Bringing Baby Home: Help books

H is for Help Books, helpful books about babies. These are not to be confused with instruction manuals, which would explain what to do and how. Baby help books are guides, they give suggestions on what to do and how. I would rather have an instruction book but we will continue to muddle along with our guides and trial and error.

I am a reader and a book person. Before baby, I would hit the library once a week and it was rare for me to leave with less than five books. When I found out I was pregnant, I checked out several books on pregnancy and babies. Below are some of the books and websites I've looked at over and over again. I'm ignoring the pregnancy books though, since they are not guidebooks to infants.

The Mother of All Baby Books - very good lists about development but the sickness/disease section is difficult to read through. It needs more book titles or spaces between paragraphs since it all runs together. Good section on breastfeeding and birth recovery.

Baby 411 - very good. Everything is broken down, though I think the breastfeeding section could be longer. Lots of resources. Discussions on discipline and breaks down the various methods used to get babies to sleep. This book is most responsible for scaring me about SIDS.

Baby Bargains - very helpful in making purchase decisions. It explains everything (like the different types of car seats) and is full of safety information and recall info.

Nursing Mother's Companion - very thorough. Has information on everything related to breastfeeding, though I wish it were broken down better - the order does not make much sense to me. For example, the section on breast pumps is in the 2 month plus chapter. Very good information on medications breastfeeding mothers can take and cannot take.

Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - I've not read this, but it is the La Leche League book. It seemed like it would be very helpful at first.

BabyCenter.com - I love the weekly emails about development, first in pregnancy and now that my boy is growing. The book is also helpful and has lots of charts and statistics on development.

TheNest.com - best for the pregnancy checklist and for the What Size is Baby Fruit Chart. I've not looked at it since our baby was born.

Happiest Baby on the Block - I watched a video and wrote down the suggestions on how to sooth a newborn. The Mother of All Baby Books and Baby 411 cover info in this book and source it.

There are many, many other books out there, but these are my tops for baby guidebooks.