Prior to 2020, I averaged about 25 books/year. In 2020, I had a spike to over 50 books/year in part because of the exceptional nature of the COVID-19 Pandemic, working from home, cancelling trips, and social distancing. In 2021, while life isn’t back to “normal” and COVID impacts are still present, life isn’t “normal” still for other reasons too. I welcomed my first kid into the world! Life with a baby (now, almost toddler!) is very different.
Links to other reviews:
- 2018 Reviews
- 2019 Reviews
- 2020 Reviews Part 1
- 2020 Reviews Part 2
- Jump to the reviews for this year (skipping my ‘reading plan’)
My Reading This Year
In preparation for having a baby, I adjusted my expectations of reading lots downwards (and even give myself the grace that if it doesn’t happen at all, that is all Okay!) or potentially upwards. In Canada, it is more typical to take longer maternity leaves (our EI program covers maternity/parental leave up to 55% of your salary for 12 months, and your job is protected for 12-18 months – this is a simplified explanation, but suffices for my plans). So I won’t be working for most of 2021 as I primarily adjust to being a mom.
To prepare for this before the baby came, I looked at some ways to read that may be more compatible with baby feeding, stroller walks, and other parenting life aspects.
This included:
- Getting a subscription to Audible
- I anticipate it being easier to put earbuds in to listen to books rather than read books on my Kobo e-reader
- Turns out I actually didn’t like e-books very much
- Re-reading favourites
- I created a shelf of wanna-reread, I wanted to have a list of books that if I fell asleep/got distracted listening to them they would be easy enough for me to get back into them because I’ve read them in the past.
- Being open to adding reviews to children’s books to this list 🙂
- A friend asked if I would be writing a serious review for the books I read to my child, and I will consider this.
- If I do, it will be a separate section or post.
In the end, I read 26 books total! With my son approaching toddlerhood and me going back to work in February 2022, I expect this to slow down again.
Writing the reviews was especially a challenge – in fact, I only wrote 1/3 of the reviews in a timely fashion. The rest are being done on my last week of maternity leave as my kid transitions into his daycare.
Now on to the reviews! I added a (fantasy), (sci fi), (non fiction), (parenting) tag to books so you can check out the genres that are most of interest.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND – 5 STARS
made me think a lot, in different ways for each book. recommend reading
The Martian by Andy Weir (sci fi)
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (fantasy, myth)
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (non fiction)
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (sci fi)
Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey (sci fi)
Circe by Madeline Miller (fantasy, myth)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (fantasy)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (fantasy)
ALSO ENJOYED – 4 STARS
Read the synopsis and see if the topic appeals to you
Atomic Habits by James Clear (non fiction)
Whole Brain Child by Daniel J. Seigel and Tina Payne Bryson (parenting)
Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson (fantasy)
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton (sci fi)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (non-fiction)
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Chaos by Lucy Knisley (parenting)
War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi (sci fi)
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (fantasy)
The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (fantasy)
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam (parenting)
How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber and Julie King (parenting)
MEH – 3 STARS
I didn’t like these much, but maybe you will
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers (sci fi)
The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer by Harvey Karp (parenting)
Next Year, for Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson (fiction)
2 Stars
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (fantasy)
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (sci fi)
DIDN’T FINISH
Octavia’s Brood, multiple authors (sci fi)
The Martian by Andy Weir
Okay, so this was a fun read! I binge read it over 2 days as I waited for my baby to be born. I had already seen the movie, but the book was written with a likeable protagonist (Mark Watney), exciting satisfying problem solving, great science, and suspense. I struggled to set it down!
Mark Watney, NASA, other folks on Earth, and more do brilliant smart problem solving when faced with problems. It was so nice.
That said, I have two (very small) complaints.
First, while Mark Watney was brilliant in his survival via his scientific brilliance, I found the character’s continual affable mental state improbable. Given how many times he is faced with certain death, given how isolated he is, I think he would have been ‘broken’ more and struggled more. Its POSSIBLE. But it seems unlikely. I think even the people I know who are sociable and without signs of mental illness have struggled with the much-less-extreme isolation of COVID-19. And Mark Watney doesn’t even have digital communication with people. And he is constantly almost dying. In the end of the book, it briefly mentions him seeing a psychiatrist, however, his entries in his log were too happy go lucky to be believable for someone in his condition.
