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The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two (Revised and Updated Edition) | 
| Authors: William Sears, Martha Sears, Robert Sears, James Sears
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $21.99
Buy New: $12.43
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Avg. Customer Rating:  791 reviews
Sales Rank: 340
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.6 x 1.8
ISBN: 0316778001
Dewey Decimal Number: 649.122
EAN: 9780316778008
ASIN: 0316778001
Publication Date: March 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
In their excellent (and hefty) resource guide, The Baby Book, attachment parenting specialists William Sears and Martha Sears have provided new parents with their approach to every aspect of baby care basics, from newborns to toddlers. Attachment parenting is a gentle, reasonable approach to parenting that stresses bonding with your baby, responding to her cues, breastfeeding, "wearing" your baby, and sharing sleep with your child. For those parents who worry about negative effects of this attention, the Sears say, "Spoiling is what happens when you leave something (or some person) alone on the shelf--it spoils."
Product Description
In their excellent (and hefty) resource guide, The Baby Book, attachment parenting specialists William Sears and Martha Sears have provided new parents with their approach to every aspect of baby care basics, from newborns to toddlers. Attachment parenting is a gentle, reasonable approach to parenting that stresses bonding with your baby, responding to her cues, breastfeeding, "wearing" your baby, and sharing sleep with your child. For those parents who worry about negative effects of this attention, the Sears say, "Spoiling is what happens when you leave something (or some person) alone on the shelf--it spoils."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 786 more reviews...
The Baby Book May 7, 2008
This book is huge and written like a book, not questions and answers, but has valuable info. in it. I'd recommend it to first time parents. It's easy to find exact subjects and has come in handy many times already--my daughter is only 3 months old!
It's a guide book, and a good one, not a guilt trip... May 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When my first son was born 4 1/2 years ago, I had read the "What to expect" series, and felt pretty prepared. After a LONG ten weeks of colic, my son settled down. At 4 months he started sleeping through the night in his own room (after a few nights of limited crying)and would happily play by himself on the floor for long periods of time, or sit quietly in his stroller while I went about my business. He weaned himself easily by age one and never seemd to miss the breast after that. I remember hearing about "attachment parenting" and thinking, those people must be CRAZY! I would NEVER have my baby in bed, or wear him all day in a sling, or breast-feed for more than a year! I felt very smug, like those people were just too "soft" or weird, or hippie-dippie, that you totally didn't need to do all that, just look at my son! He's doing great, without any of that stuff!
Flash forward four years, and my second son is born. Same parents, same techniques should work, right? The first few weeks were great, no colic! So we thought it would be a breeze, after all, we were experienced parents, we knew what we were doing this time, we'd done it all before. Well, I quickly found out that what worked for my first son just wasn't going to fly with my second. I got out my old "what to expect" books, and "The Baby Whisperer" which I'd found so helpful the first time. They were useless. This stuff just wasn't working with baby 2! He's a very different kid. After totally railing on attachment parenting for four years, I suddenly found myself doing it by default. Then my cousin gave me her copy of "The baby Book", and thank god! I suddenly realized that that's what this baby needed. He needs to be held all the time, needs to sleep near me (at first in a co-sleeper right next to my bed, now in his crib two feet from my bed, and usually at least for part of the night right in my bed) At 9 months old, he still wakes every 3 hrs to breast-feed, and gives no signs of wanting to stop. This book made sense, it seemed logical and really struck a chord with me. More importantly, it worked. Had I tried to follow the advice in the other books, I know we'd all be a lot worse off!
Do I do everything the book says and treat it as gospel? NO! DO I feel guilty when I don't agree with the book? NO! Am I tired? YES! Do I wish my son would sleep through the night? YES! But I know that letting him "cry it out" won't work, and forcing him to be independent too soon won't work either. I also now know that not all techniques work for all babies, and some babies just need MORE. I take the advice that works for me, tweak the other stuff to make it fit, and above all, trust myself to know what is best for my baby AND myself.
While the Drs. Sears do advocate the mother's role over the father's, and strongly indicate she should not work, (which I can see might be off-putting to some) don't be so quick to assume it is biased or old-fashioned. While I completely support women being able work (something they couldn't have done 50 yrs ago) and think that for some women it's the right choice, the biological fact is that (for now anyway), women are the only ones who can physically bear children, and as such have also have the inherent ability to know how to care for them. For me the biggest point this book makes is that maternal instincts are REAL, and there for a good reason, and should be listened to over what anyone (even themselves) says in a book. Babies are only babies for a short time, and their needs are real and deserve to be met. They are not something that should be forced into what is convienient for parents. Everything they suggest in their book is natural and makes logical (if not always practical) sense.
