books for pregos + new mamas

I'll be the first to admit that parenting is a very personal endeavor. It may take a village (or a city!), but the parents are the ones who make the hard decisions. To further complicate our roles as parents, no two babies are the same, so parenting needs to be flexible for each unique child and family.

That philosophy at first made me shy away from any parenting books.

If I didn't like people telling me how to parent at the park or in the grocery store, why spend good money on books that would do essentially that? But over the past three years of two pregnancies, two births, and now raising two kids, I've found pregnancy and parenting books really helpful. Sometimes.

Do I agree 100% with any of the books? Nope.

Even my favourite parenting books usually have at least one chapter that I find myself not lining up with. But I've learned that books can have tons of useful information, and that it's okay to leave other tips and strategies that don't align with our family's values or Brad and my parenting philosophies.

So here's a list of books I've found very helpful and generally loved reading. They line up the most with where we stand on labour and delivery, sleep training, discipline, and rearing our kids in our faith, but even in these books we weren't always bang on in agreeance. Let me know if it's helpful or if you want more info on any of them (and if you're local, if you'd like to borrow any!)

:: click the picture to learn more about each book ::

I really want to stress that these books were favourites of ours, but we're by no means insisting that our way of parenting is the only way. It works for us, in our context, with our kids, but that's all I can promise. You might not find these books helpful to your families or aligning with your phgilosophies.

Also, I'd LOVE to hear of any pregnancy or parenting you recommend!