Hi ladies

I thought it might be useful to start a thread where people can list their book recommendations. I'll start off:

Pregnancy
- What to expect when you're expecting (pretty much standard for people to read this I think!)
- Up the Duff (although I didn't love this, but many people do)
- You having a baby
- Eating for two (this is a cookbook)

Parenting
- Dream Baby Guide
- The Wonder Weeks
- The No-cry sleep solution

I have Baby Love and I referred to it a little at the beginning but it sits on the shelf now.

I'm particularly interested in recommendations on birthing books - especially any which have helped any mums achieve a VBAC

Yep, up the duff- take it or leave it. Some of the humour was relevant, spot on. Other parts werent. Pretty much like any book, really!

Cant remember my pregnancy book for DD, I lent it to a friend however I have found this 2nd pregnancy book very interesting that I bought off the book depository:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Second-Pregn...n/9781904760818

They also have the most brilliant pregnancy journal- you write down all your symptoms, experiences scans etc and there is space to take photos. I took one every month in a bikini (our eyes only!) so we could see how my body grew. I still look through it and now with no 2 have referred back to it to see if my symptoms are the same!
I couldnt recommend it more highly, and have also given it as a gift:
http://www.bookdepository.com/My-Pregnancy...e/9781846013379

Also from my local library, we borrowed and read Cheers to Childbirth:
http://www.cheerstochildbirth.com.au/
It has been written for Dads and is funny, to the point and we got a lot of birthing ideas out of it. My DH doesnt really read books, so each night we read a few pages of it together and I made notes that we thought would be relevant to our birth. Some are really touching stories and I always got emotional reading them out to him!

As for parenting books, I barely had time to read information from the hospital, so I cant help much there!

Its pretty overwhelming, so I made a conscious effort to stick with information from 2 websites (EB and Huggies) and 2 books (up the duff and the other one I cant remember). Otherwise my head would explode with the overload of information! And definitely NO GOOGLING SYMPTOMS!!!

I'm reading:

The Pregnancy Bible: Your Complete Guide to Pregnancy and Early Parenthood Joanne Stone MD, Keith Eddleman MD

Up the Duff
Kaz Cooke

The Contented Baby Book
Gina Ford

All are quite different but have been of value.
Contented baby is more for when bubba arrives and is quite routine based. Not sure if that parenting style is up my alley or not, but it's good to contrast the routine versus on demand styles.

I'm really enjoying Up the Duff - whether you like it or not will really depend on your style of humour

its not a pregnancy book as such, but i would recommend everyone read the female brain.

it takes you through on how the female brain develops from conception through to death.

So if you are having an daughter or even a son, as it expalins the difference between girls and boys brains, then also how pregnancy and post pregnancy is affected by the brain.

It is seriously a very interesting book

JuJu Sundin's 'Birth Skills'. Was fantastic for me in understanding the birthing process and providing advice for coping with labour. I had a fantastic 9 hour natural vaginal birth, unmedicated using the skills in this book.

I liked Pregnancy, Conception and Birth by Miriam Stoppard. It was the only birth book that had my birth in it, no other book mentioned it. If I hadn't read that book I would have had no idea what the OB ended up needing to do.

I didn't mid Baby Love, it was handy for a quick reference guide, I just wished it went past 12 months!

The only 'parenting' book I found useful was the Continuum Concept

4 books that I highly recommened (and have already been mentioned):

Up the Duff - light-hearted, informative and gave me something to read each week.

What To Expect (both When You're Expecting and The First Year) - loads of info and easy to read

Baby Love - this was my baby bible for the first 9 months after I had DS. There's some great recipes at the back of the book too, for moving onto solids.

Brilliant childbirth book: "Ina May Gaskin's Guide To Childbirth" for very empowering, common sense info from a midwife of 40+ years.
"Active Birth" is another great book by Janet Balaskas

Some of the books in my collection:
Gentle birth, gentle mothering
New Active Birth
Gentle Birth Method
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth (Love this book)
Attachment Parenting
I also have What to Expect When You're Expecting but I only ever read the weekly developments, I didn't like this book.

Great idea - I only had WTEWYE, Up The Duff and the New Active Birth when I was pregnant and they were great to follow along while pregnant but I wished I had read more about baby development and sleep before he arrived.

Organic~sab - great list, I have/had most of those. I also only followed the development parts of WTE - I found it a bit old-fashioned and talked about loads of rare problems, making me stress more!

Also: Hypnobirthing and Mindful Motherhood
I haven't got it yet but this time will be getting The Well Adjusted Baby, it comes highly recommended

For baby I recommend:
The Wonder Weeks (can't recommend it enough, it will save you LOTS of stress!)
The Sears' Baby Sleep Book
The No Cry Sleep Solution
The Diaper Free Baby
and for a bit later: Baby Led Weaning

I also highly recommend looking into baby signing and beginning early on, it has been amazing to be able to communicate with my pre-verbal toddler. Even now he says some words and signs others, or signs to clarify what he wants and it saves lots of tears and frustration.