This book is the follow-up to Expecting Better and takes the same evidence-based approach to informing young parents so they can make better decisions in the first years of their child’s life. It covers everything from breastfeeding to swaddling to choosing a daycare to vaccinations. Unfortunately, for many of these topics there simply isn't a lot of research to inform our decisions. It was particularly dissatisfying that the impact of many early life decisions (e.g. TV or no TV, nanny vs day-care) are often evaluated only as differences in school test scores as pre-teens. This is probably because it is an easily available standardized metric, but leaves us hanging with the impact of these decisions on mental health, social skills, and, dare I say, happiness throughout life.

It was however interesting to learn that many of the claimed benefits of breastfeeding on development can actually be explained by differences in the education and socio-economic status of the mothers. This applies to many other of these decisions. The final advice from the book is the best “Just try not to think about it”. For most things, decisions that may seem huge and scary, worrying is not helpful. Being a present, calm, attentive parent - and being ourselves - is the best thing we can do!