The Baby Book: How to Enjoy Year One by Rachel Waddilove (PDF)

This is a book for new mums and dads, which will help to demystify the experience of parenthood and be a guide to parents with a new baby at home, through to the end of the first year of life. It is written by a hugely experienced trained nursery nurse who has worked in hospital and helped parents in their home environments over a number of years.

The author has clearly learned all the way through her life, and developed good tips and hints for minimizing the stresses and strains of parenthood. The references to her own experiences are limited but relevant. Rachel helpfully lays out lists, routines and other useful information very clearly.

The whole book is full of personal, understanding, warm and hugely useful expert advice, but is at the same time soundly based on a wealth of experience. Our babies need a warm and unconditionally loving environment to develop feelings of being valued, without which it is hugely difficult for them to meet life’s challenges.

It is never too early to begin the process of discipline, because discipline does not mean punishment; it is defined in the dictionary as ‘the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour’. Thus, I used to give a lecture for midwives entitled ‘Discipline for the Newborn’. No discipline means chaos, and chaos means stress.

“…It is a very scary thing to come home from hospital with a newborn baby, whether you’ve had no experience of babies before or whether this is your third or fourth child. Often those first few days, and maybe weeks, after coming home from hospital can be very tearful times, particularly with the lack of sleep and perhaps the feeling of not quite knowing what to do. The early days after giving birth are different for everyone. Some women feel ecstatic and all set to get on, whereas others feel exhausted and wonder how they are going to cope with this little bundle of life who seems to want continual feeding, particularly at the times when they just want to sleep. New parents will find that they are given lots of different advice by all sorts of people, with the best intentions. It is best not to listen to all you are told, but to decide on a particular pattern or plan to follow, otherwise you may get in a muddle with many different pieces of advice. Actually babies are much tougher than we’re led to believe, and parents should not worry if they think they are not doing things the right way…”

Language: English
Format: PDF online
Pages: 191
Size: 4 mb

Rachel Waddilove: The Baby Book