Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5

This is a great reference book...one that you can actually read cover-to-cover if you really want to. The book was actually recommended to us by the pediatrician at the hospital; he suggested it would answer many questions and at the price point he couldn't figure out how the (many) authors could make money from it. At almost 1,000 pages I can understand his point!It is worth noting that this book is published by The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and well over 100 pediatricians have contributed to it. It also includes AAP's opinions on public policies, which unlike some reviewers here I appreciated. If I'm receiving advice, the additional opinions help clarify where that advice is coming from. Not every one will agree with the AAP's opinions, but I think it's important for people to at least be aware of them. Worst case, skip the clearly highlighted boxes!Note that the kindle version lacks many of the illustrations contained in the book.I also purchased  Baby 411: Clear Answers & Smart Advice For Your Baby's First Year (Paperback) , and the two books go rather well together. Baby 411 is a lot more approachable and often has a quick answer. Caring for Your Baby and Young Child typically has more exhaustive discussions (and also covers the first five years of life). If you had to pick one book from these two, it's a surprisingly difficult choice...but at least there's no wrong choice!

I found this book absolutely invaluable when I had my children. Where I grew up children did not get half of the illnesses more commonplace today in the US. There were things in there I never heard of, "Kawasaki Disease" for example, that a doctor told me my son was at risk for, even though he is not Asian. I have used this book over the last 7 years for my two children, and highly recommend it for anyone without a mom or sibling to call for help (like me). It was given to me by my pediatric doctor friend, and this is one of the best gifts ever! And I found it very informative for what is considered normal development. Let's face it, doctors have had over 100yrs to research babies, and there is no need to try to reinvent the wheel if you do not have valid medical knowledge from a medical school. Besides, who has the time with two screaming babies to feed, clothe, bathe, nurture, etc!

This book begins with labor and delivery, and contains a large section on baby's first days. We referred to it countless times in those first few weeks. The information is credible, clear, and consistent. For each age, it reviews milestones, suggests age-appropriate activities, and red flags for health or developmental issues. I very much appreciated that it contained information on induction and bottle feeding that was factually-based and devoid of hype or judgement. Being induced before my due date for medical reasons, I found it extremely difficult (and frustrating) to find information online or in other resources about what to expect from the various procedures. One of the smartest things I did was read that section the day before being ordered by my doctor to head to the hospital. This book has continued to be useful and interesting as our baby grows and I particularly like that it explains the reasoning behind various American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations. This book is now a standard part of every baby shower gift I give.