Second, it is not particularly ‘deep’ on some of the tradeoffs and hard decisions made. I usually like my sci-fi to go into that. The book lightly discusses how immense the cost for Mark Watney’s survival, and how that cuts into other space exploration missions. It seems brutal to think about ‘letting’ someone die, but the book continually points out how his odds of survival are so low. He has disaster after disaster thrown at him. If it weren’t a book, he would die.
There is a part where someone working for the Chinese Space program has to scrap their planned scientific probe, knowing that the probe will never happen now: they briefly acknowledge the loss for science and learning and knowledge this brings (“It could have been a lasting legacy of scientific research. Now it’s a delivery run. We’ll get a Chinese astronaut on Mars, but what science will he bring back that some other astronaut couldn’t have? This operation is a net loss for mankind’s knowledge.”… “Well, it’s a net gain for Mark Watney.”). There are parts where NASA scavenges from other planned missions and there is internal politicking as the teams know this delays their own research & launches. When resources are limited, does it make sense to throw them at one man’s improbable survival? I would have liked the book to explore this a bit more, but acknowledge it isn’t that kind of book. And I heavily enjoyed it anyways, so I’m probably asking too much of it.
Other random thoughts: As much as I love space and science fiction, I kind of hope my child doesn’t want to become an astronaut (so much stress and worry!). And at odds with that: The near future of this book has SO MUCH space exploration. I want to live in that world. Someone must take these risks to learn more about our galaxy.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Wow! I really enjoyed this. This is the first book I read post baby (on Kobo). I finished it when my son was 3 weeks old.
I haven’t engaged a lot with Greek classics, beyond reading Homer’s Odyssey last year. I much prefer this retelling to a translation. The flow felt “better”, and the characters felt more likeable than Odysseus.
The relationship between Patroclus and Achilles was touching, intimate, seductive, fun, and heartbreaking.
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Okay, ðŸ˜
This book literally starts with the main character giving birth and meeting her son, and I started it just weeks after my own delivery of my son.
The Best We Could Do is a beautiful illustrated memoir about how Bui’s parents history impacts their parenting and her childhood. It is sometimes painful, sometimes lovely, and always so reflective. I learned more about the Vietnam War, an event Bui’s parents lived through, and enjoyed her reflection on how different events led to how they were the parents they were. What does it mean to be a parent, and how do you move from your own childhood and being a child to that new role?
Possibly a bit too heavy to read postpartum (I am a tad bit more emotionally affected by all things motherhood, babies, and parenting at the moment) , but highly recommend to read sometime.
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
(listened to as an audiobook)
This was a re-read (listen!) of the first book in one of my favourite science fiction series of all time, in preparation for the last book coming out. And the final season of the TV show on Amazon Prime. The audiobooks for The Expanse are wonderfully narrated.
I forgot how gritty and … horror… this early book is. Vomit Zombies. Lovely.
Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey
I can’t believe the series is over. This book was an excellent conclusion, tons of moments that hit right in the feels for various character arcs.
I don’t know what I’m going to do without The Expanse to fan over and wait for. I haven’t been this into something since Harry Potter as a youth.
Circe by Madeline Miller
I loved reading this, and binge read it as much as I could with a tiny human wiggling around. There are moments my heart sobbed, as I connected in motherhood with Circe of myth.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
I really enjoyed this book. I kept binge reading it and wanting to ignore all other obligations and plans. I don’t want to hang out with my friends, I don’t want to log onto Skype to play D&D, I just want to finish my book.
There are warnings that this book is the first in a trilogy, where the third is long awaited and not near completion, so if you don’t like starting something without an ending, that’s your fair warning. But I read the first and second and loved both, even if I never get to read the final book.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
tw: abuse
This was a hauntingly beautiful read. Just lovely.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
(listened to as an audiobook)
I listened to this at 2x speed. I think it is a worthwhile quick listen. There are some good ideas, but they can also probably be summarized more succinctly than the book, though the book does help solidify remembering the tips.
