Showing titles in Motherhood

In Aunt Mary's Guide to Raising Children the Old-Fashioned Way, Amy S. Peele reflects on her childhood and discovers memories both painful and funny that yield meaningful life lessons. In this book, Peele delves into her sometimes chaotic, sometimes simple childhood, and reflects on the peace of mind she experienced at Lake Wawasee every summer.

Creator, mother, lover, and social media phenomenon Tova Leigh explores what the hell you are supposed to do when you find yourself living a life you don't remember signing up for. I was bored, angry, tired, and sad. I felt all alone yet I had nothing to complain about. I had a good job, a husband who wasn't shagging his assistant, three children who apart from being the occasional a**holes were pretty good kids; a house, a dog, and everything else we are told as little girls we should aspire to. But inside, I was growing restless.

Others Like Me is the story of fourteen women around the world, from different walks of life, who don't have children. It's also the story of why Nicole Louie had to find them and what they taught her. Part memoir, part exploration of childlessness through candid conversations, this book showcases the many ways in which people find fulfilment outside of parenthood.

Mind Over Mother is full of light bulb moments of realisation. It will have you learning, laughing and loving yourself through the journey of motherhood. You will learn to address the most important conversation you'll ever have - the one inside your head, because investing in your mental health is the best gift you can offer yourself and your baby.

Dustin Lance Black wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Milk and helped overturn California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8, but he grew up in a conservative Mormon household outside San Antonio, Texas. His mother, Anne, was raised in rural Louisiana and contracted polio when she was two years old. She endured brutal surgeries as well as braces and crutches for life and was told that she would never have children or a family.

Motherhood is full of little highs: the smell of a newborn baby's head, the feeling of a small hand holding yours, the infectious sound of laughter, first words, first steps, the first day at school, endless tiny but significant hints of the person your child is to become. But motherhood is not without its lows either: tears and tantrums (your child's and your own), fears, self-doubt, sleepless nights, and that's not to mention the mum fails.

For people who happen to be parents (or might be soon). Because for every turdy nappy you sadly deposit into a gag-reflex-inducing bin, there's a moment that's less sh*t around the corner. This is not a audiobook that will help you grow (or raise) a human successfully. But this is a book that might, if you're not too emotionally battered - and can see through the permanent eye twitch - help you laugh a little more than you cry. But that's not guaranteed.

Discover tried-and-tested techniques to help you relax during labour, including mindfulness, breathing exercises and visualization, so that you can have an empowering, positive birth.

There are so many issues surrounding starting school that parents struggle with: selecting the best school for their child (and knowing the right things to look for and questions to ask), preparing their child emotionally and practically for starting, knowing what must-haves to buy (and what not to buy!), navigating school settling-in procedures, coping with behaviour regressions at home, friendship issues, anxiety, tricky behaviour at school, school refusal and homework. This audiobook will address these.

What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury.

The first 40 days after the birth of a child offer an essential and fleeting period of rest and recovery for the new mother. Based on author Heng Ou's own postpartum experience with zuo yuezi, a set period of “confinement”, in which a woman remains at home focusing on healing and bonding with her baby, The First Forty Days revives the lost art of caring for the mother after birth.

The Parenting Map is a practical fail-safe, whole-family programme designed to help both adults and children heal and thrive. We parents are plagued with doubt. In an ever-changing world our children must adapt constantly to the demands of the modern world - and we as parents do too. From social media pressures, generational expectations, and with a mental health crisis sweeping the younger generation, parenting can be a challenging and uncertain journey through uncharted territory.

For women, a glass ceiling at work is not the only barrier to success - it's also the emotional labour at home. Women have become accustomed to delegating, advocating and negotiating for themselves at the office, but when it comes to managing households, they still bear the brunt on their own shoulders. A simple solution is staring them in the face: negotiate with the men in their personal lives.

HypnoBirthing founder Marie Mongan knows from her own four births that it is not necessary for childbirth to be a terribly painful experience. In this audiobook, she shows women how the Mongan Method works and how parents can take control of the greatest and most important event of their lives.

After the death of her three-day-old son, Teddy, in 2016, Elle Wright never expected what came next - that the path to bringing home a living child could be so winding. Elle's loss was followed by three and a half years of endless waiting. She and her husband waited for test results, hospital appointments and so many new procedures to help with their experience of secondary infertility. This wait included friends announcing their happy news whilst Elle was experiencing three rounds of IVF and the loss of three more babies.

Following on from the success of Your Baby, Your Birth, renowned birth and parenting Coach Hollie de Cruz applies her much-loved approach to the first year of motherhood. This empowering and thought-provoking book will guide you through the ever-changing landscape of your baby's first year, month by month, and will help you feel assured that you know your baby best.

It's about time we made motherhood more diverse.... When Candice fell pregnant and stepped into the motherhood playing field, she found her experience bore little resemblance to the glossy magazine photos of women in horizontal stripe tops and the pinned discussions on Mumsnet about what pushchair to buy. Leafing through the piles of prenatal paraphernalia, she found herself wondering: "Where are all the black mothers?".

When first published in 2001, it divided female critics and readers. One famous columnist wrote a piece demanding that Cusk's children were taken into care, that was she was unfit to look after them. Oprah Winfrey invited her on the show to defend herself and the book as protests grew about its honest, gritty account of the misery of those early months. It is a seminal, stand-out book on the complications of being an ambivalent mum in an age of white-washed, Annabel Karmel'd new families.

When Deb Moerke and her husband decided to become foster parents, they never imagined how their lives would change. And never did they imagine their worst nightmare coming true: Their five-year-old foster daughter, Hannah, murdered at the hands of her birth mom, Karen. The Moerkes were overwhelmed with horror and grief. And just when they didn’t think they could bear any more, Deb received a phone call from Karen in prison. Facing a life sentence for Hannah’s murder, she was pregnant. And Karen had an incredible request: Would Deb take her unborn baby and love it as her own?

As someone who used to put themselves last - doing everything she thought was "right" for her children and family, but not really listening to what her body and her spirit was begging for - Amy understands firsthand the overwhelm and complex range of emotions that mothers face. Amy’s background as a journalist set her on the path to uncover all that she could about the latest research on matrescence, the transition a woman undergoes when she becomes a mother. She now shares what she’s learned in the hope that it will help you navigate this stage of your life.