Cribsheet: Unlock Data-Driven Insights to Help You Parent with Confidence from Birth to Preschool

Erica A.: This book is absolutely perfect. It is so easy to read every single chapter. The nuances of the days are so well described.

Every chapter has a "bottom line" which you can go back to in order to remember the key findings from the chapter.

Just an absolutely fantastic parenting aid.

United States on Nov 17, 2023

Amy Longoria: This book was very easy for me to read as the author included my type of humor in it
, which had me laughing from time to time. Things I was on the fence about, I now feel more comfortable making my decision.

United States on Oct 28, 2023

KasKas: The media could not be loaded.  Very interesting, I think the first part about pregnancy was better though. I think this is good information on high level :) for first time parents I recommend to pair this book with ‘your baby week by week’ that is a bit more deep dive into details :)

United Kingdom on Oct 28, 2023

H. Mason: As a fellow human who loves a critical examination of data and studies, I enjoyed listening to this book. I missed her voice since she read her first book in the audio version, but got used to the new reader’s voice. Information was valuable and made me feel better about decisions I’m making as I prepare for my first child, so it’s worth the read. Thank you author!

United States on Oct 16, 2023

K. Poon: I read and re-read this book. Each time I read the chapters was a great reference in the anticipation of my child’s development.

I recommend all first time parents to read this and read it slowly and revisit the chapters during your child’s development. Oster is a great narrator and makes the early child rearing years calming, reflective, and enjoyable.

Thank you from our family to yours.

United States on Oct 04, 2023

Amazon Customer: Being a scientist myself, I absolutely loved reading the book. The author tried to stay as neutral as possible, and while some statements were still opinion-based, the evidence is mostly presented in a rather unbiased manner (unlike many pseudo evidence based parenting books out there, trying to bend any evidence to fit a narrative). Moreover, the book is super easy to read, I basically swallowed it in a couple of days

Germany on Aug 19, 2023

Emily: Great overview of everything on my mind as a scientist and first time mom of a three week old. Quick read and provides sources if you want to dig deeper.

United States on Mar 28, 2023

CGN: The author makes a lot of fanfare about drawing unbiased conclusions from the data to help people make an informed decision. For much of the book this is true. But, like all of us, she still has her personal preferences. Unfortunately these bleed through into some of the chapters.

Worst of all is the chapter about sleep training. It starts, "Good news: sleep training works [for the parents]". Is that a neutral framing? No. It betrays the fact that she doesn't like the idea of having to get up throughout the night. In the same chapter, she also claims there are big effects in the studies, then goes on to cite a small, non-randomised study in support of this. In other chapters she (rightly) slates such poor quality studies, so why is she floating this one as brilliant evidence all of a sudden? Biases, that's why!

Also, the data the author refers to doesn't acknowledge the differences in role/level/behaviour of cortisol in stress response vs circadian regulation over a child's first 6 years (search Lyndsey Hookway "the cry-it-out debate" for an overview).

The cherry on the cake in that chapter: the final piece of "proof" the author offers that sleep training is a...

United Kingdom on Mar 26, 2023

Caldi: Review from a fellow data nerd mum.

Emily Oster has made an admirable attempt at exploring published data on an incredible amount of topics to do with baby and young child rearing. She also draws from her own experience (or at least compares her experience and decisions to the data she describes, leading with a few anecdotes).

Unfortunately, I find the review suffers from a few issues. First, the build-up of topics is not very logical. For a non-US audience, starting the book off with a discussion around circumcision is a bit of a shocker. I think starting off with the data on the vitamin K shot, prolonged cord clamping, or some other issue directly following child birth, would have been a warmer welcome into the book.

Second, in her attempt to cover every possible topic, she touches on most topics a bit lightly, especially as the book progresses, almost as if she ran out of time. If course, on many topics, there isn't much data to begin with, making this quite a challenge (as is clear from the majority of conclusions - most things don't really have conclusive data). I find the downside is that a few rather important issues which do have reasonable scientific...

United Kingdom on Sep 06, 2020

Emma V: I haven't read Expecting Better, Emily Oster's previous book, but had high hopes for Cribsheet. Each chapter addresses a different area of parenting "dilemmas", relating to a topic that parents often worry about - like, how to feed baby (breast/bottle), is baby's sleep normal and what to do about it, are vaccines safe, etc etc. Oster's writing is snappy and digestible, but she takes a very cool-headed, neutral approach, trying to look at what the scientific evidence says about each topic rather than present a particular "way of doing things", as many parenting books do. She steers clear from giving recommendations, unless there is overwhelming evidence for benefit and very little risk, like in the vaccines chapter. There are occasional personal anecdotes which liven things up, although sometimes I think she goes overboard a bit on this. The breast/bottle feeding chapter will probably raise quite a few hackles, because Oster's summary of the scientific evidence is very different from what the "orthodoxy" says - she basically notes that there is solid evidence that breastfeeding helps prevent infections, and may have some other benefits too, but many of the longer-term proposed...

United Kingdom on May 19, 2019