7 Best Baby Books for New Moms

Parenting starts the moment you get your positive test results back. After pregnancy, taking care of your new baby is a full-time job for you as a mother and your partner. Though this time may seem chaotic, there are some things you can do to prepare.

Investing your time into reading baby books is one of the most important things you can do to prepare yourself for parenthood and make the experience more enjoyable. Choosing to forego baby books and learning what to expect when the time comes can leave you in a tight spot.

It’s okay to feel like you don’t have all the answers as a new parent. Most moms do seek out a bit of guidance to raising their children. It doesn’t matter if this is your first baby or you’re a seasoned parent, there’s always a reason to learn a thing or two.

Comparison Table

Read Books That are Worth Your Time

If you’re going to take the time to read a parenting book, make sure it leaves you feeling better than you did when you first picked it up. Parenting books can cost a lot of money and in turn, you should make sure you’re getting something valuable out of it.

At the end of the day, there are things we really can’t control (like how our kids chose to behave). Search for books that don’t try to sell you on “ten easy steps to parenting success” but rather a hard truth about the complicated world of parenting that shows you that you’re not alone.

Search for books that can lead you back to yourself and a path to your own parenting skills.  The best kind of parenting books present you with both a challenge and counsel to remind you that as a parent, you must try your best but also forgive yourself when you don’t think you’re doing enough.

– Our Top Picks –

There are a ton of baby books on the shelves today begging to be read by new moms and claiming they have the answers to all your parenting needs. To make your search easier, we’ve accumulated a list of the best baby books for new moms.

Top 7 Best Baby Books for New Moms Reviews

1. All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior

Senior’s take on modern parenthood is refreshing as she talks about what it means to be a parent today. The book is meant to answer the common question for new mothers “Is this not as much fun as I thought it would be?”

The answer to this question throughout the book, of course, is “Yes.” Senior has a way of alleviating some of the guilt associated with not finding constant joy in parenting which is crucial for new moms.

In All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, Senior talks with families that are ordinary in the American context. She follows them to typical events such as soccer practices, parent-teaching meetings, and family dinners.

Through her various interviews, Senior highlights lessons in psychology and sociology that have been used in parenting for the past 50 years. She backs up the claim that children don’t have a lot of economic value, but the emotional value they bring is enough for the parents.

She argues that every task parents face today with what to do for their children comes from crafted roles within society. Schools teach math and science, pediatricians provide care for sickness and injury, and Old Navy takes care of dresses and trousers.

No matter which approaches the parents to decide to take and the role they put themselves in, Senior explains that parents today do what’s best for the child and no longer what’s best for the family or the broader world like families used to raise children in the past.

This book is a great one for text passages that make you say “Yes!” This former New York Times staff writer perfectly describes what it’s like to be a mom when the expectation of mothers is rising, and attitudes towards women in the workplace are liberalizing.

2. Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne

In this book, Payne presents a narrative which showcases the downsides of children who are overscheduled and overwhelmed all the information and new products that comes with growing up in a consumer society.

This book calls for fewer toys, less screen time, and a protective filter that should surround childhood. Even if some of the suggestions are sort of unrealistic, the idea does offer up valid solutions to reclaiming childhood and having a happy family,

Payne explains the importance of limiting extraneous things (such as toys and extracurriculars) to give children more time to reduce pressure. Instead, he suggests storytelling, reading and quiet time be scheduled into a child’s day.

According to Payne, this strategy makes children less stressed and more self-secure. The idea is that the child will have a deeper appreciation for things and for other people without over stimulation.

Instead of raising our children in a capitalist society that is too busy, too occupied with personal goals to be focused on self-care, this book offers concrete suggestions on how to raise children with space in their life.

Though Simplicity Parenting may seem like a bit of a stretch in some ways, the solution to a more natural way of restoring playtime and reducing stress in a child’s life is overdue.

3. The First Forty Days by Heng Ou

This book is a gentle guide for mothers looking for some advice when it comes to postpartum healing. Western parents are often praised for being able to ‘bounce-back’ quickly after having a baby. However, Ou’s book provides an alternative for this period of healing and adjustment to life with a child.

The book essentially is a guide on giving yourself the time you need to heal and ease some of the pressure placed on new parents. Instead of pressuring the mother to get back on her feet, the book encourages mothers to remain at home with her baby and work to forge a bond in the time after birth.

