Top Books for Pregnancy, Birth, and Beyond

If motherhood was a course at university, these are the books I would include in it syllabus.

Pregnancy & Birth

• I’m Pregnant!: A week-by-week guide from conception to birth by Lesley Regan
• Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth This is the guide to your body, baby and the process of labour you didn’t know you needed. It is such a great resource to prepare for a natural birth that I can’t recommend often enough.
• CribSheet, The Parent Data Series by Emily Oster
• Hypnobabies Online Home Study Course The Course includes 6 classes with many readings so that I am including it here. Besides the classes it offers daily affirmations and hypnosis tracks. You can read my complete review on the course here to learn more.
• The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, and Restoring Your Vitality by Kimberly Ann Johnson I focused on preparing labour and birth so much that I didn’t spend so much time thinking about what would happen after baby was born. While everything went reasonably well, I am sure I wouldn’t have minded having the additional information shared in this book.
• The Fifth Trimester: The Working Mom’s Guide to Style, Sanity, and Success After Baby by Lauren Smith Brody This book focuses on the period when momma returns to work after having a baby. I haven’t read it yet but love that someone paid attention to it. It is a huge step in your and your baby’s life as well as your career. It’s so good that more light is shed on the intersection of motherhood and career. In my attempt to add to this cause, I have set up the Maternity Leave Survey, which focuses on the preparation of leaving work to have a baby. Please participate if you haven’t already. Soon, I will add my version of the Fifth Trimester Survey.

Parenting

• The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson
• How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanne Faber and Jule King
• The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years by Emily Oster One major parenting hack is having friends whose children are 1-2 years older than yours. By hanging out with them you get a front row seat of what’s to come. This book is a little bit like this, except that the information you are receiving is not just from 1 or 2 other families and their children but thousands based on research. Highly recommend to families with children at the age of 4-5 years old.
• The Danish Way of Parenting: What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids by Jessica Joelle Alexander and Iben Sandahl

Which books have helped you prepare for and get through motherhood? Leave me a comment or share it via email. I would love to expand my reading list.