard Tizzie Hall's advice sounded very harsh and rigid. I bought the book thinking I should at least see what Tizzie Hall has to say as some people raved over it. But I did not really believe it would be of much help and definitely not for us. So I was rather surprised to find the book was no where near as bad as I thought.

Tizzie Hall's greatest tip for a settled baby is routine. She has various examples for different stages of a babies life in her book. Tizzie states that the routines are flexible and should be tailored to suit your life (for example if you have other children to work around etc).

Tizzie's other big point is learning the difference between a complaining cry and an emotional cry. She doesn't believe in the "crying out" method and firmly advises against it. Her belief is there are two main cries a baby does, and you can safely ignore one (the complaining cry) and absolutely not ignore the other (emotional cry). Which to me sounds like a variation of controlled crying, which we do not agree with.

Save our sleep also touches on other common sleep problems. These includes things like starting solids, teething, and health issues. It also discusses SIDS and safe sleeping arrangements. But there is no real depth to these issues or strategies to deal with them.

I can see how this book would appeal to distressed sleep deprived parents with the promise of a baby sleeping through from 7pm - 7am. I know far to many people it didn't work for then those who it did work for. Also I had a problem with the lack of scientific evidence in this book, all of Tizzie's advice is based purely on her beliefs and observations not on actual studies or facts. One piece of advice even flies in the face of advice given by the World Health Organisation (Tizzie believes babies should start solids at 4 months not the recommended 6 months).

Overall I would not recommend this book to other parents. I think it sets expectations to high that you can force a baby to sleep from 7pm-7am. The books focus is on routines, not really sleep problems. In the end I feel this book could cause more stress to parents if their baby failed to conform to the routine and was not "normal". The thing this book was good for was making us realise this method really was not for us, and we can set a routine that suits us.