Baby books

A pregnant friend recently asked me about the merits of a baby book called The Contented Little Baby Book.
I heartily discouraged her from reading it, as I have since dubbed it The Contented Little Baby Nazi.
Like any wide-eyed first-time mother-to-be, I embraced the ideas perpetuated in this book - strict baby routines. They were gonna work for me, then I could be in control of my life and everything would be juuust fine. Right?
When Ari was born, I tried to follow them to the letter and nearly lost my mind when the baby wouldn't fit with the schedule - there must have been something drastically wrong with Ari because he wouldn't go to sleep/eat/whatever on time.
Nobody told me before I had a baby that all babies are different - which is something this book fails wholeheartedly to acknowledge.
I searched for the "what if your baby won't go to sleep at 7pm" section of the book, only to find there wasn't one. Great.
If anyone asks, I only ever recommend the two baby books that have been any help to me - Kaz Cooke's Kidwrangling and Robin Barker's Baby Love.
Baby Love is a wonderful reference book - if you don't know how to sterilise bottles, or what sort of solid foods your baby should start on or what a nipple shield is, then it will have the answers. It's straight forward, non-judgmental and most importantly, Australian.
Kidwrangling is informative, funny and refreshingly realistic. No rose-coloured view of the baby world, just plain, honest information. Kaz tells it like it is, and thank god she does.
She acknowledges that being a parent does suck sometimes. She has a whole chapter on coping with depression and baby blues, with real quotes from real-life mums that I often re-read when I need to know that I'm not alone.
And she will forever be in my heart because at a time when every single "expert" was telling me to wake my baby for feeds (and I knew deep down in my heart I shouldn't), Kaz told me not to wake a sleeping baby. I'll love her forever.
In the end, it all comes down to what suits you when it comes to baby books. If you must read them, I say only read a few. I have found that too much information creates unrealistic expectations and overloads you with a million theories.
Yes, it's important to be informed. But it's also important to trust your instinct and your heart.
You know more than you think...