What to Expect: When You Have No Clue

Need an official guide to parenting?  Get your hands on the What to Expect series for real life advice for everything that pregnancy and parenting can throw at you!

The first few days… the first few months with my first son were probably the hardest of my life.  How was I this unprepared?

Would I ever sleep again?

Why do my boobs hurt so bad?

Should I just toss my pre-baby clothes?

Is crying everyday normal?

I had a lot of questions.  And not many mom-friends.  It was rough-going.

Now that I’ve got three babies under my belt (and the scar to prove it), I feel pretty confident in my mom-skills.  And, I’ve got the mom friends I need to bounce my questions off of.  But back in those days… those days when I was an official Rookie Mom, I relied on the official guide.  Th acquisition of which is every newly pregnant lady’s rite of passage:  What to Expect When You’re Expecting.  And then the additional books in the series: What to Expect the First Year, and the NEW(ish) What to Expect the Second Year.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting was a bedside companion with me during my first and second pregnancy.  (By the third, it was more or less memorized.)  I followed along month by month, thrilled when another chapter of my pregnancy was behind me.  I read up on what to expect at my checkups, I looked up all of the weird things going on in my body to find out if they were normal (most were), and I glossed over the labor and delivery bit.

Then, we had our baby.   We were shell-shocked when they let us walk out of the hospital with our baby.  Do they just let anyone be a parent?  Where’s the guide book?  It didn’t take us long to realize that the author that got me through our pregnancy would also help us in the first year, and then the second.

In What to Expect the First Year and What to Expect the Second Year, parents find grounded answers for issues big and small.

During that first week home with baby and your child declines a feeding, you’ll look up to find out how much milk he needs.  During month three and he still isn’t sleeping at night, you’ll look up to find out how much sleep he needs.

And in the second year when he still isn’t eating solids, you’ll look up when you can stop buying baby food and when (for the love of God), he’ll use a sippy cup.

With a record-breaking 600+ weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, you know you’re in good company when selecting these books for your parenting guide!  Did you get What to Expect When You’re Expecting?  What was the most helpful thing you learned from the book?

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.