Gentle Baby Care : No-cry, No-fuss, No-worry--Essential Tips for Raising Your Baby (Paperback)

~ (Author), Harvey Karp (Author) "An infant's airway is very tiny, so just a small amount of swelling can produce that wheezing sound..." (more)
Key Phrases: breastfeeding your toddler, car seat crying, elizabeth pantley, New York, American Academy of Pediatrics, Breastfeeding Your Newborn (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

From the bestselling author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution--everything parents need to know during their baby's first year

Gentle Baby Care provides immediate answers to the daily questions that arise when caring for a baby.

Written by bestselling author and parenting expert Elizabeth Pantley, this valuable guide includes information and practical tips to allow readers to choose the gentle, loving solutions that best suit their parenting style and their baby. Gentle Baby Care provides more than 1,000 practical tips and solutions to the everyday issues that arise during a child's first year, including:

• Colic
• Teething
• Colds
• Sleep
• Diaper rash
• Independent play
• Traveling with baby
• Developmental milestones

From the Back Cover

From the bestselling author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution comes a complete reference filled with loving solutions for caring for your new baby

It's often been said that babies should come with an owner's manual. Now, Gentle Baby Care fills that need for the millions of parents immersed in the most hands-on experience of their lives: caring for their newborn babies.

Organized alphabetically to help you find much-needed information within seconds, Gentle Baby Care provides immediate answers to the questions that arise daily when caring for a baby during the first year, from soothing a fussy baby to handling well-meaning yet unwanted advice with grace. Written by bestselling author and parenting expert Elizabeth Pantley, Gently Baby Care will help you become a confident, caring parent. Here you'll find hundreds of practical tips and solutions that allow you to choose the gentle, loving approach that best suits your parenting style and your baby. Gentle Baby Care includes:

• Tips to help get your reluctant napper to sleep
• Ways to make your baby more comfortable during illness
• Guidelines to help you choose diapers, bags, strollers, and car seats
• The golden rules of babyproofing
• Advice on how to handle breastfeeding in public
• And so much more!

Whether this is your first baby or your fourth, Gentle Baby Care provides confidence-building advice to help you get through the many firsts in this tiring yet wonderfully exhilarating first year.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071398856
• ISBN-13: 978-0071398855
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #255,660 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful, reliable resource, June 11, 2004

By	Oleanna (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This helpful resource has a lot of heart and a friendly tone. Though hefty, the book's appealing format, well-organized material, supportive writing style and clarity make it inviting and accessible. Readers need only look inside to appreciate the author's positive attitude and notice how practical and thorough the information is.

Each of about 125 brief chapters uses a similar pattern designed to provide quick factual direction and encouragement for its intended audience of parents of normal infants. A wide selection of topics, from health issues to overzealous grandparents, swimming, test driving strollers, developing a read-aloud family culture, and teething, is arranged alphabetically with labels that, for the most part, make sense. The table of contents and extensive index are well-conceived. Lots of white space, attractive type, and logical layout make skimming for specific advice easy. Reading the book straight through is pleasant and informative too.

Comparative parenting philosophies are not covered. Pantley is forthright about concentrating on attachment parenting. She supports her preferences well and discusses many approaches in a broad context. Breastfeeding, for example, is assumed, yet she doesn't belittle readers who opt for formula. Curiously though, homeopathic medicine is suggested a few times with no further explanation about it. In general, Pantley speaks sensibly to hands-on, involved parents interested in natural ways to rear secure, strongly attached children safely.

Development itself is covered here only as a minor topic with lists of normal milestones. Helping parents understand particular issues and evaluate their best options is Pantley's focus, so her sound advice includes tips with developmentally appropriate variations throughout the book. She is adept also at sharing pertinent considerations for each subject without prescribing, except for certain definite procedures or emergency requirements, what choices a family should make. Her presentation of current knowledge and research is concise and responsible. She provides additional websites and resources for further interest and respectfully leaves the outcomes up to her readers' values and decisions.

Gentle Baby Care has a more developed style than Pantley's earlier Perfect Parenting. The same sensitive logic in her No-Cry Sleep Solution is in her writing here. She considers each topic thoroughly with particular awareness of safety issues, and cogently presents, with the utmost respect for parents and their babies' well-being, the practical information and thoughtful opinions they will find useful. Expectant, new and experienced parents will all find this book a handy and reliable reference.

80 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book for AP parents, January 7, 2004

By	"mom2kyla2002" (Canada) - See all my reviews

If you support the attachment parenting philosophies of Dr. Sears and Katie Allison Granju, you will love this book. If, however, you're after a book that is a little bit more mainstream, this may not be the book for you and you may wish to stick to a less AP-oriented baby book. This book assumes you will be opting for extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and that you will be using the night-time parenting strategies spelled out in the author's other book. If you're not making these particular parenting choices, this book may leave you feeling a bit guilty for the parenting choices you have made.

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Baby Encyclopedia, October 4, 2003

By A Customer

Gentle Baby Care gives information on hundreds of topics. Each topic begins with a question, this is followed by general information in a "Learn About It" section, which is generally brief and concise. This is followed with more specific solutions, checklists, charts and such. And finishes with a list of websites and books as additional resources.

An example is the entry on "Colic". It begins, "My baby is very fussy and cries a lot, mostly at the end of the day. Does she have colic?" The Learn About It area defines colic and describes the known causes.

This is followed by "Can Colic Be Prevented?" which explains health issues that can cause crying, and also tells what is known about colic prevention.

The next part "Things That May Help Your Baby" gives a long bullet list of many ideas that may help your baby feel better and stop crying.

As is typical in the book, there is yet another section called, "Tips for Coping" which gives tips on how YOU can handle this difficult time.

Next comes, "When Should I Call the Doctor?" with a bullet list to guide you on when you should be concerned.

The last section, "For More Information" guides you to several books on the subject, if you want to get into more detail.

The layout of this book allows for a quick yet thorough examination on topics that may arise during the first two years such as Bathing, Burping, Car Seat Crying, Constipation, Diaper changing (tips, choosing diapers, and what to do when your baby doesn't want to be changed), Fever, Food allergies, Grandparents (both overzealous and reluctant), Immunizations, Massage, Milestones, Sleep (fabulous sections on this topic!), Travel, Visiting, Weaning. These are just a few examples.

I highly recommend this book as one to keep handy for the first two years.