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The Best Friends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood
 
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The Best Friends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood (Paperback)

by Vicki Iovine (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
RRP: £10.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with The Best Friends' Guide to Pregnancy: Or Everything Your Doctor Won't Tell You by Vicki Iovine

The Best Friends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood + The Best Friends' Guide to Pregnancy: Or Everything Your Doctor Won't Tell You
Price For Both: £12.66

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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (21 Jan 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747536481
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747536482
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 6,157 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #3 in  Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Families & Parents > Motherhood
    #44 in  Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Pregnancy & Childcare > Pregnancy & Childbirth

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This book should be standard issue for new mothers!, 14 Mar 2006
By Happy Mum (South Wales) - See all my reviews
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.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible for all new mothers, 17 May 1999
By A Customer
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.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book that keeps your head up!, 5 Sep 2001
By A Customer
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!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

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 12 months ago 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 21 months ago 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 23 months ago 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
Published on 17 Jan 2007 by J. L. Mitcham

5.0 out of 5 stars A Healthy Breath of Fresh Air!
Well, reading some of the other reviews of this book I realise that post-pregnancy hormones affect even more the subjectivity of reading... Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2005 by magasiena

1.0 out of 5 stars How Depressing
I can't comment on the whole of this book, because I stopped reading it before I'd reached the half-way mark. Read more
Published on 28 Aug 2003

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointed
I found this book really patronising.

It's been more or less edited for the British market, but there is so much content at the beginning that is just not relevant outside the... Read more

Published on 6 Mar 2003 by k h williams

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as her pregnancy guide
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. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent 'must read' for all mums
This book has it all - it's witty, funny, helpful and most importantly gives an accurate guide to the first year of Motherhood. Read more
Published on 27 Sep 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Laughter is good for you!
Not a childcare manual, but an entertaining read. You don't need to have exactly shared Vicki Iovine's experiences to enjoy her descriptions. Read more
Published on 20 May 2001

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