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Within days of finding out I was pregnant four years ago, I was buying books. No matter how much people tell you about pregnancy and birth (and, boy, do they want to tell you about birth!), it’s impossible to understand until you’ve been through it. I wanted, I needed, all the information I could get.

After asking for recommendations, scouring the shops and reading all the five-star reviews on Amazon, I had quite a library. I’m expecting my second child now and, between both pregnancies, here are the five books I couldn’t have done without.

1: The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book

My copy is literally falling apart, I referred to it so many times during my first pregnancy. Jennifer Louden’s book is subtitled “A self-nurturing guide to your emotional well-being“, which was enormously important to me. I found that most people seemed to think, because you’re pregnant, you must be thrilled with every development. But I wasn’t. I felt like I was losing myself. I missed my body. I even missed never being “alone.” Louden addresses all of these concerns along with positive issues, like making the most of creativity and spirituality during pregnancy and early motherhood. There’s even a fabulous index, where you can look up a “symptom” such as “Missing my Java” or “Hating my doctor” and be led to the relevant chapters. Highly recommended.

2: Babies for Beginners

Roni Jay establishes the absolute basics of babycare - keep the baby alive at all costs, and try to stop it getting too hungry. Pretty much everything else is either completely unnecessary or a luxury. It was a total revelation in those early post-birth weeks when I was utterly neurotic about everything (I once tasted some expressed breast milk after Harry had refused it. It had curdled. I cried for – literally – two hours).

3: The Baby Whisperer

Roni Jay aside, I generally don’t put much stock in baby “experts” or training methods (even if I thought it was possible to “train” a new baby, I’m not sure I would want to do it), but a friend recommended The Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and Melinda Blau and it was exactly what I needed. There’s quite a selection of Baby Whisperer books now, but all you really need to know is the E.A.S.Y. method for creating a structured – but far from rigid – routine. The second half of the book expands on the method and suggests amendments depending on your parenting personality and the personality of your baby. It really did work like a charm.

4: Mother Shock

I said above that I relied on The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book during my first pregnancy. During my second (current!) pregnancy, I found that I wanted to read a different kind of book. I didn’t want manuals, I wanted memoirs. Like Andrea Buchanan’s Mother Shock. In this collection of essays, Buchanan examines her experience of (mostly) the first year of motherhood, comparing the transition with the culture shock experienced when you move to another country. Buchanan admits things in writing that I barely even admitted to myself in my head. It’s incredibly brave and incredibly comforting.

5: Waiting for Birdy

A memoir that I’ve read twice during this pregnancy (and may well re-read before it’s over). Waiting for Birdy by Catherine Newman is not only one of the best parenting books I’ve ever read, it’s one of my favorite books of all time. It’s the story of a family or, as the cover puts it “a year of frantic tedium, neurotic angst, and the wild magic of growing a family.” The wild magic of growing a family. Isn’t that beautiful? I’ve had that phrase in my head through much of this pregnancy. Much of the focus is on Catherine’s mixed feelings about being pregnant with her second child. Catherine articulates every single thing I’ve ever felt about motherhood. How joyful it is. How painful it is. How everything – everything – is bittersweet. It made me cry. It made me laugh. And sometimes it made me laugh until I cried.

Have your own baby book recommendations? Share them in the comments below.

Photo by jmsuarez.