Here is a good summary: https://fourminutebooks.com/atomic-habits-summary/
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
I feel like this has some great ‘scripts’ for dealing with toddler through school year age parenting struggles. That said, I didn’t find things particularly ‘revolutionary’, nor particularly science backed (or, if they are, this book did not give me any evidence as to why these approaches may help raise thriving children).
The book has MANY frameworks/analogies for thinking of, well, thinking. I find some of them get a bit patronizing, but here they are, summarized:
- River of Wellbeing: One bank is chaos, the other is rigidity. We don’t want to get too close to either bank, and it is our job as parents to help keep our children closer to the middle of the river, away from either bank.
- Right vs Left Brain: Right Brain is emotions, images, personal memories, intuition, and gut feelings. Left Brain is logical, linguistic, and literal (and doesn’t really come into play until kids start asking “Why?”). When a child is having a big feeling, this comes from the Right Brain. It is not helpful to try talking down a tantrum with logic. Instead, “Connect with the right” and then “Redirect with the Left”: Engage with the emotional side FIRST, before talking through the logic Left Brain side of things later.
- Upstairs Brain vs Downstairs Brain: Upstairs brain is where we make decisions, show empathy, have control. Downstairs brain is instinctual and instant: Fight, flight, freeze. Again, wait for the kid to calm down before rationalizing with them (I’m not sure I really understand how this is different from the Left/Right Brain point).
- “Stuck on the rim” of the wheel of awareness: Who you are is the hub, which ‘integrates’ many rim points. However, sometimes we get “stuck on the rim”, where all we focus on is a few “rim points” and we lose touch of the other parts of who we are that keep us happy, peaceful, and accepting. Help children get back to the Hub. You can do this with what is basically mindfulness, by pointing out to the child the other parts of their hub (for example, here are times you’re not sad)
- Mindsight is the ability to understand one’s own mind as well as the minds of others.
- Integrate, integrate, integrate: Help ALL Parts of the child’s brain work together, from left/right brain, upstairs/downstairs, and more.
And here is a quick list of the strategies to help children integrate and work with all the above analogies/frameworks (the book’s “Whole Brain Strategies #1-“):
- Connect & Redirect: FIRST listen & comfort using your own right brain. Then Redirect with the left. That is, use logical explanations now.
- Name it to tame it: Help children retell frightening or painful experiences. Help them tell the story: Have them tell as much as they can, and help fill in details. Do this several times to help fears lessen. Include both the emotions and the logical sequence parts of the story.
- Engage, don’t enrage. Think about which part (upstairs vs downstairs) of the brain you want to appeal to. Appeals to authority may trigger the downstairs brain, which may enrage. But sometimes you can take the moment to spur their negotiation, communication, and compromise skills instead.
- Use it or Lose it: Let kids make age appropriate decisions throughout their day to exercise their upstairs brains. Help them deal with big emotions by expressing their feelings in a safe way (e.g. punching a pillow vs punching a sibling). Encourage empathy (“Why do you think that baby is crying?”).
- Move it or Lose it: Moving the body can help with brain chemistry. Regain balance through encouraging movement in times of distress.
- Use the remote of the mind: replaying memories. (Note: I feel like this is just a variation of “Name it to tame it”). Storytelling of a painful moment, but you tell the story and the kid can “Pause” when they want and “Fast forward” past the painful parts. By fast forwarding to the end, they can remember the story ends well even when ‘reliving’ the painful parts.
- Making recollection a part of your family’s daily life: What did we do today, how did we feel? What’s one good thing, one tough thing, and one thing of kindness we did?
- Let the clouds of emotions roll by: Remind kid that their feelings come and go (though storytelling/recollection/etc). (kind of a part of mindfulness)
- SIFT: Pay attention to what’s going on inside. Focus on Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts. (more mindfulness)
- Exercise Mindsight: Getting back to the hub. Help the kid realize they can get back to their “Hub” via all the tools of “Mindsight” (me: Mindfulness?). For example, helping them realize they can notice other things outside their feelings in times of distress (what do you hear, see, smell, feel, taste, etc). Or, they can visualize a place they feel calm and peaceful (e.g. swinging in a hammock and Grandparents, reading in bed, etc)
- Increase the Family
- Connect Through
The book also suggests teaching your kids explicitly about these analogies (E.g. upstairs/downstairs, hub and spoke) as a way to deal with their emotions.
