Customer Reviews

The Modern Girl's Guide to Motherhood (Mod Moms Survival Kit)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

If you are considering buying/reading this book, please know where this author is coming from. Although she states she breastfed her 2 children for 6 months and 4 months, she is obviously coming from a very pro formula feeding standpoint. She speaks negatively of breastfeeding women, she lists the advantages of breastfeeding while undermining them in the same breath, she lists advantages to formula feeding which could shake a new breastfeeding mother's confidence, and she advocates for scheduled feeding, delaying feeding and pacifer use, all of which can negatively impact breastfeeding and damage a nursing mother's milk supply.

Her advice for sleeping also has the potential to negatively impact breastfeeding as she advocates for letting babies cry, bottlefeeding formula at night, and unrealistic expectations of children.

Your feeding choice is just that, your choice. HOWEVER if you want to breastfeed or are currently breastfeeding and need help, please know that this is not the right book to look to for advice that will help you be successful with that choice.

While this book has some great tips and some good info, I was appalled by the misinformation in the section on breastfeeding and how negatively it was presented. For instance, you don't have to have a stellar diet and there's very few foods MOST breastfeeding moms have to worry about at all. Overall, I would not recommend this book to anybody who has any interest in breastfeeding, or wants to read a book with correct health information.

Some of the advice in this book sounds like it came from the 1950s. Letting a baby "cry it out" never has been, and never will be, a good idea. Training a baby is a TERRIBLE idea-- infants under a year are not being manipulative when they cry, they're communicating their needs to you. Babies are not convenient, but they're not supposed to be! If you think you can have children and still have it be all about you, then you probably shouldn't have children. Good communication and a sense of humor will do more for your marriage than trying to fit the baby into a pre-baby lifestyle.

Buckingham also gives terrible advice about breastfeeding. If you're a new mom and you plan to breastfeed, schedules, supplements and early weaning are not your friends! And watching what you eat while you breastfeed is not the ordeal she makes it out to be.

Basically, the overall tone of the book is such that Buckingham presents herself as a modern, hip, feminist mom, but her suggestions are just the opposite. [...]

I read this after catching parts of the tv show hosted by the author. After reading the passage about breastfeeding, I wish I could get my money back. How dissappointing to read that AAP reccommendations disregarded and the overall health of children should be cast aside, and that women who nurse do so to brag!

I hope most modern WOMEN would set this book down. This kind of advice is better suited to spoiled, selfish children.

This book is so full of misinformation, it's ridiculous. It reads like it was written for a teen magazine, the author gives horrible advice, and I feel sorry for the pregnant woman or new mom who reads this book. Save your money on this one!

Please don't buy this book.
She advises you to shoot the medicine from a baby's medicine dropper into the back of the baby's throat (even after she says it's mean)! PLEASE DO NOT do that! It's not only mean, it's dangerous!
Your baby can aspirate and die. Meaning: The fluid could be forced down into their lungs instead of esophagus. They can die from this. Shoot it into their cheek so that they will swallow it the way they should.
I also have to add that her other advice annoys me.
What she found "unnecessary" I found quite useful!

Althought the author made some good attempts at humor, I would not want to be the type of mother she describes. I was shocked at the way she dismissed the AAPs recommendations regarding feeding and she provided a lot of information that was completely incorrect! The idea that babies should be put on schedules is inconsistent with my view of motherhood. It seems selfish and immature. [...]

As someone who specializes in Developmental Psychology, I would not recommend this book to new mothers. The author states that if a 9-12 month old cries in the night he/she is being "manipulative." This is completely incorrect- babies at this developmental stage are only aware of getting their needs met- they cry because they need something (to be fed, to be changed, to be held, etc) Babies have emotional needs- there is nothing "manipulative" about a baby crying out because he/she is scared or lonely or hungry.
The breastfeeding advice is appalling- the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that women breastfeed for at LEAST one year and states that breastmilk is superior nutritionally and immunologically to formula. The author states that "formula is just as good, don't feel guilty" and while I agree that guilt is not a positive thing for new moms, I feel they should be encouraged to breastfeed and hearing "formula is just as good" may make stressed out new moms feel that they should just give up and switch to formula. Moms need to know just how good it is for the baby that they are breastfeeding and encouraged to keep it up. I do not recommend this book.

I couldn't read most of it, because she put me off so terribly. She disregards most medical recommendations, and acts as though children are just a burden to deal with. Her information on breastfeeding is beyond sad, it's reprehensible, and not the least bit accurate. Her attitude that children at the ages of 9-12 months are manipulative when crying, and should cry it out is sad, and out-dated, not to mention dangerous to your child's health.

If you want a book that is just for laughs, read away. If you are looking for great parenting info to help you be the best, caring mom you can be, run far from this book. It encourages you to be selfish and uncaring to the needs of your baby. Babies need their mothers. Good mothers do not need this book.