Your Baby and Child

This newest edition of Penelope Leach’s much-loved, trusted, and comprehensive classic—an international best seller for twenty-five years, with nearly two million copies sold in America alone—encompasses the latest research and thinking on child development and learning, and reflects the realities of today’s changing lifestyles.

In her authoritative and practical style, Leach responds fully to parents’ every concern about the psychological, emotional, and physical well-being of their children. She describes, in easy-to-follow stages from birth through starting school, how children develop: what they are doing, experiencing, and feeling. And she tackles both the questions parents often ask—What does a new baby’s wakefulness or a toddler’s tantrum mean?—and those that are more difficult: How should new parents time their return to work, choose day care, tell a child about a new baby or an impending divorce?

Whatever the concern or question, Your Baby and Child supplies the information, encouragement, and reassurance every parent-to-be or new parent needs.

Penelope Leach's Your Baby & Child has been a beloved favorite for years. With this new, revised edition, Leach has updated her information and approach to reflect new findings in the field of child development, and to respond to the changing needs of today's families. Leach has utter respect for children and their parents; she explains development, child care, and parenting concerns clearly and without condescension.

Each developmental stage--newborn, settled baby, older baby, toddler, and young child--is discussed in terms of feeding, teeth and teething, growing, excreting, crying, sleeping, playing, and everyday care. For each stage, an additional set of appropriate topics is discussed, including muscle power, speech, child care, and appropriate toys. Colorful and expressive photos display infant, childhood, and toddler behavior. With her common-sense, child-positive approach, Leach carefully dispels negative parenting attitudes, and teaches readers how to stop, listen, and learn from their children. --Ericka Lutz