Oh Baby! Things I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know as a First-Time Parent

Questions from a First-Time Parent

Since starting work here at LPL I’ve gone though a number of major life events. Some of them I’ve written about, like getting married, and the welcoming of a spontaneous puppy into the family, the first as adults for both my husband and me. Now we’ve reached a new milestone: My husband and I are expecting our first child! He is supposed to arrive in mid-July, so by the time you are reading this, we might be sleep deprived and possibly covered in spit up. This is a very exciting time for us, but it’s also a very scary and confusing time because, let’s face it, kids are no joke. There’s a myriad of parenting advice and baby items that you just have to have or you will traumatize your child. It’s a lot to take in and attempt to filter out, especially when you’ve never done this before. It gets overwhelming fast. What kind of car seat and stroller combo do I need? Is it okay to let your kids watch television, or will it make their brain rot? How do you even introduce solid foods to them and when? There's just so much to learn!

It can be really easy to get caught in the weeds here, and everyone is different in what their family needs and how they want to raise and parent their children. There isn’t always a definite answer to some of these questions, and there are so many things out there to buy that aren’t as necessary or as helpful as they are advertised to be. And that's even before you get into the nitty gritty of what do you do with a baby once they’re here? How do you raise them when there are so many mistakes you can make and so many unknowns? That's where parenting books can be helpful.

Find Your Parenting Style with Books

There are tons of different styles of parenting around, and they aren’t all equal, but that doesn’t make one superior over the other. My husband and I had a lot of discussions well before I got pregnant, and again now, on the direction we want our parenting to take. These conversations were helpful because they can direct you to certain styles you want to try and implement or stay away from. It’s also very helpful because you then start to compile the list of unknowns. Like what don’t I know about child rearing that would be helpful? Earlier I mentioned when to introduce solid foods, and that was a question we both had. Luckily for us there are tons of books and helpful programs to follow to make this easy and understandable for a first-time parent. Here are a few that have piqued my interest and made it onto my for later shelf.

Introducing Solid Foods 

Simple & Safe Baby-led Weaning

Safe & Simple Food Allergy Prevention

Solid Starts for Babies

Breastfeeding vs. Bottle-Feeding

Now the feeding solids thing doesn’t happen right off the bat. There's a whole liquid-only diet to follow before that, whether it be formula or breast milk. And guess what, there are books about that too! Here are just a few that I will look towards if I need them. 

Breastfeeding Doesn't Need to Suck

Your Baby's Bottle-feeding Aversion

All this to say, there is a plethora of information out there that is either helpful or overwhelming, or possibly some combination of both. Emily Oster wrote Cribsheets and really helps to break down a lot of these questions you’ll probably have as a first-time parent, at least I know I did. I found her book helpful and reassuring that it's okay to not do what everyone tells you to do but to do what's right for your family. She covers everything from childcare to whether you should breastfeed or not (spoiler alert: that is totally up to you, both formula and breastmilk feed your baby, and that is the important thing). 

Other Helpful Parenting Guides

Comprehensive parenting books are also helpful. They often give a good overview of what to expect in the different phases of having a baby. How do you keep a newborn alive? How do you handle a toddler and potty training? Not all of these things are happening at once because as a child develops you will go through these different stages. But as a person who loves to plan and be ready for the inevitable, I like to have an idea of where we are headed in the years to come. 

Here's a sample of various topics you can find parenting books on. Some are comprehensive while others are more specific. This is just a small sample of different parenting books available in the library's collection.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

Newborn Handbook for New Dads

The Family Firm

Parenting at the Intersections

How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes

The Grown-up's Guide to Teenage Humans

Help! My Baby Came Without Instructions!

Spectrum Women

Now that I’ve word vomited random things about prepping for children at you, I will leave you with this final thought. I don’t know what I’m actually doing, and I definitely wasn't prepared for all the things I didn't know I didn't know. That's what books are for! I fully intend to use all the resources at my fingertips to make this giant life adjustment as easy as possible, if you can even use the word easy here. And if you need some help getting through this period or any period of caring for a child, peruse the parenting books at 649.1 in non-fiction. Good luck!

—Mary Leibold is a Cataloging Assistant at Lawrence Public Library.