In conclusion, this is an okay book. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t get a bit more neoroscience nerd-y, and felt a bit patronized to with some of the examples. I need more convincing why THIS is the best approach, though they do seem like decent ideas for engaging with children. Indeed, they seem like decent ideas for engaging with yourself when having big emotions. The most useful for me, is the idea of the hub and spoke: Take a moment to go back to the hub where I can see not just the ‘negative’ spokes (I’m so tired, I don’t do enough for myself) but also the ‘positive’ spokes (Kid did something SUPER cute, I love being a parent, I am reading so much).
Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson
(listened to as an audiobook)
I really enjoyed this, and the narration is very well done in my opinion.
That said, it starts out very heavy, very dark, and quite gross.
But an excellent end to a trilogy that I very much enjoyed!
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
This was a really fun read, although it is about disease so reading it during a pandemic is maybe not so fun. But its about an ALIEN disease! I haven’t heard anyone claiming that of COVID!
Highly recommend.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
This was really fascinating. I loved how many angles the book was able to take in storytelling: The person story of Henrietta Lacks, her family, and her life. The medical side, on what HeLa cells do and how they were discovered and used. I had no idea about any of this!
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Chaos by Lucy Knisley
(tw: miscarriage)
A graphic novel on pregnancy. I read this after being pregnant and giving birth and it hit deep.
War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi
Super fun world building, super fun characters, very dark story. Apparently if you know more about the history of the Nigerian Civil War (the book does have an author’s note at the end with a quick summary to get you up to speed, cause I certainly wasn’t), this sci fi story is even more interesting.
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Second book in a trilogy (the first was The Name of The Wind), not quite as good as the first but still a really enjoyable read.
The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
I love how magic is dealt with in this fantasy novel! Among with the Rothfuss books I read this year, some of my favourite fantasy novels I’ve read. I tend to lean sci fi but these books were great.
I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam
Since I knew I’d be returning to work in 2022, I picked a book to read on balancing life as a mom. This one was a more optimistic take, looking at working moms who did feel they had good balance in their lives. There are some books that focus more on the societal issues that can set parents up for failure in work vs home, but I wanted to read something that might have recommendations I might use sooner. Changing society is hard and takes time, so I’m not holding my breath!
I really did like this book BUT I’m writing this review before I’m back to work. So this review may need an update later as I try integrating these ideas into my life.
I also think this book could be read by Dads too, to help provide balance in their working vs home lives with their partners.
I’m not writing a review in my own words, but including some of my favourite quotes (in italics) from the book below, sometimes with light commentary from me:
General:
- I want to push back against this expectation of a stress-free life, because it keeps us from seeing the sweet moments
- “Full-time” implies that work consumes all your time – the full amount of your time – but it clearly doesn’t. If you work 40 hours a week and sleep 8 hours at night, that leaves 72 hours for other things, which is almost twice as much time as you’re working. The adage that “you spend the majority of your waking hours working” is only true if you’re working more than 56 hours a week (if you sleep 8 hours a night).
- On the book’s discussion of ‘remote’ work: obviously COVID has changed the amount of workplace open to more partial remote work places. This increased flexibility should be to my and other family’s benefits.
- You don’t build the life you want by saving time. You build the life you want, and then the time saves itself. Recognizing that is what makes success possible.
- Even if you want to do nothing, when you have young kids, it’s impossible to do nothing. You’ll do something, but it may not be a something any of you enjoy. A little intention goes a long way
- [You may] think, “I’m tired’. And you are. But to me, another secret of happier parenting is to realize that with small children, I will always be tired. So what? I can be tired lying on the couch while the children whine, or I can be tired driving them to a nearby creek where they can distract themselves from the whining by tossing pebbles in the water. At least in the latter case I’m outside in the fresh air.
- In life, and particularly in a life with little ones, happiness is a choice.
- Life is stressful and life is wonderful. There is no contradiction here. These facts exist side by side.
- I’m going to try to be more chill about my home and let messes and untidiness happen: No matter how much we clean and tidy, children just create messes. If we absorb messages of how pristine other people’s houses are, we may devote precious minutes to these things when its ultimately futile, and those moments could be spent differently
- I’m trying to use this to keep the level of difficulty we will face in the near future in perspective. My son won’t be a baby/toddler forever: The problem is that we form our understanding of parenthood when the kids are little. This makes sense; the baby and toddler years are a searing season.
