Comment by port11

Comment by port11 4 days ago

2 replies

I'm not influential enough but I'll share the recommendations I think will help people like me: struggling parents.

This year I've reread The Discontented Little Baby Book. If you're getting/have a newborn, this is the book I'd read. It's humane. No sleep training, no nonsense about babies. We went full ‘possum’ with our baby and I like how happy he became.

I've also read Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child's Mental Health. To me this could be an instant classic. No fluff, lots of advice for parents. Prima.

There's plenty of literature on parenting, but so much of it is poorly written or poorly researched. Be careful out there. (And don't read PLS, yikes.)

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I finally discovered Andy Weir, the Thursday Next series, and The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear. I'm amazed it took me so long to get there. All excellent.

For some reason I decided to read all 7 Harry Potters in French. If you're learning French, it's a great idea, the French gets progressively harder so you can keep up!

Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life has been my companion for some weeks, but it's quite long.

I'm happy with all my reading this year, some 32 books, many in a foreign language. Given I've no time to read during the day, and can only get some pages in after the kid's in bed, it's not too shabby.

Oh, and we've read Stompysaurus, like, 90 times? Grawwwwr!

Happy reading!

homeonthemtn 4 days ago

For what it's worth, we're a handful of days out from our first so, thank you for that recommendation.

  • port11 3 days ago

    Congratulations! It’s a very challenging and bumpy ride but it makes life differently meaningful.

    Discontented Little Baby is terrific. I was parenting out of fear, the typical stuff of staying indoors, sleep schedules, etc. The book has a really chill approach: just go live your life and bring the baby along. That’s how we wanted to parent, but somehow everyone around us got us into a place of fear.

    Don’t make the kid nap in the dark, that hinders their cortisol/melatonin cycle development. Go have fun together!

    Good luck, internet stranger :)