Xaviera Plooij

Yes, I know this book has been disproven several times in several ways. Despite its scientific inaccuracy, I think it's still really really helpful.

As a first-time parent, you don't know what to expect. Should my kid be able to roll over by 1 month? 5 months? Should they be able to react to sound at this point? Be attracted to bright colors? Talk?? If you think you'll be constantly worrying about these kinds of things, then this book is great because it helps you set your own mental expectations. It also helps remind you of things like "your child probably doesn't understand objects exist yet". Personally, it helped me relax and kept me from overthinking and overworrying my child's development.

Can it actually tell you which weeks your child will be fussy? No. But it's really comforting when it happens to line up and you can say "oh, this'll just be for a week, then we can relax". It helps reassure you that you're not doing anything wrong, it's just the kid trying to make sense of the world in new ways. And, again, also great for giving you perspective and giving you a very rough roadmap of when to expect different developmental milestones.… (más)