Mommy Maven: Books to live By

Maven: a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. The word maven comes from the Hebrew, via Yiddish, and means one who understands, based on an accumulation of knowledge.

Ok, so I'm definitely, definitely not an expert on being a mom but I do feel like I've gained better understanding by accumulating knowledge through different books, parents, and experience. If you know me, you know I love nothing more than passing on that knowledge. So I say I almost fit the bill.

I'd love to start posting information that I've learned and felt has been vital to my parenting skills and most certainly my sanity. For my first post I'd like to give a list of books that have been most helpful to my learning and that I'm sure I unknowingly quote in most conversations(after a while I can't remember if I read something somewhere or if it was my own genius...;)

So here's a short list of books to get me started in my Mommy Maven posts.

Twelve Hours Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old - Suzy Giordano (An absolute must for us on sleep, scheduling, and good habits).

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child - Marc Weissbluth (A good companion to the first for further info, ideas, and problem solving).
- A partner to this book is Your Fussy Baby which we used more as a reference for problems.

Children's First Steps - A. Lynn Scoresby (Child development, awesome.)
- Bringing Up Moral Children
- The Real Power of Parenthood: How to find and use it successfully
- In the Heart of a Child (I love anything and everything by this man on parenting and marriage alike, he also has a great website/blog with discussions, further material etc).

Positive Discipline: The First Three Years - Jane Nelsen (Most books don't address discipline for babies so I love this one, it helps you gain better understanding from a child's perspective).

Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World - H. Stephen Glenn (Title says it all, this book is great).

Slow and Steady Get Me Ready - June R. Oberlander (Gives developmentally appropriate activities for each week of life from birth until age 5...sort of an at home preschool).
- Things to Do with Toddlers and Twos - Karen Miller (Similar to above, just more at home "trash to treasures" sort of crafts.)

Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferules,

without words or anger, without bread or money.

If you approach them, they are not asleep;

if you seek them,they do not hide;

if you blunder, they do not scold;

if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you.

~ Richard De Bury ~

Please post any advice, words of wisdom, books, or whatever you've found helpful so we can all share and grow together as amazing women and mothers!