Ideas on Work:
- Plan your week before you’re in it… do it on Friday afternoons (when you’re often feeling a bit unproductive end of week brain fog anyways). Block your professional/personal priorities into your days. Send any e-mails to set up meetings for the next week. Also, knowing you have a plan for the next week can help prevent weekend worries.
- Mentor
- Take real breaks vs. fake ones that don’t actually leave you rested
- Say no to the non-important stuff
- Foster and adopt good meeting culture: Why are people there? Tell everyone what they’ll do with every minute. What do you expect of them – critique? Feedback on style, not content because the content is set in stone? New ideas? Call on people by name to get broad participation.
- Plan your week before you’re in it. Rather than planning on Sunday evening, do it on Friday afternoons (when you’re often feeling a bit unproductive end of week brain fog anyways). Block your professional/personal priorities into your days. Send any e-mails to set up meetings for the next week. Also, knowing you have a plan for the next week can help prevent weekend worries.
- Mentor
- Take real breaks vs fake ones that are not actually nurturing (e.g. scrolling facebook)
- Say no to the non-important stuff
- Foster and adopt good meeting culture: Why are people there? Tell everyone what they’ll do with every minute. What do you expect of them – critique? Feedback on style, not content because the content is set in stone? New ideas? Call on people by name to get broad participation.
- Don’t invest too much time in organizing your email. Unsubscribe from useless lists.
- I’m super guilty of this, I have a really bad habit of checking all emails even ones that aren’t ‘important’. This will be a hard habit to break: Don’t do Inbox Zero – huge time sink. Unread emails are fine. You’ll never reach the bottom of your inbox. Better to realize that anything you haven’t addressed after a week or so will have gone away, or someone will follow up pushing on it more
- Think of the opportunity cost of everything! (example: email)
Ideas on Family
- Think through your evenings and your mornings. Be intentional, have a plan. Think of this time as usable time.
- Play: Be present, don’t multi-task with housework.
- Share a family meal, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be dinner. Breakfast is just as good! Give yourself credit for more meals together on weekends even if the weekdays are a hodge podge. Share your day (but not any stressful worries i.e. impending layoffs) such that they hear about successes/challenges.
- Say yes to chaperoning kid excursions – Especially dads!
- Do one on one time with your kids
- Recognize even the mundane tasks of daily life can be one on one time, this elevates tasks.
- Be active together – exercise!
- Plan adventures.
- Make a list of 100 dreams – what you want to do or have more of in your life.
- Idea: Each year have every family member come up with 2-3 items they want to do. Do one a month (within reason).
- Give yourself credit!
Ideas on Relationship
- Make a nice dinner together after kids asleep, or watch a movie. Sit on porch together.
- Friday beers to discuss & plan the weekend
- Saturday morning coffee dates during kids activities (multiple kids? Have in same lessons at the same place – brilliant)
- Savor the moments as they come, a lot of time and life management is mental. Wander less to worries, which steal happiness, and more on happy musings.
- Seize opportunities that exist!
Ideas on Self
- Outsource everything you can (and can afford to): Housekeeping but really outsource it (2x a week AND do laundry), weekly grocery delivery
- Think about what you can stop doing: Tidying toys, making fancy lunches (pay for school lunches or get older kids to make it). Be chill about clutter and mess: Toys will come out again the next morning. There is no prize for having a clean house at 11pm.
- You have ~30 hours of leisure time a week lets say – what would you do with that time? If you know, when time pops up you’ll use it wisely
- We often fail to recognize where leisure time might be, means we use it mindlessly
- Brainstorm leisure activity you can dip in and out of easily! Crocheting, reading, etc.
- People quit for one reason only: they were burnt out, tired of working long hours and traveling. – but they also had vacation time that was unused. Use your vacation time!
- Extend your childcare a bit so you have time kids are cared for, that you aren’t working
- Consider signing up for your own activities
- Get into a state of flow for a personal project
- Spend 15 min on Wednesday thinking about what you want to do on the weekend and make arrangements. 3-5 fun activities (fun for grown ups) is the right balance between a weekend that feels wasted and a weekend that feels draining.
