Book Reviews | what you should know

Toddler Sense
Toddlerhood is a time of tremendous growth and development. It is also a time of tantrums and conflict. Knowing what constitutes normal toddler behaviour will help you accept and respect this and go a long way towards effective, guilt-free and realistic parenting. Your toddler learns though his senses – to guide him, you need to practise wisdom with sense.  [read more]

Raising Boys
In this expanded and updated edition, Steve Biddulph shares and gives practical and honest advice to parents so they can recognise the different stages of boyhood and learn how to raise happy, confident and kind young men. Boys need to be parented in a different way from girls with their own very special psychological and physical make-up.  [read more]

The Everything Baby Sign Language Book
Frustrated communication in babies and toddlers is caused by the lag between a child's desire to be understood and their ability to form words. Sign language bridges this gap. This book teaches parent and children to use a combination of sign language and homemade gestures to communicate needs, wants and feelings  [read more]

Sleep Sense
Written by the authors of Baby Sense, this title offers the same simple, sensible solutions to ensure you and your baby will get a good night's sleep by establishing healthy sleeping habits.  [read more]

The Yummy Mummy Pregnancy Cookbook: Healthy Food for You and Your Baby
Eating the right foods in pregnancy means better health for you and your baby. This book provides trimester-by-trimester nutritional guidance on the best foods for your baby's development. It also gives 60 no-fuss delicious dishes for optimum nutrition, with daily menu plans, and yummy ideas for snacks, breakfasts, and lunches on the go  [read more]

Feeding sense
Uncertain of what to eat in pregnancy or while breast-feeding? Challenges with breast or bottle feeding? Or just looking for practical guidelines on introducing solids? Whether you have a fussy eater or an allergic baby, Feeding Sense prepares you for the road ahead and guides you through all your baby’s feeding milestones. Meg Faure, bestselling co-author of books in the ‘sense series’ looks at your baby’s sensory and emotional relationships with food and the developmental journey you embark on when feeding your baby.  [read more]

The Contented Child's Food Bible: The Complete Guide to Feeding 0-6 Year Olds
Top maternity nurse, Gina Ford and leading UK nutritionist, Paul Sacher offer practical and down-to-earth advice; from the breast feeding to overcoming snacking and getting your child to eat fruit and vegetables every day.  [read more]

Optimum Nutrition Before, During and After Pregnancy
This volume is a guide to nutrition for women who are either planning to conceive, are pregnant or have given birth. It should also help women who are having difficulty conceiving or taking their baby to term.  [read more]

The 30-Minute Pregnancy Workout Book
Pregnancy is not a time to let yourself go. Divided into three 'sets' for each trimester of pregnancy, this title helps to tone various mothers and keeps active exercisers in peak condition throughout their pregnancies. It focuses on abs, arms, thighs, butts and shoulders.  [read more]

Yoga for Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond
With step-by-step photos of classic yoga postures especially adapted for each trimester, this book demonstrates how the regular practice of yoga provides many physical and emotional benefits that can enhance the whole experience of parenting. Featuring a unique section of special yoga and relaxation exercises to do with or without the baby up to 16 weeks after birth, Yoga for Pregnancy, Birth, and Beyond is the only book that identifies the real benefits of yoga for both mother and baby throughout pregnancy and beyond.  [read more]

Fit Mama
From simple exercises to do with baby to full body cardio workouts, "Fit Mama" offers an effective, holistic approach to postpartum fitness.  It offers wise counsel on finding the time and energy to shape up gradually at first, and then motivates moms to amp it up as time goes by.  [read more]

Pilates for Pregnancy
With its focus on strengthening the back and building abdominal and pelvic muscles, pilates is one of the best ways to make labor more comfortable and recover more quickly. The easy-to-follow exercises are designed to suit bodily changes and even continue into the post-natal stages to help women regain their figures.  [read more]

Sister Lilian's pregnancy and birth companion
Sister Lilian has been South African’s trusted pregnancy expert for over a decade. Her popular, comprehensive guide to pregnancy and labour is now available in a new edition, with updates and a beautiful new cover. As experienced midwife and owner of the Sister Lilian Centres, she is well placed to guide South African parents through every stage of pregnancy and labour. She dispatches sensible advice covering the initial stages right through to dealing with the new-born baby. The book contains everything you might want to know, from exercise and nutrition to emotions, debunking popular myths, etc.  [read more]

Eating Well When You're Expecting
Provides mums-to-be with a realistic approach to navigating healthily and deliciously through the nine months of pregnancy - at home, in the office, at Christmas, in restaurants. This book includes chapters, which are devoted to nutrition, weight gain, food safety, the postpartum diet, and how to eat when trying to conceive again.  [read more]

Pregnancy and Child Care for Healthy Living
The focus is on pregnancy and child care the natural way, that is, turning away from antibiotics and chemicals to natural medicines and herbs. Remedies safe to use for the expecting mother as well as practical tips to treat childhood illnesses. By Margaret Roberts.  [read more]

A Child is Born
Using high-definition ultrasound technique, scanning electron and light microscopes, and advanced fibre optics Lennart Nilsson documents the miracle of human reproduction: the egg travelling down the fallopian tube; the sperm racing to meet it; the moment of fertilization; the very first cell division; the tiny embryo attaching to the uterine wall; the growth of eyes, ears, fingers and toes; and, finally the moment of delivery itself - providing an astonishing glimpse of the first moments of life.  [read more]

Sister Lilian's Pregnancy and Birth Companion
Sister Lilian's Pregnacy and Birth Companion is the most comprehensive and caring book that parents-to-be could wish for. The companion will stand by expectant parents as informative and nonjudgemental friend, every step of their journey to parenthood.  [read more]

My First Five Years: A Journal of Early Childhood
My First Five Years is graced throughout with Anne Geddes' unique and breathtaking baby imagery. It is the perfect place to record all the precious moments in a child's first five years. From 'Before I Arrived', through 'The World When I Arrived', 'My First Birthday' all the way to 'School' this journal has ample space and prompts to document the all too fleeting first five years of life. It contains extras such as space for ultrasound scan and other special photos, an envelope for mementos, and, the addition of a colorful pull out height chart.  [read more]

I Wish Someone Had Told Me: A Realistic Guide to Early Motherhood
This collection of tales from the front addresses universal topics from labour (yes, it hurts), to marriage (babies may create strain rather than bond), to child minding (there is no Mary Poppins), to everyday life with a baby (what exactly does a new-born do?).  [read more]

Teach Yourself Motherhood
This book combines inspiring stories and tips from real mothers to help you through the everyday ups and downs of being a mother. The book includes interactive quizzes, charts, and self-assessment exercises.  [read more]