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sparklemaia's review
5.0
A good mix of memoir, science, and history, all told with a humorous, engaging voice. I would recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in nonfiction, even if they're not in the early childhood education field. The overall message of the book is reassurance: humans have been raising babies for thousands of years all over the world with totally different practices and beliefs, and (at least a portion of) the kids have survived into adulthood relatively unscathed. Binky or no binky, training them to walk or just letting them figure it out, it's gonna be okay.
klarastan's review against another edition
3.0
This is a perfectly interesting book, I just feel I would have enjoyed it more before the baby was born.
hoperu's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting, sanity-restoring look at babies and parenting. In short, as long as you don't abuse or completely ignore your child, it will probably be just fine; also, the rest of the world thinks you are a terrible parent, as you do them.
bookfairy99's review against another edition
4.0
Now that I have one of my own, babies fascinate me. Everything about them is a complete mystery - from their sleep habits to their potty habits. Sure, you can read a thousand books that aim to tell you how to get your baby to sleep, and how to make sense of the myriad of colours and textures that fill their diaper, but no other book attempts to make sense of a baby’s world from his or her perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Day’s account of what it’s like to be a baby and why the things that seem downright foreign to us (swaddling, pacifiers, toe sucking - just to name a few) come so naturally to babies. I will admit that some parts on the history of how we raise children made me squirm - and not in a good way. My new mama hormones really couldn’t handle some of the more cruel ways we treated our infants throughout history. But the book is meticulously well researched, and written in an approachable, conversational tone. If you’re looking for something other than a typical parenting tome, and you want a new perspective on why babies do the things they do, this could be the book for you.
kellyelizabeth27's review
4.0
This is an engaging book in the style of early Michael Pollan exploring four key things that infants do, from their instinct to suck which begins in the womb, to the many ways they try and fail to move before finally mastering walking. The author weaves in his own experiences with his infant son, which got him interested in the topic, and shows how "experts" from every time period and culture have recommended wildly different approaches to caring for babies. There's a lot of fascinating stuff here, and I wish he'd gone deeper - the book didn't feel as rigorous as I like my popular science, and he sometimes made generalizations that made me arch my eyebrows. Still, this is a quick, enjoyable read that puts a lot of things parents worry about into perspective.
(And no, I'm not pregnant.)
(And no, I'm not pregnant.)
ecooper99's review against another edition
4.0
Now that I have one of my own, babies fascinate me. Everything about them is a complete mystery - from their sleep habits to their potty habits. Sure, you can read a thousand books that aim to tell you how to get your baby to sleep, and how to make sense of the myriad of colours and textures that fill their diaper, but no other book attempts to make sense of a baby’s world from his or her perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Day’s account of what it’s like to be a baby and why the things that seem downright foreign to us (swaddling, pacifiers, toe sucking - just to name a few) come so naturally to babies. I will admit that some parts on the history of how we raise children made me squirm - and not in a good way. My new mama hormones really couldn’t handle some of the more cruel ways we treated our infants throughout history. But the book is meticulously well researched, and written in an approachable, conversational tone. If you’re looking for something other than a typical parenting tome, and you want a new perspective on why babies do the things they do, this could be the book for you.
ecooper99's review
4.0
Now that I have one of my own, babies fascinate me. Everything about them is a complete mystery - from their sleep habits to their potty habits. Sure, you can read a thousand books that aim to tell you how to get your baby to sleep, and how to make sense of the myriad of colours and textures that fill their diaper, but no other book attempts to make sense of a baby’s world from his or her perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Day’s account of what it’s like to be a baby and why the things that seem downright foreign to us (swaddling, pacifiers, toe sucking - just to name a few) come so naturally to babies. I will admit that some parts on the history of how we raise children made me squirm - and not in a good way. My new mama hormones really couldn’t handle some of the more cruel ways we treated our infants throughout history. But the book is meticulously well researched, and written in an approachable, conversational tone. If you’re looking for something other than a typical parenting tome, and you want a new perspective on why babies do the things they do, this could be the book for you.
cocoonofbooks's review
5.0
An excellent, readable exploration into the history and science of child rearing. Organized by four stages of infant development (sucking, smiling, touching, toddling), this looks at how parents and experts have thought about raising children over time, particularly in the areas where opinion has shifted radically (e.g., sucking should be discouraged / sucking is natural and necessary, babies should never be touched / babies should always be touched). This book will not tell you how to raise your child, but it will reassure you that there are very few "wrong" ways to care for a baby — much of it depends on what you and your particular culture emphasize as important. Anytime Day started to veer into potentially prescriptive territory (this is what the latest science says about what to do), he would temper it with a reminder about how little we actually know, how expert opinion continues to shift over time, and how resilient babies are no matter which cultural practices they're subjected to. I especially appreciated the section on developmental milestones and how little stock we should put in them. This book was fascinating, reassuring, and quite often funny as well. Highly recommended.
hilaritas's review
4.0
I enjoyed this book, but I was initially going to rate it much lower. The problem is that, near the beginning of the book, the author makes some claims about various churches' positions on breastfeeding that, as far as I can tell, are totally unsourced and very likely wrong. At the very least, he seems tone-deaf to religious issues. It gave me pause and made me doubt everything else he said.
Then, the middle section of the book picked up speed and was a great, informative and funny account of various infant behaviors and studies of infant behaviors. But then near the very end, he tries to address religious issues again, and his clumsy attempts fall flat. It took me out of the narrative and made me stop and think, "has this guy been blowing smoke the whole time?" If those two passages were excised, it would be a great read. With them included, it shows the author's limits of knowledge. I went ahead and gave him the benefit of the doubt and based my rating on the parts where he actually seemed to know a little bit about what he's talking about.
The basic thesis is that cultural understandings of infant behavior and child-rearing change over time and are far more plastic than we realize, while being tied to basic biological drives. It's written in a lightly arch tone and includes various interludes where the author describes his own experiences with his young child. Mostly, it's a chatty account of various experiments in infant cognition and locomotion. It's not a child-rearing manual but serves as a great counterpoint to so many books that tell you what you MUST do. Recommended.
Then, the middle section of the book picked up speed and was a great, informative and funny account of various infant behaviors and studies of infant behaviors. But then near the very end, he tries to address religious issues again, and his clumsy attempts fall flat. It took me out of the narrative and made me stop and think, "has this guy been blowing smoke the whole time?" If those two passages were excised, it would be a great read. With them included, it shows the author's limits of knowledge. I went ahead and gave him the benefit of the doubt and based my rating on the parts where he actually seemed to know a little bit about what he's talking about.
The basic thesis is that cultural understandings of infant behavior and child-rearing change over time and are far more plastic than we realize, while being tied to basic biological drives. It's written in a lightly arch tone and includes various interludes where the author describes his own experiences with his young child. Mostly, it's a chatty account of various experiments in infant cognition and locomotion. It's not a child-rearing manual but serves as a great counterpoint to so many books that tell you what you MUST do. Recommended.
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