Build your own baby advice book.

Hello blogland!

I thought I would share a little tip with you on something I started before Charlie arrived and will hopefully carry on with now that he is here.

Being a first time parent with the last child in my family being my 14 year old sister the thought of having my own little life to look after was very daunting. Any advice I was given I appreciated and remembered even writing a few bits down, but most of the advice I was given was from people who had babies generations ago and with times changing as fast as they do parenting techniques have developed and medical advise has changed leaving me rather confused.

I bought a couple of books for myself and Ben these are:

#What to Expect When Your Expecting - Heidi Murkoff
#Your Pregnancy week by week - Professor Lesley Regan
#The Expectant Dad's Survival Guide - Rob Kemp

I also went to the library and took out a few gems:

#Bonding with your bump - Dr Miriam Stoppard
#Pregnancy and Birth - Dr Miriam Stoppard
#The Expectant Dad's Handbook - Dean Beaumont

The two books for Ben are the only books I think he has ever read the whole way through. I enjoy them more than my own as they are informative in a such a humorous way that its easy to read and not as scary as some of mine. I HIGHLY recommend them both for any new dads out there, and so does Ben.

But among these books every month I went and bought without fail the Mother and Baby magazine and occasionally the Prima Baby.



In these magazines I found some of the best advice on all aspects baby, parenting, products and fashion and beauty. These magazines have been so helpful and have really helped myself and Ben go into parenting with opinions and tips that we both agree on.

However with these pieces of advice hidden in magazines I felt like I would be trailing through pages to find that piece I wanted to look at again so with the help of the magazines having specific cut out advice sections I decided to make my own Baby Advice Book.

I went through each magazine and carefully cut out all of the sections that I really loved and knew I would refer to at some point of parenthood. Although I made sure not to destroy the magazines as there is still lots of things in there that I would go back to and read.

After cutting out the bits I wanted I stuck them to some card into sections such as sleep, food, development, play, discipline and fitness.



I then put them into a folder which I keep in the nursery, to hand whenever I need it. I have also written down little bits of advice that I have been given that I thought was really helpful. As well as this I have tried to write motivational quotes on each page, I wanted to make sure that when times were low and I was turning to the book I was reassured by a little bit of wisdom.

The best thing about this book is that its all advice that I like and have chosen to put together. Its my very own Baby Advice Book and I can go to each section and find what I am looking for in minutes instead of going through pages and pages of finding what you remembered you'd seen but forgot in what book and what page it was.
ANYBODY can do this and it is something I highly recommend, you can do it in those long days whilst your waiting for your little one to arrive or in those snatched moments you get once they are here when you've been given 10 minutes to take a break with a magazine to unwind.

If you have done this or have now decided to do this yourself let me know. I would also love to know any tips you have on parenthood, any advice is much appreciated!
 
 


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