Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool (The ParentData Series)
Original price was: $18.00.$11.87Current price is: $11.87.
From the author of Expecting Better, The Family Firm, and The Unexpected an economist’s guide to the early years of parenting.
“Both refreshing and useful. With so many parenting theories driving us all a bit batty, this is the type of book that we need to help calm things down.” —LA Times
“The book is jampacked with information, but it’s also a delightful read because Oster is such a good writer.” —NPR
With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even greater challenge: decision-making in the early years of parenting.
As any new parent knows, there is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and strangers on the internet. From the earliest days, parents get the message that they must make certain choices around feeding, sleep, and schedule or all will be lost. There’s a rule—or three—for everything. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the trade-offs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision?
Armed with the data, Oster finds that the conventional wisdom doesn’t always hold up. She debunks myths around breastfeeding (not a panacea), sleep training (not so bad!), potty training (wait until they’re ready or possibly bribe with M&Ms), language acquisition (early talkers aren’t necessarily geniuses), and many other topics. She also shows parents how to think through freighted questions like if and how to go back to work, how to think about toddler discipline, and how to have a relationship and parent at the same time.
Economics is the science of decision-making, and Cribsheet is a thinking parent’s guide to the chaos and frequent misinformation of the early years. Emily Oster is a trained expert—and mom of two—who can empower us to make better, less fraught decisions—and stay sane in the years before preschool.
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Discover all of Emily Oster’s books
What to Expect When You’re Expecting meets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they’re expecting. A data-driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting, from birth to preschool, covering topics including feeding, sleep, and potty training. Oster offers a classic business school framework for data-driven parents to think more deliberately about the key issues of the elementary years: school, health, extracurricular activities, and more. A guide to navigating a second pregnancy when the first did not go as planned—with Dr. Nathan Fox, maternal fetal medicine specialist.
Publisher : Penguin Books (April 21, 2020)
Language : English
Paperback : 352 pages
ISBN-10 : 0525559272
ISBN-13 : 978-0525559276
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.44 x 0.77 x 8.4 inches
13 reviews for Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool (The ParentData Series)
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Original price was: $18.00.$11.87Current price is: $11.87.
Joicy Machado –
Great book
This was recommended to me by my cousin and I gifted it to my friend who is going through her first pregnancy journey. Very informative she loved it
JoEllen –
Great for first-time moms!!
As a first-time mom, this book was incredible. I learned so many valuable insights into motherhood and how to maneuver through different milestones and changes with your baby/toddler. I will definitely be gifting this to other mom friends and recommend it for you too!
Emily –
worth the buy!
Great overview of everything on my mind as a scientist and first time mom of a three week old. Quick read and provides sources if you want to dig deeper.
il12345 –
Must read
This really calmed my anxiety and provided me with amazing information to make decisions for myself and my baby. No more peer pressure or guilt from all the advice everyone throws my way. No more needing to follow the latest trends. Just solid, study based information providing me a foundation on what decision fits my family best.So grateful for this author and her books.
Iisai –
Informative, concise, non judgemental
So many parenting books are just propaganda for whatever regime the author likes best… this is an easy to read summary of the data, what is known and not, and recommendations based not on the authors opinion but on good evidence. Exactly what I needed.
AnnaVP –
THE BEST
I read expecting better and loved the book, so I was ready for my next steps of reading books about what to expect after the baby is born. I had some books gifted to me that I started reading and they would just make me stressed and overwhelmed. So I knew I should give this one a try. This book is the BEST. Emily feels like a best friend and therapist at the same time, giving helpful data-based answers without exaggerating, making you feel stupid or just giving you advice without any basis for it. I love that. It’s so easy to read, it makes me feel supported as opposed to stressed, and makes me feel better equipped to become a mother soon. I love the chapter that talks about post birth effects on the mother (as those are not talked about enough). Thank you! I highly recommend.
