What to Expect the First Year Read Free

little different. Babies, as they say, don’t come with instructions (and P.S.… I hadn’t written the instructions yet either, so I couldn’t very well follow them). Clueless? That would be giving me far too much crib cred. I was hopelessly clueless. Didn’t know how to hold Emma. Didn’t know how to feed her. To diaper her. To rock her or burp her or calm her or even talk to her. I knew that I loved her, but I was pretty sure this squalling red stranger sniffing at my breast didn’t feel the same about me. And who could blame her? Yes, I’d carried her and nurtured her before delivery with ease—even the delivery had been pretty much a piece of cake (if you didn’t count those 3½ hours of pushing). But now what? I fumbled as I tried to support her wobbly head, jam floppy arms through the sleeves of her t-shirt, guide my nipple into her unwilling mouth. Maternal instincts, I prayed, don’t fail me now(they did).
    My crumbling of confidence followed me home. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Two new parents walk into an apartment with a crying baby … and suddenly realize that not only is this crying baby theirs—but that she’s their full-time responsibility. Cue … my crying. Fortunately, Erik’s instincts kicked in quicker than mine did, and between his cool head and uncanny natural ability and my frantic flipping through mymother’s tattered copy of Dr. Spock, we managed to find our way, one diaper blowout, one botched bath, one sleepless night, one colicky afternoon at a time.
    So what did I do next? I did what any young, naive and clueless mom would do—motherhood being the mother of invention, I decided to write a book. A book that would help other parents steer through that first year with more confidence, more knowledge, more joy, less stress:
What to Expect the First Year
(though first, of course, I wrote a book on pregnancy,
What to Expect When You’re Expecting,
that did the same for parents-to-be). I didn’t write about my experience—which, let’s be real, wasn’t anything to write home about, never mind publish—but I wrote with experience. I’d been there, I’d done that, and I’d lived to write about it—that is, after I learned, through research and more research, everything that there was to know about it. And when it came to the first year the second time around (in the form of a baby boy named Wyatt), I had a book to turn to, and also—some mom cred to fall back on. Knowledge and know-how—a powerful parenting punch.
    The moral of the story? While today’s parents definitely have the information edge when it comes to what to expect the first year of their baby’s life (there’s not only a book now, but a website and an app for that, and Emma was lucky to have access to all three), tiny babies still bring huge challenges, especially for newbie moms and dads. And even with an ever-expanding array of resources, new parents still do much of their learning on the job, in the trenches … much as Erik and I did three decades ago.
    Still, the more you know, well, the less you have to learn. Which is where this third edition of
What to Expect the First Year
comes in—a brand new baby-care guide for a brand new generation of new parents.
    What’s new in the new
First Year
? It’s easier to use, making flipping to need-to-know info (yes, even frantic flipping) faster than ever. It’s just as empathetic and reassuring as ever (because we all need a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, a parental pep talk when the going gets tough), but even more fun to read (because we all need a good laugh, too). It covers both the timeless baby basics (diaper changing 101) and the baby trends (all-in-one cloth diapers). There’s much more on making breastfeeding work (including how to take it back to work), baby classes and technology (iBaby?), and buying for baby (so you