- Transition between work and home with rituals. Probably especially important for working from home, with no commute.
- Pursuing passions post-children: “You’ll still find a way to do the things you really want to do.” Sure some things she didn’t care about “sort of disappeared”. But the things you are passionate about, make time for. Drop the ones that don’t matter to you
- Learn to estimate how long things will take (home & work) – step 1: Estimate, step 2: keep track of how long it actually took. Then keep estimating.
How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber and Julie King
I like the concepts in this book a lot, but wouldn’t read the whole book cover to cover again. It has great little cartoons in the book that go through some examples of ‘scripts’ for how to talk so little kids will listen. I think skimming these alone would give you the gist of the book.
That said, my Little Kid is only 1 year old so who knows how well this book holds up!
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
(listened to as an audiobook)
This is my least favourite of the Wayfarers novels written. Three strangers of different alien species are stranded due to an accident. They are stranded at a pit stop (fuel, food, stretch legs) that is run by another alien and her child. They must just wait it out and so interact. The book is a lot about first impressions: they all start as strangers, and with that and their different species’ histories, they have different preconceptions and biases about each other. Over their time, they bond and overcome prejudice. Everything is written with extreme care. All of the characters are … Too perfect? … in their discussions on social issues their species deal with. This leads to the book coming across as flat instead of deep and insightful on how we can overcome these social issues. The narrative and dialog just feels cheesy.
This review describes it as “The Breakfast Club but with aliens” which is very accurate.
I still look back on the previous 3 Wayfarers books, so if you haven’t checked those out and they hold interest, have a look!
The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer by Harvey Karp
(book read and review written before having a baby)
This is a book by an author who is obsessed with his method to the point of broadly saying it is a cure-all, even doubting evidence to the contrary. I think the idea of the fourth trimester and the “5 S’s” is compelling enough to try if you have a fussy baby but (1) I find the author not really good at evidence and (2) I find the ideas not worth reading this book for (a classic complaint I have when I read non-fiction: Poor verbose writing that could have been better summarized as a succinct blog post).
I liked a tip on teaching self-soothing: Let baby fall asleep however they like (while feeding, rocking, etc.). Set them down in the crib. Tickle their feet or chin to gently awaken them for a second, then they should fall back asleep and learn how to do this and get used to waking up when they were asleep and finding themselves in their crib.
I liked the idea of the “5 S’s” as a framework for trying to get baby to sleep or calming them when they are distressed. I have not yet
What it is about
Karp hypothesizes that babies are born ‘too early’ and have a missing ‘fourth trimester’. Therefore, to sooth them, we must replicate the soothing conditions of the womb.
This is done via the “5 S’s”:
- Swaddle: A baby flailing with their arms not attached to their sides will not be able to calm themselves. In the womb towards the end of the third trimester and their debut into the world, they were tightly snuggled all the time. Swaddling replicates this.
- Side/stomach position: While baby should sleep on their back, calming fussiness is worst in this position. “Activate” the baby’s calming reflex by holding the baby on their side, on their stomach, or over your shoulder.
- Shush: Use white noise and shushing, a baby will not calm themselves without this soothing sound. The womb had many loud noises.
- Swinging: The womb was moving all the time as the mother walked around. To replicate this, babies like swinging and rocking motions.
- Suck: To cement this all in and leave the baby resting, give them something to suck like a pacifier.
The first three get the ‘calming reflex’ started, the next two break the crying by triggering the ‘calming reflex’, and the last one keeps the ‘calming reflex’ turned on, according to Karp.
Evidence presented for the fourth trimester, ‘calming reflex’ and the 5 S’s efficacy
The author uses a bunch of anthropologic evidence for his hypothesis of the fourth trimester and the ‘calming reflex’ and against other hypotheses. I personally always struggle with anthropological evidence in that you can typically think of alternative narratives that the same evidence would fit. This is possibly a ‘me problem’, though, where these sections could be compelling or interesting to others. Karp does seem to have a fluctuating tone towards other cultures (both past and present) in how he either talks kindly or a tad condescendingly of primitive societies, which is also a turn off.