Rachel McElhany –
Expecting Better
Emily Oster uses the same data-centered approach in Cribsheet that she did in Expecting Better. (You can read my review of that here.) That’s why I loved Expecting Better so I knew I’d love Cribsheet too. Oster wrote Expecting Better after she had her first child and drew on her own experience of pregnancy for that book. She would present the data and explain why she made the choice she did but was never judgmental about it. The choice was ultimately left up to the reader. Cribsheet is the same, only Oster wrote it after the birth of her second child. She knows from personal experience that all children are different and what works for one may not work for another – even if they have the same parents.Cribsheet covers the most heated topics related to a baby’s first year – sleep training, breast vs. bottle, vaccinations, working vs. staying home, etc. The section on toddlers includes walking, talking, potty training, discipline, education and more. Like in Expecting Better, she presents the various approaches to each topic and then her analysis of the available data, without judgment. My oldest child is 16 years old and my youngest is 18 months old. A lot has changed in 16 years. One example is that it’s now recommended that children sleep in the parents’ bedroom for their first year. This blew me away! My older kids were in their own room within weeks of birth and this was pretty much standard at the time. After reading Oster’s section on sleep, I understood why the recommendation had been put into place and was able to decide how long I thought it was appropriate for my new baby to sleep in my bedroom given the available data.I hope that Oster continues to write books as her children grow. I’ll be first in line for all of them!
Me –
Its ok. Don’t approach it as a decision guide, but as a way to think of things to ask later
As someone who has a background in economics and does data analytics for a living, I of course bought both Expecting Better and Crib Sheets.These books are ok. They have some interesting data and they get you thinking about issues you will likely encounter as a pregnant lady and later as a new parent. However, the tone is very much geared towards a subset of the population that can relate to the life of upper-middle lass professionals, especially those with an academics schedule. I also failed to see how her personal choices reflected at all the data that was presented. In the end, our decisions are going to be subjective, even if bombarded with the most accurate, up-to date data and insights.For example, after seeing just how safe epidurals are, why anyone would chose not to have one (as the author did) and to be martyr, is beyond me, but to each his own.Crib sheets in particular opens up with things I just can’t relate to. Getting a baby to get used to not being swaddled at the 4-5 months mark – that’s nice if you don’t put the baby in day-care after at most 12 months of maternity leave, which is what most people get at best. Day cares will not swaddle babies, so you need to prepare for that earlier.Or the angst about mommy group fights on Facebook? Um why even bother or engage in that? If you are an educated professional especially, why bother with the opinions of the social media mob? Just disconnect and stop fretting.There are many books out there but honestly just listen to friends whom you trust and tend to see eye-to-eye with who have already had children. Most importantly, ask and listen to your pediatrician. Books such as this one can help you think of the right questions and anticipate decisions that will need to be made – but they don’t really provide much in terms of solutions or guidance. To her credit, the author admits that even when presented with the same information, people will make different decisions and her goal is to share that information and her experience, and not to offer prescriptive device. Enjoy your baby and don’t aim to be a perfectionist.
Jenna Bailey –
Best book I have read while pregnant! Could not recommend more.
Diego garrido escartin –
Es un libro que si buscas ser madre en EUA te ayuda pero te sirven pocos capítulos si no vives allá.Aún así, es interesante aprender las dinámicas y estadísticas del proceso de criar hijos desde el embarazo hasta que son infantes.
Clara –
I loved!! I recomend to all my friendsThis book fare perfect for new parents!Easy to understand And read!!
Raf –
Highly recommended. It’s no “in my opinion” or “my grandma told me” nonsense you read elsewhere. This is evidence-based talk deeply grounded in science. Cheery on the cake, it’s very well written, easy to digest, and very hard to put down once you start chewing through the pages.
Alessia –
Un libro che fornisce moltissime informazioni soprattutto basate su raccolta dati! Alcune cose sono molto basate sulla popolazione degli USA ma questo non toglie che i dati rimangono validi anche per certi aspetti.Consiglio questo libro anche per iniziare a leggere qualcosa di strutturato.