With so much information on children's health to be found on the Internet, and many other books giving advice on child-rearing, is this reference book worth buying? The answer is yes! Consider the following four upsides of this "Complete and Authoritative Guide... New and Revised Fifth Edition" (per the front cover):1. IT'S TRUSTWORTHY. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which according to its Web site represents 60,000 pediatricians, publishes it. Over 100 pediatricians (and 4 dentists) contributed to the book. The information is sound and up-to-date as of 2009. The opinions expressed are "mainstream" (not "fringe"), which is reassuring since child-rearing is stressful.2. IT'S WIDE-RANGING (and some may go farther in describing it as "complete" or "comprehensive"). Although no book can be all things to all people, it contains important information on many common health and behavior problems, and it gives advice on when problems might be so serious that you should bring the child to a doctor.3. IT'S RELATIVELY EASY TO READ AND USE. The authors write clearly and concisely. Although some jargon is present (e.g., "flat angiomata"), that is held to a minimum. The organization into Part 1 (pages 1-506, covering normal development and needs chronologically from birth to age 5*) and Part 2 (pages 507-848, covering specific health issues from "Abdominal/Gastrointestinal Tract" to "Emergencies" to "Your Child's Sleep") is logical. You'll find the index quite useful for locating info (but see "B" below). Numerous drawings and text boxes complement the body of the text.4. IT'S IMPROVED FROM THE FOURTH (2004) EDITION, with 145 more pages. Some of the less useful parts of the old edition have been scrapped**, and this edition has a lot of revised or new material***. The text is more pleasant to read than before because there is more space between the lines, and the illustrations are better coordinated with the text.OK, now for five (minor) downsides, which I'll phrase in the form of a wish list.A. I WISH THAT THE BOOK HAD ITS OWN WEB SITE for updates, corrections, etc., along the lines of the sites for  Baby Bargains, 8th Edition: Secrets to Saving 20% to 50% on Baby Furniture, Gear, Clothes, Toys, Maternity Wear and Much, Much More!  or AAP's own  Red Book: 2009 Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases (Red Book Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases) .B. I WISH THAT IT COULD BE SEARCHED ELECTRONICALLY (even though the index is generally very useful). Example 1: Let's say I was interested in complementary and alternative medicine, folk remedies, and the like. There's no index entry relevant to these - you have to manually find the box on "natural" therapies on page 619. Example 2: If you want info on mercury in fish, the index doesn't have "mercury" or "fish" as main entries; you have to go to "food," then "fish warning." An electronic index would prevent problems like these. [NOTE ADDED AFTER WRITING THIS REVIEW: Maybe I missed it the first time around, but Amazon's "Click to Look Inside" allows you to search individual words in the book. Thanks, Amazon!]C. I WISH THAT THE AAP HAD KEPT ITS PUBLIC POLICY OPINIONS OUT OF THE BOOK. We learn that the AAP supports "legislation that would prohibit smoking in public places" (page 9), "gun-control legislation" (page 470), "legislative efforts to improve the quality of children's [television] programming" (page 579), etc. The AAP's Web site, not a book on parenting, is the right place for political statements such as those.D. I WISH THAT SOME OF THE STATEMENTS HAD BEEN LESS BLACK-OR-WHITE. Example: Page 786 claims that heart murmurs "become a concern" when "they occur very early at birth" because they "are not functional or innocent" (with "not" italicized). But studies such as "Prevalence And Clinical Significance Of Cardiac Murmurs In Neonates" and "Can Cardiologists Distinguish Innocent From Pathologic Murmurs In Neonates?" find that perhaps only half of heart murmurs in newborns are actually problematic. So a better wording would have been "...MAY NOT BE functional or innocent."E. I WISH THAT IT HAD PHOTOGRAPHS. For example, photos would be worth a thousand words for the skin rashes, birthmarks, and such mentioned on pages 127-128 and 813-836.Purchase this very nice book from Amazon.com!* In Part 1, the topics within each chapter from "5. Your Baby's First Days" to "13. Your Four- to Five-Year-Old" may include "Growth and Development" (e.g., movement, language, cognitive, social, emotional); "Basic Care" like feeding and sleeping; "Behavior"; "Health Watch" or "Visit to the Pediatrician"; "Immunization Update"; and "Safety Check."** Among the material deleted from the old edition are some drawings (e.g., how to use a cloth diaper, hormones in the milk let-down process, crib gym and mobile), some data graphics (e.g., table of sugar content of juices, pie chart of causes of developmental disabilities), and some text (e.g., on vegetables with nitrates, "smaller extended families," "working mothers," and "stay-at-home fathers").*** Some selected specific improvements: (i) Information on weaning from breast to bottle has been moved from the chapter on 4-7 months to the chapter on 8-12 months. (ii) "The Second Year" chapter in the old edition has been retitled to the less confusing "Your One-Year Old." (iii) The "Age Three to Five Years" chapter has been split into separate chapters for 3-year-olds and for 4- to 5-year-olds. (iv) Part 2 has been reorganized more-or-less alphabetically with new chapters 17 on allergies and 34 on sleep. (v) There is new or substantially revised text on psychological resilience (pages xxxiii-xxxvi), Tdap and other vaccines (7 & 793-800), toxoplasmosis (8), tests during pregnancy (10-13), delivery (13-6 and 36-8), probiotics (118 & 523), vitamin D (169), autism spectrum disorders (336-7 & 622-7), school transportation safety (450-1), E. coli (524-5), sickle cell (635-7), BPA (702), well water (703), and MRSA (825). (vi) The new Appendices on pages 850-866 collect together schedules, growth charts, and so forth that were scattered throughout the old edition.

Excellent book, deeply informative!

I learned about it by accident and happy I have!Being a first-time mom it is very easy to become concerned with questions regarding the child's development and behaviour.This book however puts all of these worries to rest as it explains things very well. It is well written and therefore easy to read. Plus it provides answers to questions other books haven't.I highly recommend it! Even if it has been put together by the American Association of Paediatrics & not the British.Once again. I love the book & highly recommend it to new mums and experienced ones alike.

It has all the answers i needed.. thanks to the authors for explaining things in most comprehensible manners. Truely a must own book !!

Your baby was delivered without the required user's manual? So was ours...What to do? Get this book.+ simply top.+ very exhaustive, well written with good examples and illustrations.We call it the 'users' manual' for our child... And it's true.We still use some 2 other books (a German and a French one) and we do a combination of all that.

I have only had this book for less than a month but so far it has addressed all the concerns I was looking for. However, so far the 2nd month to 4th month are lumped into one chapter so I can't really tell which month it is talking about within the said chapter. I can't comment on anything further.It is recommended by American doctors, so there might be some philosophical differences with how babies are raised in Japan. But perhaps it is a good cross reference to other available books in Japanese.