There's no magical formula for new mums, but The Best Friends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood can help you to cope - and to enjoy yourself. When it comes to your new baby, everyone from Dr Spock to your mother-in-law has an armful of advice. But no one is delivering any tips on how you can care for yourself. Now, four-time delivery-room veteran Vicki Iovine answers your questions, calms you fears and cracks you up as only a friend can with straight advice and hilarious observations on: Baby euphoria: is it a mind-altering drug? 'Partner? What partner?': taking care of the big baby as well as the little baby 'I want my old body back!': what you can fix and what you can't The droning phenomenon: the inability to discuss anything but your baby for more than thirty seconds 'Do I have to become Penelope Leach?': conquering your fear of becoming a less than perfect mother Competitive mothering: coping with know-it-alls, finger pointers and others who try to 'Out-Mum' you
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This book reads as easily as a novel--quite a relief after reading the traditional and often humourless parenting guides. The reader of The Best Friends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood won't emerge with an encyclopaedic knowledge of nappy- changing techniques, but they will discover how it feels to be changing nappies all night and why on earth any sane person would choose to do it. This colourfully written and lively book is about being a mother. "Do you see one single book for us, the mothers?" asks the author. "Not fair counting those books that tell us how to eat well to provide healthy milk for our breastfeeding babies! I'm talking about a book that deals only with us and the stunning fact that our lives have changed forever with the arrival of motherhood. Don't bother looking any longer (since you are a new mum, you have probably already forgotten what you were looking for anyway)."
Vicki Iovine, who previously authored the hugely successful The Best Friend's Guide to Pregnancy, takes us through the problems, surprises and rewards that being a mother brings, as seen from her refreshingly honest and often hilarious perspective. From the "Top-Ten Biggest Shocks of Childbirth" (How fat your face looks in the delivery room videos and photos) through to the final section of the book, "Top-Ten Things New Mothers Don't Do"(New mothers don't like other people's children, especially around their precious angels), the author talks to you, as a Best Friend, about this most moving, unimaginable, frightening and blissful life experience.
There are some observational gems in here--"I can tell you if a woman has had a baby simply by inspecting her belly button. Go ahead and scoff! I know my navels and I can recognise one that has been stretched nearly flat, or worse, popped inside out, and then relaxed again...". It is this chatty, Best-Friend style that makes the information in the book much more digestible and far less scary than your average "new baby" book--"Projectile vomiting is another terrifying, but not usually dangerous, sick-baby trick. If you haven't seen this before, it will blow your mind". She talks about being in hospital, follows the journey home after delivery, assesses the damage to both your body and your sex life, deals with baby euphoria and blues, going back to work and it even sheds light on why on earth anyone would do all this again!
Witty, human, perceptive and comic, this book is guaranteed to make any new (or not-so- new) mum laugh, relax and reminisce about their own wonderful, special experiences; essential reading for every mother's bookshelf. --Alison Jardine
Review
'The funny side of life with a newborn - great therapy on a weepy, sleep deprived day' Pregnancy and Birth Magazine
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Happy Mum
Format:Paperback
This warm, funny, intelligent book, is in my mind the reason that I've survived the first year of motherhood (particulary the first 12 weeks) with my sanity intact! I bought my copy through a tear soaked haze when I really needed words of wisdom and comfort and it came through with flying colours. My husband thought I'd lost the plot when he could see tears and fits of laughter as I sat reading this book. I wish I'd had it in the first weeks of being a new mum. I would recommend this book to all first-time mums. Vicki Iovine's sense of humour and honesty is inspiring and the book is packed full of useful and helpful information.
For me the one quote that changed my life as a new mum and my stress levels was ...don't stand if you can sit, don't sit if you can lay down and don't stay awake when you can sleep.... Or words to that effect. This sounds simple enough but it's very hard to do especially when you feel you have to be a supermum and a superwoman but in this book it's explained in such a way that you don't feel that it will make you less then perfect.
