Recommended Baby Books.

I highly recommend "Baby Love" by Robin Barker. Robin is an experienced nurse, midwife and early childhood nurse as well as a mother and grandmother. The book is easy to read and full of helpful advice and information on sleeping, crying, breastfeeding, nutrition, illnesses and growth and development. It also has a section of recipes for babies and it is Australian so it has Australian specific resources.

Another book I highly recommend is "The Wonder Weeks" by Hetty Vanderijt and Frans Plooij. The Wonder Weeks is about the eight major developmental leaps that babies make within their first 14 months. It covers how to help your baby through these fussy periods, what they go through during this time and what the developmental leaps are. It also covers which games and toys are best for babies at different ages and stages. This book was hugely valuable to me. It was good to understand what Em was going through at different times and also to know what sorts of games and toys would suit her best at the different stages. As a new mother I often found myself wondering "what's going on now" and this book helped me to understand why Em was doing what she was doing and what she was trying to learn. I also found myself not knowing what games or toys to introduce and when. Again this book helped me to know when the best times to introduce different games and toys were. I really can't recommend this book highly enough. I think every new mother should have a copy. The only problem I found is that it is not available in book shops. Perhaps you can ask for it to be ordered in? I found it easiest and cheapest to search online. The book typically retails for about $50 in Australia but if you search around you can find it for around $30. It is also available in libraries and that's how I first stumbled across it.

Preparing for breast feeding.

To prepare for breast feeding I recommend reading books or chapters on breast feeding. In particular I recommend the books Birth: Conceiving, Nurturing and Giving Birth to your Baby by Catherine Price and Sandra Robinson and Baby Love by Robin Barker for their comprehensive information. There are also courses on breast feeding, which will be run by your hospital and you can get great information from the ABA (Australian Breastfeeding Association).

To be honest at the time when I was reading and learning about breast feeding I found it frustrating because I often didn't really understand what they meant. It seemed pointless to be learning about something that you cannot practice. However, once my baby arrived I realised how useful it was to know everything I knew about breast feeding. Sure, I still didn't know how to actually do it but I knew:

• It would be difficult;
• It would be painful to begin with;
• To begin with I would be feeding 8 to 12 times a day;
• A feed would take an hour to begin with;
  
• The sorts of problems that could arise and how to deal with them;
• About the existence of lactation consultants who could help with any problems that arose;
  
• There would be temporary periods of time when the baby would feed longer and more often and they were periods of growth;
• The more milk a baby takes the more you make; and
  
• There is plenty of help out there for mothers - lactation consultants, health centre nurses, ABA, drop in clinics, etc and having a supportive partner and family is also important.
  

Armed with this information I think is part of the key to success. If you enter breast feeding expecting it to be a lot of hard work but definitely achievable and knowing that there is actually plenty of help out there then you are much more likely to succeed. A lot of women incorrectly believe they don't have a big enough supply when their baby starts feeding more often, when in fact it is a temporary period of time to increase your supply.

Of course sometimes breast feeding doesn't work out even after you have put your best effort in but I also think a lot of women give up perhaps because they didn't expect it to be such hard work.

Recommended pregnancy books.

Before trying for a baby I decided to get a book about pregnancy to find out what I was actually getting myself in for.

I bought Birth: Conceiving, Nurturing and Giving Birth to your Baby by Catherine Price and Sandra Robinson and found it to be a gem. It is written by two Australian mid-wives, so it has relevant Australian information. It is packed full of knowledge on conception, pregnancy, birth and newborns. There are also pros and cons on topics, which aide in decision making. I constantly devoured this book during pregnancy.

Another book I recommend is Up the Duff by Kaz Cooke. It is also written by an Australian and has lots of useful, relevant information, but it is written in a humorous way (which is something very much needed on occasion).