Can you operate a newborn baby?
First time parents are deluged with advice on how to look after their baby. Magazines, books, media, ante-natal classes, friends and family are full of what to do and what equipment to buy. It 's enough to baffle any about-to-be-parent: should you buy disposable or reusable nappies? Where are you supposed to store all that stuff? What is a cradle cap, anyway, and do you really need one?
Now there 's a new book, Babies for Beginners, which is the antidote to all this. It 's a pared down guide to the absolute essentials you need to know, along with what you can manage without. Its humour and honesty take the stress out of the responsibility of looking after a new baby, and the step-by-step guides make everything, from holding the baby to figuring out how to play with it, easy and straightforward.
This book cuts away the crap - the unnecessary equipment, the overfussy advice - and gives you the absolute basics of babycare: keep the baby alive at all costs, and try to stop it getting too hungry. From bedtime to bathtime, mealtime to playtime, Babies for Beginners highlights the core objective of each exercise (for example, get the baby bathed) and the key focus (don 't drown it). By exploding the myths around each aspect of babycare, the book explains which bits of each exercise are really necessary, and which are luxuries; which pieces of equipment are essential, and which you can do without.
Babies for Beginners is the perfect book for every first time mother who 's confused by the advice and can 't really believe it 's necessary to spend all that money. And it 's the ultimate guide for every father looking for an excuse to get out of ante-natal classes.
IF IT ISN'T HERE, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW IT.
About the author
Roni Jay is a professional author who writes books on parenting topics among others. Her books include Kids & Co for White Ladder Press and Baby Sanctuary for Chrysalis Books. She is the mother of three young children and stepmother to another three grown-up ones.
Read an Interview with Roni Jay.
September 2006
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30 Something and the Clock is Ticking