If it's not already obvious I simply adored this book and thoroughly recommend it. I've just purchased the next one in the series and I can't say that about any other baby book.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I loved Bestfriends Guide to Pregnancy and I love this book. It isn't full of tips on how to change nappies and bath babies. Instead it's all about being a mother - how wonderful and how exhausting and awful it can be too. I found a lot of comfort in this book when I was feeling tired and miserable in the first few weeks of motherhood. It made me realise that I wasn't the only one who found it tough to begin with. It's written in a friendly good humoured style and is very easy to read. An absolute must for all new mums.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
The first two months were turned around for me when I realized that I really wasn't the only first time mother going through THAT! Vicki Iovine shares directly, with feeling and also with insight that encourages you to get on anyway. Meant as a human to human book to help you make sense of all that chaos and prove that you are by no means alone in your experience and certainly not an oddity - I love it!
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
There I was, recovering from gastric flu, trying to breast-feed my first baby and feeling thoroughly miserable. This was not how I imagined motherhood to be. In fact, I was so fed up, I'd already left this book unopened for nearly a week. How I wish I'd read it earlier! It really cheered me up and made me laugh out loud. It was informative, honest, practical and funny. They should include this one in the information packs for new mothers.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book has it all - it's witty, funny, helpful and most importantly gives an accurate guide to the first year of Motherhood. It even had me laughing out loud when I was suffering from Post natal depression - My son is now 3 and i still enjoy reading her book! The section on colic is particularly good, as is what to tell all those 'know it alls' who bombard you with advice, or crticism about the way you choose to do things.
This book is for all down to earth, normal mothers out there.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Not a childcare manual, but an entertaining read. You don't need to have exactly shared Vicki Iovine's experiences to enjoy her descriptions. Most importantly, she assures you that you are a great mother!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having been a new mum it is so easy to take it so seriously that your head aches and you burst into tears every time you fail to grasp something the first time round. This book is the light at the end of the tunnel. It offers some useful advice, like look after yourself first, because it would be a shame to die of exhaustion before your child reaches puberty. Stuff that you really need to be reminded of in those first frantic weeks. It is also funny, which is something else that may seem to have gone by the wayside and needs to be remembered. Life can be fun, babies can be fun! Thoroughly recommended.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I agree with the other reviewers that this is an amusing read but it didn't make me cry with laughter like "The Best Friend's Guide to Pregnancy" did. However I am going to try the Toddler book...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Friend's Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood
A really funny look at being in that twilight zone known at being a new parent. Laugh out loud. Arrived promptly. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Hughesy
1.0 out of 5 stars
Patronizing!
This book refers to breasts as "lovely sex toys" and "udders," when in fact they are neither. They are parts of my body like any other. Read more
Published 15 months ago by anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Friends Guide to surviving 1st year of motherhood
A book written to save the sanity of new mums! Witty, entertaining and helpful. A must read.
Published on 10 Oct 2010 by hev
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very funny
After reading Vicki Iovine's Best Friends Guide to Pregnancy I had to buy this book. The book is well written with plenty of advice and honest opinions about the first year of... Read more
Published on 7 Sep 2010 by originalkat
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly recommend
I read this after I had my first child This book and all in it's series are life savers!A must have!
Published on 4 Aug 2010 by nicad
3.0 out of 5 stars
good
Book does tell you alot of thinks that you are thinking in your mind and maybe you wouldn't find out at the doc's
Published on 9 Nov 2009 by Mrs. A. Trainor
1.0 out of 5 stars
The only book I've ever thrown in the bin
On reading the synopsis I thought this book had potential to be amusing, not so. Three quarters of the way through it I decided to throw it in the bin! Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2008 by J. King
4.0 out of 5 stars
Like a best friend but less hassle!
This book is on our side: at the front is a top ten list of the biggest shocks of childbirth, and number one is: How nobody ever told you how much it REALLY hurts to have a baby. Read more
Published on 26 Sep 2007 by Helen J. McLachlan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should be a required read!
This book - in the era of supernannies, supermums and everyone knowing *exactly* what to do with a baby - is an absolute must-read for anyone with a sense of humour and some... Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2007 by BM
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sanity saver!
Brilliant read! I'd recommend it to all new mums.
I was at my wits end a few weeks after the birth of my baby. Read more
I was at my wits end a few weeks after the birth of my baby. Read more
Published on 17 Jan 2007 by J. L. Mitcham
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