Parenting Book

T. Berry Brazelton is a wondeful author, offering healthy, balanced information and advice.

My favorite book of all is "Caring for Infants with Respect", by Magda Gerber. It helped me learn to become a more relaxed parent, trusting in our maternal (and paternal) instincts and gifts, and connect with tiny people in a loving, respectful manner.

You can buy both on www.Amazon.com.

Congratulations and happy wishes on this journey ahead!

I just read a bunch of parenting books (my daughter is 17 months old). I think most of them are terrible, with recommendations that are too far this way or too far that way. I did find some stuff by Dr Sears helpful --very intuitive, if you ask me.

I'm finding that I'm doing best by just following my natural instinct. Listen to yourself, and listen to your daughter. I really believe that if you work on that, and really work on communicating with her, that you don't need anything fancy for dealing with misbehavior. All you need is to be clear about the rules, and to treat her with respect and love.

I love 1-2-3 Magic by Thomas Phelan.

It's easy to read, easy to implement, and makes absolute sense. Although the book is aimed toward the 2-12 age group, we started the techniques (soft) at 18 months.

We don't have to yell, argue, justify, rationalize, over-discuss anything with our kid. We clearly state something like "no throwing toys - you could hurt someone" and then count him out. The counting gives him time to stop and think about his actions before deciding to repeat them or stop. If he makes it to 3, he goes into a time out. At the end of the time-out, we ask him "Do you know why you were in time-out?" and he'll give us the correct answer. After that he'll usually ask for a hug and say "sorry". He has learned that undesirable actions will result in removal from an activity. He has also learned to show remorse for when he has done something wrong BUT has also realized that, after the fact, we'll chat briefly about it and we reassure that we love him.

We have found these methods to be particularly effective with our now 2 1/2 year old child. We do not spend time wasting our breath over-explaining, pleading, justifying, begging our son to stop doing things. We simply state ONE TIME what he needs to stop doing and why he needs to stop doing it...and if he doesn't, every single time we follow through with the timeout. We have consistently followed this routine so now when he hears "one" he knows he is doing something he shouldn't be doing. RARELY do we get to "three".

I have recently been reading several books, including Happiest Toddler on the Block, Love & Logic, and 123 Magic. I have found so far to take a little from each - as someone else posted, it really is difficult to apply one "method" to every child. So far I am liking the concepts best behind Love & Logic and Happiest Toddler on the Block.

All children are different. Be careful in using blanket advise to raise your child. Get to know your baby's bent. Spoil her, love her and discipline her. Remember precious 12 1/2 year olds grow up to be adults.

The Dr. Sears books are my favorite. Dr. Jay Gordon is good, too. There is also Discipline Without Distress... very good. :)

I would go to the local library and take some parenting books to read from there, instead of buying them.
Opinions may vary, so even if a book /could go for anything/ is highly recommended, you might not like it.
Here are some choices:

Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Children - by Marc Weissbluth
The happiest toddler on the block – by Harvey Karp
How to talk so kids will listen & listen so kids will talk – by Elaine Mazlish
1-2-3 Magic by Thomas Phelan
Supernanny –by Jo Frost

I had a list somewhere with few more books, I'll try to find it :) and will update my post.