Title: Baby Love and The Mighty Toddler
Author: Robin Barker
Publisher: Pan Macmillan, 2009 (revised editions)
BL ISBN: 978-1-4050-3910-9
TMT ISBN: 978-1-4050-3911-6
Topic: Baby and Child Care

With my first child, I purchased a ridiculous number of baby care books. Honestly, if I’d read them all, I would never have had enough time to actually care for my son.

I very quickly found that some never had the information that I needed and others took so long to find the information, that the crisis had passed or I had simply decided to find the solution elsewhere. Sometimes it was simply that I needed information relevant to Australian parents.

Eventually, by the time my third child arrived, I had only one baby reference book that had survived the gradual cull. Robin Barker’s Baby Love contains the kind of practical, common-sense information that you need when you are a new parent trying to sort through the well-meant but totally contradictory advice given by friends and relatives.

The best thing about Barker’s books is that the information is delivered in such an encouraging and non-threatening way that you can almost picture yourself sitting down having a cup of coffee with a good friend who is offering you tips on how she managed such early parenting dilemmas as getting a baby to sleep through the night, whether to use a dummy/pacifier, bottle versus breast feeding, cloth versus disposable nappies and the many other day to day challenges of parenting a newborn.

By the time my daughter was born and my son was reading the terrible twos, Barker had thoughtfully published a guide to dealing with toddlers, The Mighty Toddler, and I was spared the effort of sifting through a collection of toddler care guides.

In April 2009, both Baby Love and The Mighty Toddler have been republished by Pan Macmillan, fully revised and updated with the latest information on medications, baby care techniques and health concerns.

Being a parent can be a daunting task and Barker’s wonderful books are a handy reference for many of the practical, day to day trials of parenting young children such as toilet training, getting children into a healthy sleep routine, working out whether a rash is a simple irritation or warrants a visit to the hospital emergency room and trying to tempt fussy eaters.

I have often given Baby Love as a gift to a new mother and can enthusiastically recommend both Baby Love and The Mighty Toddler as books that I have referred to frequently when my own children were young.

Suite101 Review: Baby Love & The Mighty Toddler