How to Have a Smarter Baby: The Infant Stimulation Program For Enhancing Your Baby's Natural Development (Mass Market Paperback)

by Susan Ludington-Hoe (Author), Susan K. Golant (Author) "For most of the three and a half million babies born in 1984, there was a set of parents wanting desperately for their child to..." (more)
Key Phrases: hearing stimulation, prenatal tape, visual stimulators, Tactile Tillie, Los Angeles, Resource Guide (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In this first-of-its-kind book, Dr. Susan Ludington-Hoe gives parents the tools they need to act on what all recent studies and articles on the subject of infant stimulation make clear: the content and quality of an infant's learning prenatally and shortly after birth can influence its life direction.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; 1985 EDITION 336 PAGES edition (May 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553265415
• ISBN-13: 978-0553265415
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,578 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Neat activities...but boy is it an old book!, November 19, 2000

By	"trailertrashgrrl" (Mountain View, CA) - See all my reviews

I was so excited when I saw this book! I bought it and read it and enjoyed most of the activities. However, I have to agree with a previous reviewer that the book was published in the 70's...and I'd really like to see this book updated. After all...so much time has passed...I'm sure some of the activities could be updated and changed. What worries me about this book is the nutrition section. They recommend having a protein shake every day for the baby's brain development. The shake recipe calls for a raw egg. Now, correct me if I'm wrong...but raw eggs are considered a no-no if you are pregnant. And they recommend that you have this shake EVERY DAY! I think this information is dangerous and puts the woman who follows that information at risk for foodborne illness. So, if you plan to buy this book...PLEASE take what you read with a grain of salt. Use your common sense and consult your doctor (especially about the egg thing!)

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous "smell games" in Smarter Baby Book, February 20, 2000

By A Customer

Since 1987,when this book was written, there has been muchresearch on the toxicity of ingredients in modern fragrances andfragrant products. On page 189, under "Smell Games," Dr. Ludington-Hoe advocates using "mommy's perfume" and "daddy's aftershave" to stimulate baby's sense of smell. Unfortunately, fragrances and aftershave contain many chemicals that are not adequately tested for health effects, both chronic and acute. Many fragrance chemicals are neurotoxic, carcinogenic, disrupt endocrine function, cause respiratory and skin, eye and ear irritation (think of all those infant ear infections and the extraordinary increase in childhood and adult asthma cases and fatalities in the last ten-fifteen years!), and even central nervous system disruption and liver and kidney damage. Infants and children are much more susceptible to the effects of toxic chemicals. Holding toxic mixtures like this under a baby's nose is far more likely to kill brain cells than to nourish them. Modern parents should be much more saavy about indoor air pollution, its causes and its effect on child and family health. I give this book a "two" because it contains dangerously outdated information about what is appropriate or healthy stimulation for children.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Info is timeless, not dated-- Good for new parents, April 14, 2002

By A Customer

I think this is a good book for new parents who want to learn more about how to interact with their new baby. As a first-time mom, I appreciated reviewing the activities in the book and using them as opportunities to spend quality/learning time with my baby. I only skimmed the text of the book to get to the activities the first time I read it; reading the actual text of the book only increases its value, as there are lots of good tips on how to make your baby comfortable from birth on-- Acclimating him to his new home, being aware of his needs, etc.

My baby loves the mobiles and stimulating images that I made for him from the book-- Made with paper plates, copy paper, black and red pens, they're simple, inexpensive, and effective. There are a couple exercises out of the dozens in the book that refer to stimulating baby's sense of smell with perfume-- But that shouldn't condemn the book as a whole. Any parent who objects to subjecting his/her baby to perfume doesn't need to do the exercise. There are other smell games that involve smelling an orange, various spices, your dinner-- Clearly less ostensibly harmful than smelling perfume. The activities are "mix and match" so you don't have to have your baby smell perfume.

The book is so inexpensive, yet filled with good information. It doesn't matter that the book is old-- The information in it is really timeless. This can't be compared to the "Baby Plus" system, which from what I've read, doesn't really factor in the value of a parent spending quality, interactive time with her child. This book is about helping your baby experience the world, not snap more synapses.

If you want to learn about how you can spend more quality time with your baby and help him learn new things by experiencing things around him, get this book. Just because the book was written in the 1980s doesn't mean the information is outdated. Are the laws of gravity outdated? I did give it 4, not 5 stars because some of the information on resources/ purchasing toys is outdated (the oft-mentioned "Cookie Monster Crawl-Along" infant skateboard does not exist), but this is a minor flaw compared to the other values stored up in this book.