My favorite book to read with Annabelle was "Your Baby's First Year: Week by Week". There is a chapter for each week of baby's first year (imagine that? :), and it goes through what types of things to expect behavoir-wise, physically, milestones, etc. It even covers possible illnesses, tips for traveling, feeding, etc. One of my favorite features of the book was that at the end of each chapter it suggests some activities to do with baby, even at like 3 weeks old, based on what they are able to do at that point. It's a very practical book and not at all preachy, and I loved having just a few pages to read at the beginning of each week.
My favorite sign-language book was "Signing Smart with Babies and Toddlers". I believe I picked this book based on the Amazon.com reviews, but think it may have been recommended by at least one fellow mom too. I really mainly used the first couple of chapters (but I referenced them a couple of times, once when Annabelle was REALLY young and another time when Annabelle was ready to actually start learning signs). Admittedly, I haven't really compared it to other baby-targeted sign language books, but the techniques and guidelines that it teaches in the first couple of chapters was good, and the reference for common baby-necessary signs in the back are really good. It also teaches actual ASL, rather than a baby-versions of signs. Once Annabelle progressed beyond the basic baby-term signing, I used the online ASL Browser by Michigan University. There are other websites with video of ASL signs, but this one was recommended to me and I found that it worked pretty well for what I need.
Can't wait to hear what other mom's suggest. Also, feel free to give an extra thumbs-up to other mom's suggestions.
1 comment:
I think it may have been me who told you about Signing Smart. I used that one with Leah. I also LOVED Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I have recently been rereading all that pertains to newborns again.
I also recently purchased and read On Becoming Babywise. It talks a lot about breastfeeding and establishing a schedule which I an partial to.
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