New Parents Survival Guide: Introduction

I’ve often been asked, “Why don’t babies come with a how to manual?”

After years of answering the same question, I thought it would be a good idea to share my experiences and knowledge specifically with new parents in mind.

This is meant to give parents a resource to save you time, money, and stress. If you read the entire book it will answer the most common questions new parents ask. The book is intended to make it easier to understand what your doctor means and why they say the things they do. It will hopefully also bring a little lightheartedness to parenthood. Remember when you were a kid and you swore you were going “to be cool” and not as uptight as your parents? Being a parent can be fun. It’s best to enjoy parenting as it happens instead of just looking back at it fondly when it is all over.

Many parenting books can be too complicated, boring, or misleading to new parents. When I was preparing to be a first-time parent and read the par- enting books, I had difficulty even as a pediatrician finishing reading any of the books from start to finish. I would have rather pulled my own teeth out than read what seemed more like a textbook or owner’s manual for a computer. Some of the books were so lengthy that by the time I would have gotten the entire thing read my kid would be graduating from high school. Often the books also seemed to mislead parents by putting things in very black and white terms, when in reality there is a large variation in the normal development of each child. This book is designed to help first-time parents who know very lit- tle about caring for babies, nor much about medical care. It contains all the details I would share with you if I had unlimited time to teach you about your child. This is not intended to be an all-inclusive pediatric textbook but merely a parent’s guide. There are numerous ways to properly care for your baby. The information contained here is based on my successful experience as a pediatrician and father; however, your pediatrician may have medically sound recommendations not contained within this book.

If you are reading this, you are either a parent or about to become one. Congratulations! Enjoy every minute. Babies do not stay young for very long. Remember new parenthood comes with lots of mistakes. Mistakes do not make you a bad parent and these happen to all of us. As we go through this book together, I will share some dumb things I have done along the way. Just remember that even the people who wrote the boring books about parenting have screwed things up too. I sure would like to see how their kids turned out … since they are so smart. Throughout the book you will find “Kaden’s” thoughts or logs. These show what was going on in our house while various developmental stages were happening.