Few days ago, I announced that we are expecting our second child and now I have the privilege of reviewing a parenting book by Jennifer Cigale called "Newborn Necessities".
Author: Jennifer Cigale
Publisher: Tate Publishing (November 2, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1616633840, ISBN-13: 978-1616633844
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.2 inches
Paperback: 84 pages
Excerpts from the product description:
"Are you a new or expecting parent? Do you know someone who is? If so, this book is for you.
There are many items you will need to get ready for your baby, and Newborn Necessities is one of those things. As soon as your baby is born, your doctor, midwife, nurse, and/or pediatrician will ask you to keep track of his or her feedings and diaper changes. Make it easier on yourself by writing it down. Using the charts provided in Newborn Necessities will help eliminate common feelings of stress and anxiety associated with, When did I last feed the baby? Is he/she eating enough? When was their last bowel movement?
This book is designed for parents by parents. It is intended to make your journey into parenthood a little bit easier by providing you with easy-to-use charts to document this information. It is a quick, compact, and easy-to-understand way to chart this information, thus leaving you more time to spend with your baby and catch up on your sleep!"
A brief info about the author:
"Jennifer Cigale lives in Boca Raton, Florida, with her spouse and two children. As a new mother, she developed these charts for her own use and was soon sharing them with friends and family who were also starting families. She holds a master's degree in Occupational Therapy and has used her education and training as an occupational therapist to identify problems and develop working solutions for her patients."
I love the cover of the book! The color is so refreshing to the eye, the size and weight of the book is just nice. Not too heavy and not too flimsy either. Just nice! Content wise, it is a very handy and useful book to help a new parent to track the intake and output of their newborn child.
If only I have this book when we just had Ben 2 years ago, it would've save us lots of time and trouble as back then, what I did was writing down the logs for the day on our small whiteboard in our room. I only scribbled the time I breastfed Ben, duration each feeding, which side and only started keeping track of his diaper logs when Ben started his solids at 6 months old (never thought of keeping track from his birth hehehehe..). So yeah, if we have this book back then, all I need was just write down the daily logs on the specific page and the information is all right at our finger tips and the book can be carried around easily!
Now back to the book, it is divided into 2 categories:
* Feeding Facts Under this category, you will be able to keep track of your child's feeding log for 30 days, from the feeding time, either via breast (how many minutes) or bottle (how many ounces) and any comments you might want to note down.
* Diaper Diary Under this category, you will be able to keep track of your child's diaper log for 30 days, from the time of peeing and pooping and any comments you might want to note down.
Now, please do not underestimate the importance of noting down the feeding and diaper logs as I did the same thing with Ben and I was able to give more detailed information to our paed on what Ben is taking in and producing out during each of his health visits.
I would however love to see notes of what to look out for or to be alert for (such as growth spurts = more frequent feedings or changes in poo which might be caused by illnesses etc) as these would be an added special touch for the book user.
In summary, this is a great book to have for expecting and/or new parents to help them keep track of the intake and output of their newborn child and can be a great gift to expecting and/or new parents as well!
You can purchase the "Newborn Necessities" book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Tate Publishing website.
But wait!!!
Jennifer has been so generous in offering me not one, but TWO copies of her book to giveaway to you guys! Now hear me out, TWO of my lucky awesome blog readers/visitors will be able to win a copy of Newborn Necessities! Yup! You read that right!
* Eligibility: OPEN WORLDWIDE!
* Giveaway expires on 7th March 2011 (Malaysia time)
* You must fulfil the mandatory entry 1st (which is letting me know you are participating as international/Malaysian blog reader or visitor, then providing your valid email address & answering the question), else you will be disqualified.
* Winner will be randomly drawn using Random.org and will have 48 hours to respond to my email notification or a new winner will be drawn.
* Both winners will receive their prize sent directly by the author.
* A copy of Newborn Necessities book will each be given to: 1 international blog reader/visitor AND 1 Malaysian blog reader/visitor (if your mailing address is not in Malaysia, I will disqualify you and choose the next one!).
To enter the giveaway, kindly click at the link shown below and the entry form will appear in a new window:
* Newborn Necessities Giveaway Entry Form *
(Link has been disabled as entry closed at 12midnight past 7th March 2011)
It'd be great if you could leave me a comment once you have submitted your entry so that I can check and ensure it's safely tracked into my database. So what are you waiting for?!! Hurry up! You have 1 month time from now to join in the fun and try your luck!
I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with an actual copy of the book by the author in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.
And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"
