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Baby Steps: A Guide to Your Child's Social, Physical, Mental and Emotional Development in the First Two Years
A revised and updated edition of this popular
step-by-step guide to baby development
When Baby Steps was first published in 1993, it was named one of the 10 Best Parenting Books by Child magazine. Now, this popular guide to baby's first two years has been completely revised to incorporate the latest research on the young child's developing brain and behavior, including brand-new material on temperament, language, and memory.
Baby Steps pinpoints the important events in an infant's life, examining them month by month for the first year, and in three-month intervals during the second year. Beginning with a "miniguide" to early development, the book goes on to a cover such important subjects as sleep, crying, colic, motor development, social play, and toilet training. Developmental hints and alerts throughout the book provide parents with a clear understanding of the full range of "normal" behaviors for each phase, helping to allay common anxieties.
An accessible, concrete guide to infant and toddler behavior, Baby Steps takes much of the guesswork out of parenting.
step-by-step guide to baby development
When Baby Steps was first published in 1993, it was named one of the 10 Best Parenting Books by Child magazine. Now, this popular guide to baby's first two years has been completely revised to incorporate the latest research on the young child's developing brain and behavior, including brand-new material on temperament, language, and memory.
Baby Steps pinpoints the important events in an infant's life, examining them month by month for the first year, and in three-month intervals during the second year. Beginning with a "miniguide" to early development, the book goes on to a cover such important subjects as sleep, crying, colic, motor development, social play, and toilet training. Developmental hints and alerts throughout the book provide parents with a clear understanding of the full range of "normal" behaviors for each phase, helping to allay common anxieties.
An accessible, concrete guide to infant and toddler behavior, Baby Steps takes much of the guesswork out of parenting.
336 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 27, 2019
Reading this for a second time with my second child. I like how it’s organized by age, so you can quickly learn (or re-learn) what’s happening from a development standpoint every month, and it’s helped me notice things I would have otherwise overlooked. It’s informative and straightforward without a bunch of fluff or advice, which I appreciate!
January 30, 2011
This award-winning book addresses the brain developments that underlie babies' social, physical, mental, and emotional development. It is thus a bit more technical than many baby books. The science is described in a clear and straightforward way, and Kopp is sure to clearly explain technical vocabulary before she begins employing new terms. Fairly concise, Kopp's chapters nevertheless do not sacrifice detail for brevity.
All of this is usually right up my alley. I like to know the whys behind the whats. However, I am only giving this book 3 stars because it is dryly written. And while that would not normally be such a problem, given the audience for this book, it's a fairly major flaw. I would imagine that the majority of readers of this book are, like me, sleep-deprived mothers of young babies. I do a lot of reading while nursing, often late at night. Reading is one of my strategies for keeping myself awake during those groggy 3 am feeding sessions. So, I need the reading to be at least a little engaging. This book is not engaging. I found myself repeatedly falling asleep while reading, which is for me, fairly unusual. I can keep myself awake at 3 am reading _The Economoist_, surely I should be able to stay awake learning about my baby's emotions. But Kopp is not a natural writer, and shows little skill for the kind of popularizing of science that this book strives to achieve.
I will continue reading this book. It is, helpfully, organized by your baby's age development, so I have only read the first 90 pages that cover the first three months. I'll give it another go when we hit 4 months and enter the next phase. But in the mean time, I'm going to give _What's Going On In There?_ -- also by a neuroscientist -- a try. And so far, that book is proving a little more personable, while still very detailed.
All of this is usually right up my alley. I like to know the whys behind the whats. However, I am only giving this book 3 stars because it is dryly written. And while that would not normally be such a problem, given the audience for this book, it's a fairly major flaw. I would imagine that the majority of readers of this book are, like me, sleep-deprived mothers of young babies. I do a lot of reading while nursing, often late at night. Reading is one of my strategies for keeping myself awake during those groggy 3 am feeding sessions. So, I need the reading to be at least a little engaging. This book is not engaging. I found myself repeatedly falling asleep while reading, which is for me, fairly unusual. I can keep myself awake at 3 am reading _The Economoist_, surely I should be able to stay awake learning about my baby's emotions. But Kopp is not a natural writer, and shows little skill for the kind of popularizing of science that this book strives to achieve.
I will continue reading this book. It is, helpfully, organized by your baby's age development, so I have only read the first 90 pages that cover the first three months. I'll give it another go when we hit 4 months and enter the next phase. But in the mean time, I'm going to give _What's Going On In There?_ -- also by a neuroscientist -- a try. And so far, that book is proving a little more personable, while still very detailed.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews