The best Motherhood books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

My guess is The Birth Partner: Birth Partner 5th Edition: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Partners, Doulas, and All Other Labor Companions https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558329102/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_pEAXDbDNWHMB4

Expecting Better by Emily Oster offers some good perspective on what “they” tell you to avoid vs. real risks to your pregnancy.

Personally, listeria is something I didn’t want to risk. Unlike run-of-the-mill food poisoning, listeria can pose a risk to the fetus. I chose to avoid raw milk products, cold smoked foods, and certain raw fruits and vegetables unless I knew they were washed.

Another vote for Expecting Better, as the author looks at the actual scientific evidence behind most common pregnancy do's and don'ts.

For example, she says there's no problem with sushi / a moderate amount of caffeine.

For the birth process, I found Penny Simkin's The Birth Partner incredibly helpful. During the first year, I also got a lot out of Baby 411.

Read this. There's a lot of misinformation and over-hyped risk for pregnant women. Everything is a risk, but you're more likely to get hit by a car than get listeria, for example, and you're more likely to get listeria from vegetables and fruit than deli meat. Women in Japan still eat sushi when pregnant, and women in Europe still have a glass of wine. You can decide for yourself what kind of risks you want to take. (Personally, I ate a ton of sushi when I was pregnant and gave no fucks.)

My OB said that listeria is just an odds thing and that according to the CDC the same year soft cheeses had a listeria outbreak there was one in ICE CREAM - and you don't hear a single pregnant woman being denied their precious ice cream haha. So basically the moral of the story is that people latch onto some of these more than others for no particular reason. There have also been recent outbreaks in other foods that pregnant women aren't advised to never touch ever again. All of that to say listeria is very serious and we have to be vigilant but it's also important to educate yourself on what should truly be avoided. I recommend the book Expecting Better by Emily Oster who does a great job outlining what you really should or shouldn't do according to science and data - but makes it crazy easy to understand and you'll feel 1000x better and more comfortable navigating the world as a pregnant person after reading it.

We are too insanely strict on pregnant women. She's perfectly fine sampling beer in her 3rd trimester. Honestly, she's fine having a whole one every now and then. This author's research claims "Light drinking is fine (up to two glasses of wine a week in the first trimester and up to a glass a day in the second and third trimesters)"

Are you an only child? Because I am, and so I was both the Golden Child and the Scapegoat with my Nmom. I too have good memories of my mom doing things with me, but now I question if she did those things to make herself look good or because she wanted someone to tag along, not because she was doing anything nice for me. And despite what good memories I have, all of the bad outweighs it now, so I cut her out. I don’t hate my mom, but I really don’t like her and it’s much better for my well being to have her cut out of my life. It’s so hard reconciling good memories with how she really is, and I had a hard time coming to terms with the fact I don’t have a loving mom because everyone wants to have a loving, supportive mom, but my life is better without her in it. I recommend reading ‘Will I Ever be Good Enough?’, a book written by a psychologist about women with narcissistic moms. https://www.amazon.com/Will-Ever-Good-Enough-Narcissistic/dp/1439129436

I think you are probably good with parmesan! Its a hard cheese - usually its more the soft unpasteurized cheeses that could potentially contain listeria that you have to watch out for (ex: queso fresco). The book 'Expecting Better' is really good about breaking down some of these pregnancy 'rules' and giving an explanation on where the statistics come from and what to really be on the look out for. But of course do whatever you are most comfortable with! For any foods you want to avoid, you could always say you are on a diet? Or just don't want to eat that dish tonight.

The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin. My husband has been reading it as we prepare for labor (at 34 weeks now) and he says it’s wonderful. Not sure if this link works because I’m on mobile but here’s hoping: The Birth Partner

We haven't had the baby yet, but for my spouse reading The Birth Partner made a huge difference in their level of engagement and enthusiasm for birth planning. It's completely gender neutral and reinforces the idea that your support person during labour and delivery (your wife, sounds like!) can have many active tasks, responsibilities and roles to take on at each stage.

I got the okay from my doctor during my first pregnancy. Expecting Better has a good section on it if you’re worried.

There's a great book about this called "Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts" - I am going to buy it for every pregnant woman I know from here on out. It really saved me when I was struggling postpartum.

Please read pages 111-112 (actually, the whole book is great!) of Precious Little Sleep - she has a small section by a pediatric clinical psychologist on how attachment-style parenting and sleep training are NOT at odds. You can still meet all the emotional and physical needs of your child while doing sleep training - in fact, sleep training even helps your child meet their physical needs better - who doesn't feel awesome after a good night's sleep?

I have pretty awful parents. I no longer have a relationship with my mother. This book has been very helpful and explaining my dad’s role in it. this book

I found the book Expecting Better to be very useful when I was deciding what do's and don'ts I would adhere to among the insane amount of contradictory information.

The author explains her methodology well, too, and while I didn't agree w/ all of her conclusions (drinking alcohol every day seems like a stupid thing to do, so even if I was a drinker I'd have opted to ignore her science on that one), the info was overall helpful. Now, my husband is super paranoid and I'm not huge on lunch meat to begin with, so I don't make a habit of ordering cold cuts (or I nuke 'em if that's all there is to eat)...but knowing the science and risks, I would personally be okay with the relatively small risk associated with most lunch meats.

I agreed with her (and a lot of you in this thread) about how women are basically told a bunch of seemingly random shit that they need to do and are not given a good explanation for it--even if we follow up on the doc's orders with "But why?"

