Recommendations for Parenting Books

Development-Behavior Pediatrics BOOK REVIEW

Reviewer’s Name: Date of Review: Juin Yee Kong, MD 4/27/07

Book Title: Author: Mealtime solutions for your baby, toddler an Ann Douglas preschooler : The ultimate no-worry approach for each age and stage.

Intended audience for the book: Publisher: Parents of newborns to preschoolers. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.

Content Summary: The book is written by Ann Douglas who is an award-winning pregnancy and parenting author who has published the Mother of All Books series. She is a mother of four children aging 8-18, experimented different feeding strategies at different age and stages, been through “food-battles” that cause frustration in many parents of toddlers. Firstly, the book discussed about feeding a newborn, reason to breast feed versus formula feed, commonly asked breastfeeding questions, choice of formula (soy versus milk based) and bottle feeding. Subsequently, it discussed on solids introduction, signs of readiness, what to expect from the first feeding, avoidance of certain foods (choking risks and allergy risks), how much of solids and how much of formula/breast feeding as they grow. Then comes my favorite chapter, mealtime milestones and solutions for feeding problems. Ann included some amazing strategies in parenting picky eaters, for example sharing thoughts with other parents with similar problems, making sure the kids are not learning from their parents, pointing out reasons for their lack of interest in eating certain foods (temperature, texture, taste, smell), even recognizing possible developmental delay being the reason! She also proposed some creative ideas on how to make food more “interesting” to the child, like cutting bread into animal shapes, use different colored and shaped pasta, dressing up the dining table.It is also important to look at the “big picture” which I find useful for counseling parents, instead of being fixated on how little their child has taken at lunch today, look at how much the child has eaten in these 3 days!

Strengths of the book:  Provide a directory of online resources including : recipe for special diets (gluten free, diabetic, allergy) , organizations, websites.  Short tips shared by other parents incorporated to topic discussions  Easily understood charts on nutrition  Author being a mother herself makes it easier to connect with the readers.

Weaknesses of the book: None really.

Would you recommend the book?

1 2 3 4 5 NO Highly Recommended