Last night, we went to our Sunday School Christmas party. We had a blast. Breakfast for dinner, a white elephant gift exchange, and good friends. We left with full bellies and full hearts.

One young couple in the class are new parents. They were asking us about sleep training books, feeding, and the like. It occured to me that we have somewhat of a canon of parenting books. These are books that we have read and reread often.

Here are some of the books that have been most helpful to us:

Prepare

When I first found out we were expecting, I felt a strange mix of emotions. I have always wanted to be a father, so I was excited. But I felt a bit disconnected from my wife’s pregnancy. I mean pregnancy is a long time. And it ain’t easy. I wanted to be more involved, but I didn’t know how. Enter The Expectant Father. This book was a game changer for me. It’s a month-by-month guide to pregnancy. For dads. Enough said.

Sleep

We call The Happy Sleeper our sleep bible. It’s a great book that has helped us with both of our kids. It’s a gentle approach to sleep training that has worked well for us. I distinctly remember us both reading the 5-minute checks method. We had our first big parenting fight while our firstborn was crying in the crib. My wife was convinced that she couldn’t wait longer than 5-minute check. I was convinced that we had to get him to go to sleep on his own. We argued for seven minutes, and he was out like a light. The rest is history.

No kid’s sleep is perfect, but we’ve been blessed with good sleepers. I will echo one major tenet from the book: an early, consistent bedtime. This has been invaluable to us.

Eat

We did somewhat of a modified baby-led weaning with our kids. Baby-led weaning was all the rage when our first was born. It felt like all our friends were doing it. Meanwhile, our parents generation was telling us to feed him rice cereal. We did a little of both.

We followed The Big Book of Organic Baby Food for both of our kids. The journey for each was quite different. My wife exclusively pumped for our firstborn. He was born a bit early, and we had some feeding issues. Now we know he has a jaw wink that probably made breastfeeding difficult. Once pumping became too much for my wife, we switched to formula. I will say she pumped for about 8 months. It was an incredible feat. In the meantime, it gave me a lot of extra time with my son at night. He and I were roommates for a while. At the time, it felt like a big of a drag, but now I don’t regret it. Time seems to heal all parenting wounds.

Our second child was a different story. He came out of the womb ready to eat. My wife breastfed him for a year exactly, and they were both great at it. It was wild. He was a big baby, and he ate like it.

For both kids, we followed the book’s advice on introducing solids. At about 4 months, we started with blended oatmeal mixed with breastmilk. We then moved to purees, and then to finger foods. And so on it goes.

Again we’ve been blessed with good eaters. One thing I’ll emphasize here: we’ve always eaten dinner together. It’s really helpful to meal plan and cook together. Also, as a parent, you want the best for your kid. Thus, you want them to eat well. This is great opportunity to adjust your own diet for the better as well. Slowly as your baby learns to eat healthy food, make your food healthier too. You can’t go wrong there.

Play

I don’t really have a book here, but I wanted to mention TV/screen time. We’ve been pretty strict about screen time. The kids don’t have their own devices. One day they will, but not yet. In the past, we’ve loaded a tablet with shows for road trips. But the last time we went to Disney, we didn’t even use it. We got a lot out of books and singalongs in the car.

I digress. Most importantly, we only let them watch TV on the weekends. At that, we only let them watch for two hours total on those days. We’ve been pretty strict about this. At times, we’ve relaxed these rules, for example, when one is sick. But ironically, we’ve found that it can make things worse. When we let either of them watch too much, it seems to make them more irritable. It’s like they’re addicted to it. It takes a few days for them to detox. In all, I think this has really helped us to limit this time. It seems to make them less impulsive and more creative. They have to learn to make their own fun and lead their own play.

Potty

We’re gettting ready to potty train our second child. He’s almost 2, and he’s showing some signs of readiness. We used the Oh Crap! method with our firstborn. As the man of the house, I took the lead on this one. Since our friends aren’t quite there yet, I’ll update this section later.

Discipline

More to come here. We do “time in” instead of time out. They have to be present with us and address the problem head on. We use an old kitchen timer. Repeat offenses mean more time (2.5 minutes, 5 minutes, etc.). It doesn’t always work, but it’s a good start.

We’re still learning here. As our oldest gets older, we’ve added sending him to bed early. This seems to get his attention, since he doesn’t want to miss out. We don’t like doing it for the same reason, but it seems to work.

Conclusion

Parenting is hard. My thesis is that the hard parts come from the adults, not the kids. Being kind to yourself will make your kinder to your kids. In turn, they will probably grow to be kind adults. When it gets hard (and it does often), remember that you’re doing your best. Also, remember that parenting is like the weather in Hawaii. If you don’t like it right now, just wait 5 minutes. It’ll probably change.