Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
 Excellent Book! November 10, 2009
G. Hoff (Knoxville, TN USA)
My wife discovered this book when we had our first child. It was an excellent resource. We have given copies to many of our friends (and now children of our friends) as they have had their first child.
This book has been updated and is often out of print so we have to find used copies. Nevertheless, it is well written and is a very practical guide.
5 stars for content July 6, 2006
Suzanne Mealey (Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada)
I'm happy to see that this book is still being sold. It was my bible when I had my kids over 20 years ago and it's the one book I would give to any woman who is considering breastfeeding. Straightforward, realistic, full of practical tips and loaded with information. Beats any other book on breastfeeding that I've ever read. It's the reason I was able to nurse each of my three kids until they were over a year old.
This is the book that kept me going. June 28, 2004
Gwen K. Stein (Evanston, IL United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
An excellent resource that I turned to many times over the course of almost five years, for solutions to problems as well as just the pleasure of reading such an informative, thorough book. It combines the practical with the scientific. I found it when my second baby was six weeks old. To our surprise and dismay she had lost weight at her first newborn checkup and had continued to gain weight poorly. At each feeding I would nurse her, then pump, then give her a bottle, and by then it would be time to start all over again; she still gained poorly. I had an 19 month old as well, whom I had nursed successfully while working full time. All the time and emotional energy focused on my newborn's feeding could not continue. I was incredibly sad at the thought of having to stop nursing, but it seemed the only choice. I was in the bookstore just before my final decision to stop nursing, and I found this book. It changed everything. I found answers to my questions, solutions to my problems, and the motivation to keep going. I nursed as often as possible, sometimes every hour, stopped pumping, and gave just one bottle per day, around dinnertime, instead of at every feeding. My baby started gaining the way she should. I continued to nurse her for sixteen months. I have Karen Pryor to thank for turning things around. We had a third child two years later, successfully breasfed for almost 2 years. I have given this book to all first time moms along with the baby gift.
The most useful breastfeeding book I found April 10, 2004
sara
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I had a copy of the womanly art of breastfeeding and found it to be long on preaching the joys of breastfeeding and short on addressing real concerns and problems. This is the book I dogeared and referred to again and again. It is practical, friendly, and full of useful information I didn't find anywhere else. There is a long bibliography of sources at the back, but you also get the sense that you are being talked to by experienced realistic moms who are sure you can do this - much more helpful when you feel desperate at 2 AM in the first week than another lecture on how wonderful and easy this is supposed to be!
I nursed my first baby until he was 18 months old, after a very rocky start - took me three days to get him to nurse at all, and then it took 45 minutes to latch him on properly for a while after that! So I really appreciated any guide that admitted how hard it can be to start breastfeeding and gave a wide variety of practical advice on the real problems. I tossed a lot of popular books that carried on about how breastfeeding is easy and natural and wonderful - it was all that once we got over the hard part, but getting over the hard part was when I needed good advice and real facts!
Some of the unusual information included here - baby behavior, innate parent behavior, nursing frequency and patterns, how nursing changes as the baby develops, how to take good care of yourself physically and emotionally. There is a great chapter for working/pumping mothers, and even some advice on how to keep the house tidy enough so it doesn't depress you, with a minimum of effort. Also - getting your milk back when you had to stop nursing for a little while, nursing toddlers, tandem nursing, weaning, pretty much any breastfeeding topic you can think of seems to be covered.
The index is not great (you can't find 'thrush' or 'pain' in it, even though there is a section on yeast infections), but I read the whole book and didn't have much trouble finding what I needed in it after that. Several chapters deal with age specific information ('birth to six weeks' etc) which made it easy to look up problems I was having in that particular time period.
1973-2003 December 4, 2003
Laurel V. Ryan (Grafton, OH USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am purchasing a copy of this for my daughter-in-law,who is expecting a baby any day and is going to nurse the baby. I used this book 30 years ago for my support and information when nursing my first child and I know it will be just as relevant today. I find it fascinating that there are other women who wrote reviews praising this book from using it 30+ years ago. Not many things are as worthwhile today as in they were in the 60's and 70's. That must make this book a CLASSIC!!!!!!!Laurel Ryan, Grafton, Ohio
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
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