Sadly, our society these days seems to be out of touch with these basic facts, and I think that the people who criticize the Sears' ideas and "attachment parenting" concept (myself included back then) are doing so as a defense mechanism, because deep down we know, under all the women's lib and equal opportunity fathering, that it really is the ideal way to parent. The fact so many people who gave it poor reviews because it made them feel "guilty" should speak volumes to this. Also, if you look at our country's family leave plans, you'll find them shockingly shorter than just about every other first-world country. The same goes for supporting mothers who do choose to be full-time moms. Or stay-at-home dads, for that matter. With work being a more than full-time job for just about everyone these days, and a society that increasingly places little value on family time (check our gov't holidays and average vacation times and work hours next to Europe's and you'll see what I mean) I know that to many this book might seem totally impractical or even ridiculous. But maybe instead condeming it as such, we should recognize it as an ideal to strive for, and do what we can to be better parents, not at the total expense of ourselves, of course, but fully realizing that parenting IS a sacrifice, that our babies and young children count on us to care for them, and despite the pressures of society and work, we need to find a way to make it a real priority, and not an after-thought. This book can help steer you in the right direction, and give you a lot to think about beyond just the valuable info on basic baby care and milestones, by providing a philosophy and practice that gets back to the real root of what it means to be a parent.
 My reference bible for the first year! May 1, 2008
The has been our go-to reference in the first year of our daughter's life. My natural instincts told me that the "cry it out" method was not for me, and this book was very affirming. The beauty of Dr. Sears is that he approaches childrearing from a holistic perspective - find what's best for you and works for your family. And don't worry about what anyone else says! In 12 months, we have lost maybe a total of 10 hours of sleep following the advice in this book - and that's after our baby was (mis)diagnosed with colic at 2 months. We have a happy, healthy, baby who rarely cries, and is a great sleeper and great eater. I recommend it to all my friends who are having children.
 Its not the information I mind....its the TONE April 22, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Its not that think the information in this book is bad. Actually i agree with a good amount of the "attachment parenting" (god I HATE that phrase) practices. I just don't think it should be called a "philosophy". I did breastfeed (although not exclusively because my son was in the NICU for his first week and I my milk didn't come in for about 4 or 5 days) so technically he had formula for his first week and breastfed until about 9 months after that until I got pregnant again and my milk dried up. We did co-sleep until he was about 4 or 5 months.....at which point he got VERY wiggly, we moved him to a crib and we ALL started getting better sleep. I certainly didn't carry him around in a sling all the time when he was an infant...it was too damned hot. But I have a couple of different types of carriers which I am still using (he is 1) and we both love. He didn't love them so much when he was tiny. He mostly wanted to be carried by his Dad in the bjorn. Not by me. Having said that...I'm not against strollers (I LOVE ours), bottles (yes I workd) OR daycare..or working, or formula (if you need it or just want to use it, go for it. Its a CHOICE people).
So don't get me wrong. I don't disagree with their ideas....what I HATE is the way they are presented. It makes me want to NOT do anything of the things they suggest because they are so damned obnoxious. I would feel much better about all the things I do if I hadn't read this book. I LOVE my sling...but I feel self conscious about using it because I just know that people think I'm some obnoxious, "attachment parenting" breastfeeding nazi.....
I'm sure there is good information in this book that I haven't even picked up on because IT MAKES ME SO MAD when I read it. And yes...I feel that way about all their other books too.
I have babies. I don't have a "philosophy" about how to raise them. They are who they are and I'm doing the best I can to figure out what kind of person my baby is and how best to parent him. I'm a mother - what I need is information. I'm an intelligent thinking person...I can interpret the information all by myself thank you. What I do NOT need is a 600 page guilt trip that tells me I shouldn't part myself from my baby until he is 3 and that my husband should just disappear for the first year except for doing the laundry or whatever ridiculous advice they give.
My mother (whom I love and ADORE) who breastfed ALL of her kids even when it wasn't the done thing, who was a fabulous, loving mother thinks it is the most ridiculous book ever written. That's enough for me!
And for overly anxious new parents who lean towards self-inflicted guilt-trips, this could be borderline dangerous.
The Bible of Parenting April 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is by far, the best book I have read on parenting!! I continue to use it again and again. I love that it is written by a pediatrician, but one that has also raised 8 kids. It is much more user friendly than any other stuff that I've read. I think they should issue this book and The Happiest Baby on the Block to all new parents as they leave the hospital. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
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