Ou claims that when mothers go right back into their normal lives after delivering a baby, the baby is then left to face the emotional and physical challenges of their new life without a strong source of connection to a parent.

In addition to providing advice on how to forge early bonds with your newborn, the book also includes 60 recipes for new mothers. These include soups, lactation-boosting tea, and various nourishing meals and snacks to regain lost energy.

The First Forty Days is both inspiring and calming to new mothers who don’t want to feel like they have to adjust back into a 9-5 right away.

4. Parenting Without Borders by Christine Gross-Lo

This book serves as an eye-opener to the best parenting strategies from all over the world. Gross-Loh is a first generation Korean-American who obtained her Ph.D. from Harvard University. To add to her credibility in the field, she also raised four kids in Japan.

Raising children in Japan inspired Gross-Loh to evaluate why Americans had the standards they did in raising children. She also analyzed how there is a lot wrong with how American children are prepared for life as adults that other countries do better at.

Current research reflects that American children are lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to happiness, self-care, and academic success. This book takes us around the world to illuminate alternative methods we can use to get it right.

Some of Gross-Loh’s suggestions include sleeping with your baby, stopping the obsession with ‘helicopter parenting,’ allowing kids more time to play outside and to stop pushing the idea of having high self-esteem onto your children.

This book, filled with Gross-Loh’s own personal anecdotes and supplemental research makes this a much more engaging book than many other parenting books available today. The author challenges parents to push for more empathy in their children instead of just American values of individualism and tolerance.

5. The Whole Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

In this book, neuropsychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel and expert on parenting Tina Payne Bryson come together to offer strategies which encourage better development of the brain and lead to happier and less temperamental children.

For so long, we have classified ourselves into being ‘right brained,’ and ‘left brained’ depending on our personal skillset and personality. This book describes ways for young children to make personal discoveries on both sides of their brains.

The authors claim if parents can follow their tips on how to raise their child to encourage brain development, they will endure fewer tantrums, fights, and silent-treatments. This book comes complete with strategies to deal with the struggles of your child for every different age group.

Siegel and Bryson’s book embodies the idea that the experiences children go through should not be overlooked. Every trauma, big or small, shapes who the child is becoming. The parents can use these experiences to understand how their child is developing and dealing with their emotions.

The book is centered around twelve key strategies which will help you to regulate your child’s emotional state. Some of these strategies include being engaged without becoming enraged, encouraging physical movement, replaying memories for your child, and having fun together as a family.

The Whole Brain Child is one of the best baby books for new moms who like information to be backed up by research and explained simply.

6. The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp

For new mothers struggling with calming your crying baby and getting them to sleep through the night, this book is for you. Written by Harvey Karp, a registered pediatrician, this parenting ​​book provides advice for better sleep, sharing a bed with your baby, swaddling, and breastfeeding.

Karp eases some of the anxiety for new mothers as he explains that while it may be enough for some babies to just be held, some babies will cry for hours on end with seemingly no reason why.

You may think that you have made your new baby’s nursery the ultimate spot for peace and serenity but for them, it’s a completely disoriented world from what they were used to inside of you.

Karp offers tips on how to make your baby’s surroundings feel more like your uterus as you ease them into life. The book also makes the distinction between rocking your baby and shaking, which can stress your baby out even more.

The book includes steps like letting your baby nurse more and encouraging the use of pacifiers to ease some of your baby’s anxiety. For Kemp, a calm baby is a happy baby, and this book teaches you all you need to know on reducing your baby’s stress.

This is a great book to read for mothers about to deliver. Kemp’s helpful advice will ease you into what to expect as a parent before you bring your baby home from the hospital.

7. Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood by Anne Enright

The last of our best baby books for new moms is this heartfelt read. It is great for new moms as it dives right into the tribulations of new motherhood in all that is glorious and gross.

This book talks about how motherhood has become a taboo topic associated with how difficult it can be to juggle a career and a newborn at once. Of course, motherhood isn’t something out of the ordinary, as billions of women before you have done it, but none the less it feels strange when it’s happening to you.

Enright reflects on her own experiences going into labor and the pain of unfamiliar surroundings during childbirth. Any expecting mother who wants to know the reality of what’s ahead should definitely pick up this book.

This book analyzes the optimistic tone women receive from the results of a positive pregnancy test and the social constructs that encourage women to keep reproducing. Enright offers humorous words of encouragement to new mothers and an idea of what’s to expect.

Last update on 2022-01-26 at 20:11 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API