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[nononono]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
What you need is the American Society of Pediatrics' "Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5. This is the nuts-and-bolts stuff.

You and I do not need any books about child development. You and I might want them, because we pride ourselves on taking control of a situation by anticipating it and preparing ourselves for it, usually by reading, which is the way nerds feel in control. But reference books can be a trap for people who naturally establish high expectations for themselves and, by extension, their children. Weight gain becomes a competition against the percentiles first as a joke --- usually by Dad. But it's no joke when your kid's in the bottom 10% and you're thinking this is the first thing you've ever undertaken at which you're slowly failing. It's not funny when you're sobbing in the middle of the night because your kid is crying and you can't figure out why, and you went to fucking Princeton, for God's sake. Okay, it is funny, but not to you, at least not right then.

If you really want a child development book, my wife recommends anything by William Sears, but only if you're inclined to like attachment parenting. If you're going to be returning to work and already know this, this will probably not be valuable to you as a guide.
Don't read "Babywise." Don't read "What to Expect." Seek out the best parent you know, and take him/her to coffee once a week. Maybe consider reading Operating Instructions. But mostly, it's the coffee.

It was advice I read on this board that kept me from going into shock when my kid had a febrile seizure two weeks ago. It was probably in one of the books on our bookshelf, but I wouldn't have known that. I needed to have once heard a story about a particular kid who had such a high fever that he had a seizure --- and it turned out totally fine, because kids are weird and funny and totally different from adults. And I got that here, not from Dr. Spock.

Good Lord. Yes, if you're that neurotic about it, then by all means, stay away from scary info about "norms" and such. But if you can read without feeling threatened, they can be interesting, particularly as the kidlets get older. But sorry, if you're worried about your kid being at 10% in weight - don't even get the numbers. And maybe invest in a book that talks about separating your own ambitions from those of your kids, and not trying to keep up with the Joneses.