SuperBaby {Review}

I Love SuperBaby!  

SUPERBABY

12 Ways to Give Your Child a Head Start in the First 3 Years

By Dr. Jenn Berman

Foreword by Alan Greene, MD, author of Raising Baby Green

Straight from the Publisher:

Raising a superbaby is not about creating an überbaby: a perfect, genius who will get into all the right preschools and colleges. Instead, it is about raising a child who is empathetic, resilient, and is emotionally intelligent. It is about nurturing a baby to help her reach her full potential.

The first three years of life are the most important in a child’s development: babies start forming attachments, developing a sense of self, and learning to trust. During this time, there are critical windows of opportunity that parents can take advantage of—if they know how. In SuperBaby: 12 Ways to Give Your Child a Head Start in the First 3 Years (Sterling / September 7, 2010 / $24.95) Dr. Jenn Berman gives parents the knowledge they need to make the most of these windows for their child’s optimal mental and emotional growth.

In each chapter of SuperBaby, Dr. Jenn focuses on one of twelve areas that greatly impact a baby’s development. These include respectful communication, responding to cues, creating security and predictability, the importance of touch, promoting language development, sign language, foreign language, the importance of play, reading, screen (tv) time, reducing exposure to toxic chemicals, and eating & nutrition. You’ll learn:

• ! Easy steps to reduce resistance and avoid tantrums
• ! The two “Qs” parents need to know about to promote language development
• ! The truth about learning toys and videos
• ! How to use play to develop key social, intellectual, and emotional skills
• ! When and how to start reading to your child
• ! The three ASL signs that will make your baby’s life easier
• ! The seven most important ingredients to avoid in your child’s food
• ! How to teach good sleep habits from the start
• ! Simple ways to reduce toxic chemical exposure at home

Dr. Jenn shares important research, her clinical experience, and her personal stories as a mother of twins. She has also included “From the Experts” sidebars from leading experts such as Dr. Harvey Karp, Dr. Bob Sears, Dr. Jane Nelson, Jim & Charles Fay, Dr. Tanya Remer-Altmann, Dr. Scott Cohen, Ruth Yaron, The Campaign for Commercial-free Childhood, The Alliance for Childhood, Healthy Child Healthy World, the Environmental Working Group, and many others. Filled with tables, lists, helpful scripts, recommended books, and resources, SuperBaby is a book you’ll refer to again and again for common sense and research-based advice on successful, real-world parenting. 

{MY REVIEW}

Seriously, this book is AMAZING... Not just amazing in lower case letters, but AMAZING in capital letters! Before BJ was born, I was never around kids much, aside from my high school students.  Sometimes, my students can act like kids (haha), but I have never really had to take care of an infant.  When I got pregnant, I was nervous because I wanted to raise my child to be an upstanding citizen, but wondered if I would do a "good" job because I have never taken care of babies.  In fact, I'm still nervous about whether the decisions I make are the right ones.  However, after reading SuperBaby, I feel a little more at ease.  

I learned some great tips in the book that I plan to try, and even if it doesn't work, it's worth a shot.  For example, I'm now set on my mom teaching BJ Japanese... Dr. Jenn says that bilinguals have higher IQ's, increased creativity, improved math ability, and more. (page 144)

She also writes about "how to avoid the eight biggest mistakes parents make" regarding communication (page 104) and the "ten rules of effective praise" (page 27).  There are so many things to think about that I think I am going to have to read this book again, but it's so worth it.  Of course, there are some things that I don't necessarily agree with, such as purchasing an organic mattress, but the things I disagreed with were just because I can't really afford to buy all organic cottons and foods. (Terrible, I know, but it's the truth.)  In reality, if I could, I would, but I can't.  So instead, I'll try to raise BJ to be the best human being he can be, and I think Dr. Jenn's book gets me off on the right track.

*EDIT*

DUH, I forgot to mention, you can purchase this book from Amazon.com. :-)

Disclaimer:

I was not paid to write this blog nor compensated in any way.  I did, however, receive a free copy of SuperBaby to review.