Your Baby & Child: The Classic Childcare Guide, Revised and Updated

by Penelope Leach

Overview

The classic—beloved, trusted, best-selling—guide to baby and child care completely redesigned and revised for a new generation of parents • From Penelope Leach, "a luminary in the world of child development" (The Boston Globe)

Penelope Leach has helped millions of parents raise their children for more than forty years with her thoroughly researched, practical, baby-led advice, her wise, empathic, and sensible perspective, and her comforting voice.
 
This new edition has been completely redesigned for today’s parents. Leach has revised the text to reflect the latest research on child development and learning as well as societal changes and the realities of our current world.
 
Your Baby & Child is essential—a bible—for every new parent. In easy to follow stages from birth through age five (newborn, settled baby, older baby, toddler, young child), Your Baby & Child addresses parents’ every concern over the physical, emotional, and psychological well-being of their baby. Areas covered: feeding; physical growth and everyday care; sleeping; excreting and toilet mastery; crying and comforting; muscle power; seeing and understanding; hearing and learning to speak; playing and learning and thinking; learning how to behave.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593321171
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/13/2022
Pages:	640
Sales rank:	112,478
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

PENELOPE LEACH is a research psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts in child development and upbringing. She has two children and six grandchildren and is a lifelong advocate for parents and children. Her books include Your Baby & Child; Babyhood; Children First; Childcare Today, When Parents Part and Transforming Infant Wellbeing. She is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, a founding member and trustee of AiMH UK—the UK branch of the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH)—and has held honorary positions in professional organizations and charities working for families on both sides of the Atlantic.

Read an Excerpt

The Importance of Reading to Children
A web-exclusive guide for parents written by Penelope Leach, Ph.D.


When parents read aloud to their children, everyone wins. It's fun for the adult and great for the kids. Easy for you and good for them. You don't even have to ration it because, unlike TV or ice cream, there's no such thing as too much.

There's no such thing as too early, either. If you wait until pre-school to start reading to your children, you'll have missed out on years. If you even wait until they can talk, you'll have missed out on months. Start showing your baby pictures and telling her about them as soon as she focuses her eyes on the pattern on your sweater or the change-mat.

"Reading" to tiny babies is a way of talking to them; and talking not only speeds brain development, but cements relationships as well. Make sure that anyone who ever cares for your baby takes reading to her for granted."Reading" to older babies is a way of expanding their experience. You can't always find a real cat or truck or fried egg to tell him about, but you can always find their pictures in books. And linking the sight of things with the sounds of their names boosts language learning.

Reading to toddlers is education and loving and talking and fun. It's about language itself and discovering the joys of jokes and rhymes and huge long words that roll round the tongue and trip it up. It's about learning to "read" pictures to find the meanings of words or the answers to questions hiding behind those thrilling pull-tabs: where's the kitten gone? There he is...And eventually it's about the sheer, entrancing magic of stories unfolding between the pictures and the voice; playing to a dawning imagination, a fledgling ability to put herself in someone else's place.

And reading to pre-schoolers is all that, plus a welcome to our culture where everything—even on the information highway—revolves around the written word. Pictures on the page are his introduction to print; being read to helps him toward written language, now, just as it helped him toward spoken language two years ago.

Once your kids are hooked on being read to, they will never be bored if somebody will read, and since there are bound to be times when nobody will read and they are bored, they'll have the best possible reason to learn to read themselves.

Reading to themselves isn't a signal to stop reading to them, though. Whether your child is five or seven or nine years old when he starts to read stories to himself for pleasure, the mechanics of the words will still get between him and their enthralling sounds and meanings. Read just one more chapter; one more poem. You have nothing to lose and your kids have everything to gain.

Table of Contents

A Note from the Author ix

Thinking about being parents 3

The Newborn: Getting together 13

Newborn characteristics 26

Feeding and growing 44

Everyday care 88

Excreting 100

Sleeping 103

Crying and comforting 110

Learning from each other 124

Understanding some newborn developments-Postures and reflexes 133

Senses and sensations 137

The Settled Baby: The first six months 143

Feeding and growing 151

Teeth and teething 176

Everyday care 178

Excreting 181

Sleeping 183

Crying and comforting 191

Muscle power 196

Seeing and understanding 203

Hearing and making sounds 210

Playing and learning 217

Loving and spoiling 223

The Older Baby: From six months to one year 233

Feeding and growing 239

Teeth and teething 257

Everyday care 261

Excreting 263

Sleeping and waking 265

Crying and comforting 282

More muscle power 289

Seeing and doing 304

Listening and answering 309

Playing and learning 318

Bridging the months from baby to toddler 326

The Toddler: From one to two and a half years 337

Eating and growing 342

Teeth and teething 355

Everyday care 360

Toward using the toilet 367

Sleeping 376

Crying and comforting 389

Even more muscle power 405

Learning speech 417

Playing and discovering 426

Moving into early childhood 446

The Young Child: From two and a half to five years 463

Eating and growing 468

Teeth and teething 479

Everyday care 483

Toilet independence and after 486

Sleeping 496

Crying and coping 504

Bodies, minds and feelings 515

Talking 527

Playing and thinking 545

Learning how to behave 563

Early years education 580

Acknowledgments 597

Index 599

Editorial Reviews

The Dr. Spock of our age.” —The Guardian
 
“The child-rearer’s bible.”  —The Independent               

“A luminary in the world of child development” —The Boston Globe
 
“The core of wisdom [in Your Baby & Child] is astounding—Leach’s deep scientific knowledge of child development is paired with an uncommon amount of heart and sympathy for the state of being a child. She also makes you examine your own ways with a clearer eye.” —The New York Times (one of eight books recommended for Harry & Meghan to read on the birth of their first child in 2019)
 
"Your Baby & Child is pre-eminently the thinking parent's guide, encouraging not just sensible reflexes but subtle reflection." —The New York Times Book Review

"A wonderful book. Well researched, well written, and sensitive to both parents' and children's needs in the task of growing up together." —T. Berry Brazelton, M.D.

From the Publisher