The New Mum Book
A Survival Guide to the First Year: What Nobody Tells You, and the Bits That Actually Help
The only book in this part of the shop that contains no advice about the baby at all. There are four hundred of those and the reader has been given three. This one is about what happens to the adult: the visitors, four in the afternoon, the invisible list, the fourth month, and going back to work, with every question about the baby pointed at the health visitor where it belongs.
Not out yet. This page exists so the work is visible while it is being made, which is more honest than a placeholder.
What is in it
- The years you could have been born, and what a house, a week of work and a pound actually cost in each of them.
- What has changed since, with the figures rather than the sighing.
- The honest bits about the age, written by somebody not pretending it is fine.
- Quizzes and things to argue about.
- Things you can now say and get away with.
- Around forty pages to fill in, which is the part that survives.
Formats and price
| Format | Price | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hardback | £16.99 | The gift version. Survives being kept. |
| Paperback | £9.99 | The one most people buy. |
| Ebook | £4.99 | Read it, but you cannot write in it. |
Part of Survival Guides, an Home Truths series.
Frequently asked
- Does it give advice about the baby?
- No. None at all: no sleep, no feeding, no weaning, no routines, no development. That is the whole design of the book and it is enforced as a build gate rather than as an intention. Every question about the baby is pointed at the health visitor, the GP, NHS 111 or 999.
- Why is it called The New Mum Book and not The New Mum Survival Guide?
- Because of what people actually type. Typing "new mum survival" into Amazon completes to kit, kit gift and hamper, which is a query for a physical present rather than a book. "New mum book" is a real book query, so it is the title, and the survival guide is in the subtitle and on the series line.
- Is it only for mothers?
- It is written for the person doing the day, and there is a chapter for everyone the standard version leaves out: on your own, an early arrival, a birth that did not go to plan, adoption, second babies, and the partner. The chapter about the invisible list is the one partners tend to read over a shoulder.
- Is there anything serious in it?
- One short chapter with no jokes in it, and it is the most important part. It carries the NHS advice for the moment the crying has gone on too long and there is nobody to hand the baby to, the Cry-sis helpline with its opening hours stated because it is not 24 hours, Samaritans for the hours Cry-sis is closed, and the two-week line between the baby blues and something that needs a GP.