Simple, non-judgemental advice for new mums. (Your Baby Week by Week: The Ultimate Guide to Caring for Your New Baby - Caroline Fertleman)

Member Name: fergusa

Product:	Your Baby Week by Week: The Ultimate Guide to Caring for Your New Baby - Caroline Fertleman
Date:	26/07/09 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Flexible, easy to use advice.

Disadvantages: None.

You may have recently read my review on the Gina Ford book which I found too restrictive to use for more than the first few weeks of having a new baby.

This book by Simone Cave and Dr Caroline Fertleman was given to me by a good friend who had her own copy and had found it very useful and less strict than Gina Ford.

The simplicity of this book is that it (as you may tell from the title) covers one week at a time from week 0!!! to week 26. The benefit of this is that there are only a few pages to read each week.

Each week is split into sections which are relevant at that point, for example week 1 covers sleeping, feeding, crying and washing. Then follows
a piece about your baby's development, when to see a doctor and what's happening to mum (this is nice as most books ignore what is happening to you).

Each section starts with a handy overview of how many hours sleep, quantity of milk, number of wet/dirty nappies baby is likely to need.

**What I liked about the book
It's much more flexible than Gina Ford's "routine" based approach.

It does still give you some idea of what an "average" baby will require and achieve at this point.

It only covers 6 months which was fine for me as at this point I had plenty of confidence in bringing up baby.

There is also a small piece about weaning and a list of useful addresses at the end of this book.

**What I didn't like.
I probably won't use it again for a second baby as I feel I have enough experience from number one, but I'll keep it as a reference guide. There isn't anything I didn't like, it's definitely one of the more mum-friendly advice books.

In summary, I do believe in parenting by intuition and have learnt that a parent's gut instinct is a very powerful thing, but for a new mum who needs a helping hand to get going, this book is a very useful tool. I also wrote notes in mine (when he first held up his head, the first smile and crawl, which have been a bonus to look back at).

Summary: A useful little book.