Additionally I like the website Evidence Based Birth. I recently read about how eating dates from 36 weeks on can help ripen the cervix. I went to that website and found their article on dates, and while the evidence on that isn't super strong, there was enough for me to decide to purchase a bag of dates. :)

I recommend you to read this book. The author challenged all the recommendations given to pregnant women and this an analysis of the scientific papers behind the decision. Sometimes, recommendations are based on studies done like 40 years ago with different technology. It will give you a much better idea of what you can and can't. Her goal is to explain you the risks and let you decide. 2 persons can read this book and have different conclusions.

I started a pregnancy journal with my first, but never finished it because I was just writing, “Ugh, I’m so sick today. Again. Just like yesterday,” over and over. The journal even has writing prompts, but it seemed like my answers were always something about feeling sick.

Now I just have an agenda book that I use as a daily journal because it has just enough room for 3-4 sentences about my day, which is about more than just pregnancy. And I keep my Dr appointments in my phone’s calendar app.

Once baby comes, I really liked having a baby memory journal to keep track of milestones (although it got depressing with Covid because all my answers about what we did for baby’s first holidays were the same: dressed up in a cute holiday outfit and sat at home).

Sister. My parents are extremely similar and I've gone through many of the same feelings.

I think you will benefit enourmously from that book I recommended as well as this one linked here. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Will-Ever-Good-Enough-Narcissistic/dp/1439129436

Just reading the amazon reveiws can be very cathartic because you will see many girls who have gone through the same thing and that you aren't alone.

I also want to say that therapy is really wonderful and I think would do you good as well. Sending you blessings and wishing you all the best. Remember that you are worthy and deserving of love, happiness, peace, acceptance and all your dreams come true xxx

Expecting Better by Emily Oster put A LOT of our worries at ease. I highly suggest! I also found Mayo Clinic Guide To A Healthy Pregnancy very helpful- we use this more as a reference guide. We try our best not to google because it just sends us down a scary rabbit hole!

Someone in another thread mentioned this book the other day, and I think you might be interested in it too. Maybe the local library has it or can order it for you? I haven’t gotten a chance to start it yet, but even just reading the amazon reviews made me start seeing lightbulbs!

Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439129436/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1EbbCbVQBW9RM

Your results may vary, but my doctor said it’s fine, and actually preferable to doing your hair yourself because a salon likely has better ventilation than a small bathroom at home. Expecting Better has a good section on it as well.

My doctor said no to both, so I feel like I have to listen to him, but I’m pretty sure there’s a section in Expecting Better about how baths should be okay.

Does anyone have advice about cutting back on caffeine? I was never a coffee drinker until the pandemic. Now I drink ~2 big cups per day and wake up with a headache if I don't start drinking it fast enough 😬 I've tried switching to black tea and even going cold turkey, but the withdrawal headache is awful and I normally cave before lunchtime.

Updated wisdom says it's fine to continue drinking moderate amounts of coffee during TTC and pregnancy, but in my situation I think it's time to cut back. My nervous system does not do well with it, and overall I think I felt before I became a coffee drinker.

Congrats on your pregnancy!! I just want to second what everyone else has already said- everything will work out! And, I recommend you get Emily Oster's book called expecting better. She has poured over what real data exists from studies on all kinds of risks in pregnancy. It's fantastic. The studies that have found a problem from drinking found that vast majority of issues werw observed only when mom was drinking heavily and doing cocaine regularly. Keep up your new normal and try to do some regulated breathing exercises when you feel overwhelmed :)

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Expecting-Better-Conventional-Pregnancy-Wrong/dp/0143125702&ved=2ahUKEwj6k7vd5aTuAhXaU80KHdRSDdkQFjAMegQIDxAB&usg=AOvVaw0Vg_HlLJWKaYuW4LgOY_Lt

Even though it's targeted towards partners, I'm in the process of reading The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin and already feel like I'm going to recommend it to everyone. I've learned an incredible amount, it's easy to read, and I find the tone to be really respectful and level (not preachy).

I borrowed it from the library and it's so good I'm wishing I'd just bought it.

Yes, I've read about 10 so far, and it's top of my list along with Emily Oster's "Expecting Better"

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143125702/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_search\_asin\_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I got this book for my wife and she said it was very helpful but very difficult to read:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439129436

Your mother sounds horribly like my mother-in-law with the unfortunate exception that mine is still alive. Husband was a slave until he died, then he was called worthless despite leaving her an estate worth seven figures. She was so abusive and foul to her in-home caretakers that she got put into an assisted living facility. My wife was written out of the will decades ago, but we don't care since we have our retirement and our kids' college educations funded.

House is also a filthy hovel. We're waiting for her to die so we can go in and get childhood mementos like high school yearbooks. Nothing of any monetary value.

Before we met, my wife moved out of the house at 21 years of age and her mother told the family that she was a runaway. Then she made up many lies to make her the victim and my wife the villain. Only now with her mother in assisted-living custody can my wife tell her family about the horrors of her childhood and the truth behind her mother's lies about how horrible a daughter she was.

Same background of no abuse... From my amateur outsider's point of view it looks like borderline personality disorder. She's too far gone now. A teacher's intervention would have made a difference.

So how are you coping? Any pointers for my wife? Any need for a chat with someone who has been there? I swear you and my wife would bond in a support group. That book linked above improved my wife's perspective and started to help her believe that she didn't deserve this. I have no idea how my wife will handle her mom finally passing away despite only seeing her a few times in the last 20 years.

I loved Emily Oster's "Expecting Better" (as well as "Crib sheet" and the upcoming "Family Firm") and "The Informed Parent" by Haelle and Willingham.

They are both very science oriented books and I liked that they selves into the why behind things rather than just issuing vague reassurances and warnings.

I can't recommend this book enough for new parents. On Becoming Babywise. My wife and I followed this book for both kids, well really just the first we got lazy on the 2nd and we still have trouble getting him to stay in bed at 4 yrs.