Stuff Every Dad Should Know by Brett Cohen

Stuff Every Dad Should Know by Brett Cohen
Buy Stuff Every Dad Should Know by Brett Cohen at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Home and Family
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: What you, the dad, should do to turn your feral bawler into Ferris Bueller.:
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 144	Date: May 2012
Publisher: Quirk Books
ISBN: 9781594745539
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For an object lesson in how important the little things are, consider this book's title. This is not one of those collections of trivia or whimsies for fathers to appear cool to their children (ten great variations on tag; 6,000 good records with which to ween your daughter off Justin Bieber), it's not that kind of knowledge on offer. Here instead is practical information on rearing your own little thing, and in a quiet way this pocket diary-sized volume has the cojones to expect to stick around being useful for a generation, as it starts at budgeting for children in the first place, and goes from the actual birth to marrying them off.

There's practical information on burping and changing nappies, a selection of books for sharing (as if OUR list was not the be-all and end-all), and more emotional considerations as the child ages, such as dealing with failure and sibling rivalry. Some of the advice is just disgusting (peanut butter and jam sarnies - the practicalities; setting the first potty up in the back garden), some is obvious, some is too American, bust mostly it's very sensible. The writing from Cohen is crisp enough for you to imagine all of these life stages (including the three ages of the Birds and the Bees talk) being passed, and with flying colours.

Of course being such a small book there is room for more on some subjects, such as teen nutrition perhaps, and there's too much optimism at times too (sleep actually mentioned where sleep-overs are concerned). But for a book packing in a lot of stuff every dad should do (the little thing I should change about the title), this certainly is a good primer. I expect it to be quite regularly thumbed through at couples' ante-natal classes.

For a different approach to Parenting 101, we found How Not To F*** Them Up by Oliver James bore a lot of sense.

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