Baby 411: Clear Answers & Smart Advice for Your Baby's First Year

I really love this book. Some chapters have pages so thin in my copy I don't know how they don't fall out like sleep and solids. Her humor and real world approach was comforting to my "tell me the facts" personality. First Dr. Brown is a pediatrician, and a Mom, and in so many respected channels in medicine, need I say more? She even gives her own happenings in the book which even makes her more appealing to me. It is definitely a medical approach book, but not over the top. There is much to be said for the medical aspect of raising a child, history and technology keep our kids safe from a multitudes of past occurrences. She tries to be realistic on all topics and does stick with the AAP on recommendations, which she has to. So some things you have to use your judgment and talk to your doctor. But this book is not a sensationalism book to freak you out as to all the things that can go wrong, this is just black and white real life. And to the other reviewer who said it scared her daughter to not breast feed is crazy, I have breastfed my son exclusively for 12 months now, and felt the book was fair on its approach. Unfortunately breastfeeding is the exception and not the norm so she had to play both scenarios to appeal to the choices parents make. And besides, this is not a breastfeeding book (if you want one "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" and "So That's What They're For" are good)it is an all around informational book, which if you think about it is quite a feat of info to have between one cover. The diseases and viruses kind of scared me, but that is also a reality of life, I just don't read that chapter - denial is a good place for me LOL! I also really like the red flags. I want to know when I reference a symptom or occurance the nuts and bolts of what is neurotic and what is realistic on what I need to do for a situation - for instance, my son fell on his head the other afternoon, I went to the book it gave specific guidelines for necessity of care. I found out that since he only fell a small distance and his goose egg was not too noticeable to watch it and call the doctor if needed, no multiple vomiting, no loss of conscientious, etc (I know kind of obvious right, well it's my first and you should have heard him screaming, so I just checked to be sure haha!!). That is what I need not 4,000,000,000 hits on Google. This book is perfect and for $10 bucks or so you cant go wrong. You'll love it. I will be purchasing the toddler issue, as well as the new expecting since we will be trying again soon. I like the What to Expect Pregnancy book pretty well, but I really didn't care for the first year edition - that was so one sided and alarmist! I'm a 411 Mom!

Let me start by saying I own & have read easily 9 or 10 baby books of some sort. While many of them are good in their own right, this is by far my favourite and is almost always the 1st one I pull out. Where else can you find a baby book that covers feeding, pooping, development, infections, diseases, vaccination, the environment (not often touched upon in other books), and my favourite...first aid?This book really isn't meant to be read from start to finish (really, what new mom or dad has that kind of time?), it's meant as a reference book. The material you're looking for is always easy to find and despite what some of the 1 & 2 star reviews say, it is NOT judgemental, nor does it push any particular view. It certainly does not steer women away from breastfeeding as some have suggested, it simply explains what many other baby books fail to say...it's HARD. I found comfort in reading that & found it helped me stick through it for longer than I had anticipated.The sleep section is fantastic. While the authors do recommend "Crying It Out", they're not forceful about it. The best part about the sleep section for me was the summary of all the baby sleep books out there. I ended up buying "Sleeping Through the Night" which the author says is her favourite of them all (despite not giving it an A), because of the gentle way it's written. Indeed it's a fantastic sleep training book & has worked wonders for us. Highly recommended as well.These are just a few things I liked about Baby 411, but the best aspect of this book is the medical / first aid sections. Without fail, every time we've taken our daughter to the doctor's office or even the emergency room, the questions asked by the nurses and doctors are always the same ones in the checklist of questions listed in Baby 411 under that specific section. My memory isn't great so when my daughter has a fever, I immediately grab Baby 411, look under the section on fevers and decide from there whether she needs to visit her doctor immediately, tomorrow, or if we can wait it out. Sections on fevers, vomiting & falls / trauma / injuries were most useful to us.Bottom line, for me this book is an absolute MUST HAVE. I have purchased copies as gifts for 1st time & even 2nd & 3rd time parents. I have both a hard copy as well as a copy for my Kindle so it's always available to me. I've also purchased Toddler 411. It is equally good although a year into parenthood I do actually have a bit of that mother's intuition that you so often hear about but always seemed to have escaped me. ;)

As a new mom I went a little book crazy and have acquired about a dozen. I find myself referring back to this book over and over again. I cannot stress how helpful this book is to me. So much so that I already bought the Toddler 411 book which I love (even though my daughter is only 6 months ;). This book is well written, well organized, easy to follow, and full of great information. I honestly can't think of any cons for this book. The authors speak to you in a very common sense, non-condescending tone and debunk half the wives tales you have heard about raising babies. Also there is no agenda pushing in this book, it really just presents the various opinions and leaves you to decide what you think. My favorite piece of information was a small study they mentioned about giving probiotics to babies with colic. With my pediatricians blessing I started giving my 2.5 month old Culturelle in her morning bottle of expressed breast milk (you open the capsule and put the powder in the milk, mix well) and one week later she had significant improvement with gas pains and crankiness in the evening. She still gets it to this day and is a very happy baby. This book is a must have! Great gift for new moms as well.

Love, love, love this book! Easy to read, question and answer format. Advice is straight forward and honest. Has a place in my bedside table for easy referencing.

この本はいいです。でも、これだけでは十分ではありません。アドバイスは良いです。I like this book, but not as much as I like What to Expect in the First Year, which I bought at the same time. This book is organized by section as opposed to by month, and sometimes it's hard to find things - you have to look in a few different places. Sometimes I find that it's a bit silly, and it can come across as bossy or judgmental at points - but most of these books do! Overall I like the light tone in the book, and the advice is good - not a bad second book to have, along with something else.

An American friend of mine recommended this book and I must say I'm pleasantly surprised. Sure, some of the info is a American slanted and different to UK advice but all in all, it's really helpful.