Gentle First Year
Gowri Motha
(Harper Thorsons $240)
Gentle isn't a word often associated with the first few months of parenthood. Most new parents would probably choose the likes of hectic, exhausting, scary or over-whelming.
But British obstetrician Gowri Motha says that cultivating a bond with your baby in the early days will make scaling that first-year mountain so much easier - and she insists it will be a gentle climb.
At the root of her philosophy is what she calls the red tent - an ancient postnatal practice from the Middle East and India by which new mothers retreated from the world into a tent where they lived with their baby for the first 40 days after birth.
The practice encourages bonding, and allows the mother to recover fully and the baby to get the best possible start in the world, she says.