Customer Reviews

The New Mom's Survival Guide: How to Reclaim Your Body, Your Health, Your Sanity, and Your Sex Life After Having a Baby

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent book for new mothers. And it is really entertaining too. Great sections on weight loss after baby, sex after baby and the baby blues. I highly recommend it to new moms and to moms with older children too. I purchased the author's other book for our babysitter and thoroughly enjoy her writing style--funny and informative.

Becoming a mom is a wonderful experience, but it also brings with it many questions. There are so many helpful books out there that attempt to provide helpful information to new moms...how do you choose?

The book, "The New Mom's Survival Guide," by Jennifer Wider, M.D., makes it easy. As Jennifer suggests at one point in the book, "Almost everyone I know has a story like this..." (while speaking about one of many new mom situations)...and she's right. While reading Jennifer's book, I had numerous thoughts of, "Oh, I remember that," and "I went through the same thing." Although I personally had read many books before I had my child, there were still so many questions I needed answers to. While this book does not cover every single possible new mom situation (there are just too many to list), it does a wonderful job of briefly answering many popular new mom questions.

One nice thing about this book's format, is that questions, answers, and information is written as if your own doctor was speaking to you. There's a lot of advice, and explanations are given where it's needed. The book is small enough to carry with you, so you can use it as a guide if you need to look up something. Larger books, besides not the easiest to tote around, sometimes aren't the best source for new mom's because important information isn't as easily found -- it tends to get lost in its many pages. No such problem with this book :).

We highly recommend "The New Mom's Survival Guide" -- the book is direct and very useful for new moms. Sure you can pick up the phone and call your doctor for every little question...or, you can just pick up this book. You're sure to refer to it many times.

As a first time mother, I struggled to find a book that encompassed all the issues I was facing post-pregnancy. I stumbled upon Dr. Wider's book and how fortuitous that turned out to be. Clearly delineated and articulated, Wider's book helps new moms like myself understand that they're not going crazy and facing issues that ultimately have solutions. I've recommended this book to all the moms in my playgroup. I only wish I'd found it sooner!

Hooray for Dr. Wider! This was my first purchase after all the books that were offered and gifted to me at showers and mom gatherings. I had liked the other books well enough, but this one I LOVED! Dr. Wider is like the smart and honest friend who isn't afraid to talk nitty gritty about the facts of life after giving life. Her down to earth, smart as a whip manner made me feel like I was not alone with the good, bad and ugly parts of the best time of my life. I couldn't put it down (despite the crazy feeding schedule) and found myself laughing so hard I would wake my husband. My favorite jeans, a balanced home, awesome sex...Nothing seems impossible now.

I liked the straightforward approach that the author took in writing this book. She addressed a lot of hard truths with honesty and openness. However, for 9.99, this read more like a magazine article than a book. It briefly touched on a weird array of seemingly random topics. A lot of the topics didn't apply to me at the moment, so I ended up skipping them, which means that I read the whole book in 20 minutes. I would like to read more by this author, as I liked her style of writing, but the amount of content didn't justify the price for me.

I got this book because of the "how to reclaim your body" part of the title. I had fullterm twins and my stomach is so stretched out I now have loose, hanging skin like a person who was really fat and dropped a lot of weight. (I was thin and had a flat belly before this pregnancy.) My ob/gyn has told me diet and exercise won't help me regain my stomach because the problem is the excess and stretched skin. This book made no mention of women for whom cosmetic surgery (in my case a tummy tuck) is the only option for "reclaiming" their body. I'm giving the book three stars because it probably is a useful book for women who didn't have fullterm multiples. I learned other things from it, just nothing for my biggest new mom body concern.

While I recognize that some women may identify with the author in this book - if you don't, and I suspect MANY women won't - then this book is completely worthless and at times, an added stress with it's propensity to mention the downsides of pregnancy. When I found out I was pregnant, I was indeed anxious, worried, and had a lot of questions. After reading the first few chapters of this book, not only did I still have the same questions, but I found my anxiety level had INCREASED due to the direction the author chose to take. Talk about overkill on the negativity....Lupus?? Sheehans Syndrome?? Sexless marriages?? Unhappy spouses turned off by your appearance?? And I quote, "Your beautifully taught belly has been turned into a WASTELAND OF EXTRA, FLABBY SKIN. Depending on how you delivered, you may have a VARIETY OF WOUNDS AND SCARS that are just beginning to heal and in the meantime, looking quite HORRIFYING." She goes on to talk about how it took her several months after her ability to have sex again to even "THINK" about having sex....and as I said, while some women may relate, I certainly do not - and hope that most women don't. Nowhere does she mention the importance of harvesting your marriage/partnership in spite of self-consciousness - or suggestions (in detail and length) on how to work with your partner to work through those times. I found the information and opinions to be completely biased, overbearing and self-deprecating. Instead of empowering women to have a DIFFERENT result, the author simply tells you to "expect it" but to think about the "miracle" you just created to make you feel better. I for one, hope that I still have a sense of "self" even past pregnancy and becoming a mother. Her grim point of view was downright upsetting and I would never recommend this book to a friend.