One thing I didn’t like about Karp’s statement of this being the ultimate method, is he built in multiple ways of making it so if it doesn’t work, its not the method’s fault but YOURS.
If it doesn’t work at first, its because you need to keep trying it, or trying it for longer, or trying it differently (you’re doing it wrong). Later in the book he says the most common reason the 5 Ss fails is you’re not doing it right: Helpful! /s. I think that it is honestly true there is no super cure for babies. I think that there will be pieces of this that will ‘work’ for my family, and pieces that don’t fit under this 5 S framework that will also ‘work’.
I also didn’t like that Karp tried to state benefits of his methods that are not actually backed in the evidence. For example, he says: “Does swaddling reduce SIDS? Probably! If parents who fell asleep with their children on the couch because they were overtired had been using the 5 S’s instead, maybe they wouldn’t have fallen asleep.” (paraphrased) This is a theorizing, not evidence. Similarly, in a section describing how the 5 S’s could help breastfeeding, he states that it is hard to breastfeed a fussy baby. “If the moms were better at soothing, maybe they would not have given up breastfeeding at one month.” Again, theorizing, and both of these statements are kind of offensive and condescending.
He explicitly states a study that finds that sleep sacks had lower rates of SIDS than swaddling, but then goes on to say that he “has concerns with this, since the babies arms are flailing”. In other words, he has concerns about any evidence that doesn’t fit his predetermined narrative.
He has a few weird tangents he goes on about how the “5 S’s” saves lives by saving babies from being shaken or abused by parents. This felt jarring in a book that is likely to be read by parents who probably have no intent on ever harming their babies. At the very least, it could have been written better. Like other claims, it is unsubstantiated.
He says that swaddling reduces postpartum depression (PPD), because colicky babies have higher rates of maternal PPD and that swaddling reduces colick. But nowhere does he show evidence, as far as I could tell, that there are studies showing swaddling reduces colick. If he could, that would certainly be compelling and interesting and by implication could indeed help with PPD.
However, researchers who looked into this apparently did not find evidence of his method working vs a control: “In 2010, researchers studied the effects of video instruction concerning swaddling, side positioning, white noise, jiggling, and sucking on parents’ ability to calm fussing babies. The results against a control group were statistically insignificant compared to traditional methods.” (Wikipedia).
In British Columbia, swaddling is actually not recommended under their Safer Sleep guidelines.
I personally have an intuition that any baby comforting regime that doesn’t explicitly start with “Is the baby hungry?” (or, is there some other unmet need) is foolish. If an adult was crying, I’d probably first try to find out if something is bothering them before jumping into a systematic routine. I also personally have an intuition that there is no ‘magic pill’ to getting babies soothed and to sleep, and each baby is unique in which of the techniques/methods will work (though I’d love if he could test this using science and show to the contrary, it would make parenting MUCH easier I’m sure).
I don’t doubt that some of these techniques work some of the time (and I’m sure I will put them in my roster of things to try when I’m struggling to get some quiet time with my own newborn soon). I have a Dohm White Noise Machine that I myself find comforting to sleep with; I will try it with baby. I have one or two swaddles to try, and several sleep sacks to see which works best for my baby. I currently only have a bouncer but if my baby is only comforted by fancy rocking, I’m sure I’ll be up late looking at fancy rockers (and subsequently getting targeted ads following me everywhere promising me comfort).
So a note to future, sleep-deprived me from my clueless child-free self: Try some from the 5 S’s, try some others, talk, sing, and cuddle baby, and know that sometimes the baby just won’t stop crying and it isn’t your fault. Someday, baby will grow more, learn to sleep more; this is a temporary phase.
The Happiest Baby on the Block and the Snoo
Something really interesting about The Happiest Baby on the Block: When this book first came out in the early 2000s, Karp used his website to sell the book, video training on his methods, and training. His website looked something like this (Wayback Machine).
Nowadays, though, it looks like this (happiestbaby.com). And is primarily used to sell the SNOO Smart Sleeper. Sprinkled throughout The Happiest Baby on the Block book, Karp had mentioned parents can turn to a “smart sleeper” to turn to their sleep woes. Now, the SNOO is the ULTIMATE smart sleeper.
