I have literally spent HUNDREDS of dollars on parenting books. I bought books about getting my children to sleep, ADHD, discipline, and how to care for your baby/toddler/preschooler. With my second child, Grace, I think I bought seven books about sleep techniques. (She didn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time until she was 6 months old.) Some of them promised me that my child would sleep in days; some stated that if I let her cry she would be damaged forever. One book, The Baby Whisperer, implied, rather snarkily I might add, that I was a lazy parent because I could not do the method she swore would work, and didn’t. The "pick up, put down" method, according to this book, ensures that your child always feel safe. So every time they cry in the crib you pick them up, and when they settle down you put them down. Supposedly, after time, the child finds confidence that you are there and sleeps. Or you pick them up and put them down until you cry, which is what I did. I have to honestly say I tried this method for three days and did it until I cried, so for two and a half or three hours each time, and my child never gained confidence, but I certainly lost sanity. The author's next suggestion was that I actually sleep in the crib with her, so that book was permanently put down.
I am sure SOME of these books work some of the time, but my opinion, as a mother of three kids who has read most of the books on the market is that they are full of sh$t. I do not use that kind of language lightly, but I would like my money back. What many parents do not understand is that most of these books are not written to help parents, but to make money. They imply that you are stupid, incompetent, or worse so that you feel you “need” the advice they have given. What parents should realize, and what I didn’t understand until I had spent the money, is that you really don’t have to have ANY qualifications to write a book on child rearing. I was surprised to see how many of the books I purchased about discipline were written by PhD’s who used lab experiments to prove their methods. Seriously.
Here are some books that I WOULD recommend.
Raising your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
Sleepsense by Dana Obleman
I could write the list of books I thought were rubbish, but there are too many to name. Some of them might even work on different kids, but not on mine…
The ONLY ingredient that I think will help parents to get through difficult situations with their children is humor. I ran across a fabulous book today entitled, Go the F*ck to Sleep. It really addresses the stress and frustration most parents feel when they are sleep deprived. If sleep deprivation doesn’t make you very angry, this book will not be nearly as funny for you. The best part is you can find it on youtube.com read by Samuel L. Jackson. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeKxIaG_f_c
Make sure your kids are asleep before you turn this on though. The language is terrible.
I looked up Go the F*ck to Sleep on Amazon.com and it recommended other titles I found equally amusing and lighthearted. I will also be reading, Raising the Perfect Child Through Guilt and Manipulation by Elizabeth Beckwith. I am Catholic after all…
My advice, and this comes completely free, is that you know your child best. Don’t buy a book to give you permission to do what you think will work with your child. We live in a day and age where EVERYONE has an opinion about how you raise your kids. Before the deluge of parenting books, moms fed their babies how they wanted to, potty trained when they wanted to, and didn’t worry about what the “experts” would think. Guess what? The experts never raised your kid…
