Book Review: How to Survive Your Baby’s First Year by Hundreds of Heads

Once upon a time, when I was young and before I had children, I read a book in which parents shared their best parenting tips. I thought it was fascinating – seeing all the different parenting styles, all the little tips and tricks for staying sane and organized, for getting past diapering or potty-training troubles, for dealing with picky eaters and supermarket tantrums.

So I figured I’d probably like the Hundreds of Heads Survival Guide: How to Survive Your Baby’s First Year “by hundreds of happy moms and dads who did”.

I was wrong.

Perhaps the types of tips and quality of advice has changed in the years between the two books’ publications (this one was published in 2005). Or perhaps I’ve become more dogmatic about my own parenting philosophies. Perhaps it’s both. But the advice in this book generally struck me as same-old-same-old millenial parenting advice that, in my opinion, hasn’t worked out so well. Okay, maybe the parents survived the first year, but the kids grown up on this sort of advice have issues.

Perhaps I remember wrongly, but it seems the book I remember reading was filled with tips – different ideas for organizing the changing table or for repurposing those wipes containers or for household items that make great toys for an infant or whatever.

The advice in this book is more like: “Breastfeeding is the best thing you’ll ever experience”, “Don’t breastfeed, it sucks”. “Spanking is the absolute worst thing you can do to your child”; “A pop on the butt is all it takes”. Or it’ll be mom ratting dad out for how he doesn’t know that a child should only be left in time out for as many minutes as he is years old (a 3-year-old for 3 minutes). Oh, really? Since when did that become an unbreakable rule? (Note: if a mom said, “I generally give my kids a timeout corresponding to their age – I find it suits their attention spans and gives them enough time to calm down without making them get impatient”, I’d be “Oh, neat tip.”)

Of course, all this dogmatic side-taking doesn’t stop the steady stream of “do what works for you” language. Which reminds me of a recent PJTV Parenting Round Table in which the contributers were asked “What’s the Best (and Worst) Parenting Advice You’ve Ever Received?”

Leslie Loftis gave the best answer (in my opinion):

“The Best advice came from my college mentor and mother of two: Aim for the kind of person you want them to be at 35, not what you want for them tomorrow.

The worst advice was also the most common advice: Just do what works for you and your family. In practice, it is the reverse of the best advice. It encourages short term thinking. What is right is what works right now. Sometimes necessity must have her way, but usually doing what works right now means avoiding little problems and letting them fester until they become big problems that are much harder to solve.”

And that, in short, is why I didn’t like How to Survive Your Baby’s First Year. It’s full of dogmaticism about pretty much anything (most of which are non-essentials) – combined with a total lack of long-range thinking.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Parenting – Baby Care
Synopsis: Parents give dogmatic advice on the major first year parenting questions – while constantly proclaiming “do what works for you”.
Recommendation: I don’t recommend it.