When I first got pregnant and started reading about what we would need to look after our baby, the SNOO would come up in some online chatter as a must have. The SNOO implements Karp’s 5 S’s and is indeed affiliated with The Happiest Baby. It is also $1500 (!!!!) and is only used for the first ~6 months of a babies life. It can be rented, which presumably brings the cost down. But this is insane!
Karp successfully rebranded The Happiest Baby to match the Silicon Valley glossy tech aesthetic and is now part of the tech industry. This is just so interesting to me, how the original book, rebrand, and SNOO invention. The New York Times writes a bit about it here, and I’d seen a more interesting post somewhere on the internet but have since lost the link.
Conclusion
I don’t think this book is worth reading because it is verbose, the evidence overstated and weak, and not super interesting. However, I think it is worth having Karp’s 5 S’s in your repository of things to try when baby is screaming and you want to try helping baby sleep. I think it will work for some babies, not for others, and that is okay.
EDIT: Notes after having a baby
My son really liked being swaddled for a while (we dropped when he started showing signs of rolling, but he didn’t actually end up rolling until a month after we’d dropped it), but only using funny ‘arms up’ swaddles (example: Love to Dream swaddle) and we still use white noise to help him sleep. He never really took to a pacifier, and he never really liked swinging motions (though he did love napping in baby carriers when we were on walks). As soon as he could roll himself over, he started sleeping on his stomach. So some of these S’s ended up applying really well to our kid, some didn’t.
All that said, after we got out of the initial Tiny Newborn stage, where he’d needed to eat every 2-3 hours and woke up screaming and we were all exhausted, he generally has slept pretty ok. I think that’s just his innate nature. He goes through pretty nasty sleep regressions every 3-6 months, but otherwise just seems to be okay at night sleep. Naps, however, are a different story…
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Uncompelling Beauty & The Beast type story. I didn’t buy the romantic chemistry AT ALL. Apparently later books get better? But I’m not interested enough to try.
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
(tw physical & domestic abuse)
I actively disliked reading this book. Not just the trauma the main character experienced, but the sci-fi multidimension world, and how the societies were set up (felt like forced dystopias to just make the setting super shitty, but kind of unrealistically so). They were frustrating to read about.
And then abuse and stuff. Wasn’t into reading this.
Octavia’s Brood, multiple authors
This is a science fiction collection by multiple social justice activists dedicated to one of my favourite authors, Octavia E. Butler. Its a neat idea, but I think the delivery comes across uneven and weak as a whole.
Part of the challenge comes in that some of the contributors to this work aren’t science fiction authors, so while I’m sure they have interesting ideas to share, they have not (yet?) developed a way of telling them in interesting ways within the framework of a science fiction story. Or maybe its the nature of the stories being short stories that is the challenge. I’m very picky and a bit defensive of the genre; I want something I read to have an interesting level of depth, complexity, and nuance. It could also be that some of the social justice writing sees the world as very black/white without the nuance I have come to enjoy in some of the deeper science fiction stories. The stories here often feel like they are observing something bad that happens in some part of society today, that is already at a precipice of changing/activism trying to change, but instead envisions what could happen if instead that bad thing spread out to all of society. I find this slightly uninteresting to read about.
There are some stories that are particularly interesting throughout but as a whole I didn’t really enjoy this short story collection. I ended up not finishing this short story collection, because unlike one of Octavia E. Butler’s own short story collections I didn’t know what I was going to get as I started each story: Something enjoyable, or something feeling unfinished, or even something conceptually inconsistent or unnuanced.
With a baby due in literally a week when I read this, I felt it of higher value to try reading something that had me wholeheartedly hooked throughout.
Next Year, for Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson
This was a kind of sad book about a couple trying non-monogamy. Kathryn and Chris seem to love each other, have solid communication, have strong relationship history. But Chris has a crush on someone else, Emily. Kathryn encourages Chris to pursue this crush. The book follows what happens.
I’m not a huge fan of how the author writes dialog, and there is A LOT of dialog in this book. The characters are interesting enough. The book deals with some interesting enough topics around relationships and friendships (there is a side plot of Kathryn drifting apart from her best friend that felt very painful to me). It all felt a bit sad because Kathryn and Chris started the book with not a lot of friendship outside of their relationship (so, pretty codependent). Lots of emotional conflict in this novel.