Book Review: What to Buy for Your Baby
A useful guide to what you should buy and what you just don't need, as you prepare your 'nest' for your new baby
Posted: 16 December 2008
by Debra Stottor
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What to Buy for Your Baby by Liat Hughes Joshi and Caroline Cosgrove
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Easy, accessible style, and loads of practical advice |
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May not be enough specific product mentions for true shopping junkies |
| Features: |
A guide to all the baby equipment you’ll ever need – and what you won’t. Each section has shopping lists and tons of helpful advice |
| Price: |
£9.99 RRP |
| Contact:
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Crimson Publishing (www.whiteladderpress.com) |
The concept
Compiled by two mothers, one of whom runs Baby Concierge, a nursery advice service, you’d expect this book to cover absolutely all aspects of buying stuff for your little treasure – and it does.
Organisation
With sections covering everything from pre-birth essentials and furnishing the nursery to pushchairs and car seats, if it’s on sale, these two have it covered.
The tone is light and friendly and the advice is honest and very much born (scuse pun) of experience. Between them they have trawled the shops so you don’t have to, looking at items large and small, mega-expensive to bargain-basement cheap.
At the beginning of each chapter is a shopping list that has been helpfully annotated by the authors to indicate whether each item is essential, optional or not worth bothering with. They then go into greater depth, looking at all the different options, and why some are better or more suitable for different lifestyles than others.
As a veteran of two babies, the advice sounds sensible to me and their approach is pragmatic (they know we can’t all afford top-of-the-range equipment all of the time).
Being a book, the authors couldn’t put current models and prices in, as they change so frequently and would render the book useless in a short space of time. Instead, they offer something that will be just as useful in a few years’ time as it is now, quite a challenge when talking about consumer goods.
They have recommended particular brands which are consistently good, whether it’s on price, quality or style, leaving you to make the final decision. If you want someone to tell you exactly what to buy, right down to price and stockists, this probably isn’t for you, but used in conjunction with a current issue of one of the baby magazines and a trawl around the internet, it will offer sound, unbiased advice.
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The
ThinkBaby verdict
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A really useful book if you don’t know where to start with baby equipment as it sorts the wheat from the chaff and gives helpful recommendations.
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Usefulness: | 5/5
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Readability: | 4/5 | 
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Value: | 4/5 |
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