A Pregnancy Book with Advice That Will Mortify You

Bun 2 Babe, one of the newest parenting books to hit the shelves, opens with: “Having a baby is like falling in love.”

And we agree. However, some days it’s a little like falling in love with that cute but totally bad-news boy we knew in college who drank too much at frat parties, made a lot of noise and messes, and puked once on that shirt we really liked. But these are lessons we learn later. 

Having a baby for the first time sometimes is also full of full-on panic attacks while trying to wade through woo, furiously Google in Incognito mode to find out if it’s REALLY NORMAL THAT YOU’RE FARTING THIS MUCH?!, and try to figure out if you’re ever going to be able to afford to retire someday. It’s a bombardment of advice that ranges from random strangers to your mother in law making you batty to medical opinion – on how to tell if it’s a boy or a girl, what you should eat, what you can drink (or not), clothes you can wear, where you should birth, the dos-and-don’ts of pregnancy nookie, and…

Well, basically, once you’re pregnant you discover you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

Having a baby is something that has basically turned on its head, or even flip flopped around a few times since our own moms squeezed us out. My mom put me to sleep on my front, used drop-side cribs, ate steak tartare and enjoyed the occasional drink and smoke while pregnant. The existence of sanctimommies, mom groups, and really, really old parenting “bibles” the size of phone books being dropped in our laps just makes it that much harder to figure out how we survive this crazy stage.

Especially when you are already obsessing with worry that your nipples are going to be hairy forever.

What if I told you new moms-to-be, however, that there was a new book out there. One written by a woman, a mom of four, a special education teacher who has not only “been around the block,” but who also took some shortcuts through people’s backyards? What if I told you it was a size large enough to be comprehensive but small enough to be manageable? If it was sprinkled with stories from other moms and some hilarious things her own toddlers have said?

What if I told you this book had FABULOUS ADVICE YOU’LL NEVER SEE IN ANOTHER BOOK AND NOBODY ELSE WOULD DARE TELL US LIKE THIS WITHOUT DYING OF MORTIFICATION like:

“It is also a good idea to air out your vaginal area after giving birth. …To promote healing and prevent infection, place a towel on your bed to protect the sheets and lie on it on your side, knees together. Feel the breeze!”

No shit. This book literally has it all. Well, not all the useless things most books are usually filled with that anybody can Google, but all the stuff you really need to know and are unlikely to imagine Googling without feeling like a total weirdo. Do you know how refreshing it is to actually see some other mom endorsing picking your kid’s nose as a solution to frustrating boogers? To have a handy bullet point list of what to buy and what’s a waste of time? To have a whole section on projectile vomiting to read? To have the nitty gritty on getting a nanny?

My one regret in life is that this book didn’t exist when I had my own kids. I had to learn all of these things by shame-asking my parent-veteran friends or through trial and error.

New moms don’t have to. Buy this book. This is the new parenting bible.