16 Honest Parenting Books You’ll Actually Want To Read In 2024

Help! I'm a New Mom: A First-Time Mother's Guide to Mastering Newborn Care and Postpartum Recovery

Being a new mom can be as scary as it is exciting. After all, you're doing something you've never done before — care for and raise a tiny human you're responsible for. What this easy-to-read book does is break down the first six months of navigating your newborn's life while you're postpartum.

Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, From Birth to Preschool

Emily Oster wrote Cribsheet to help redefine what we know about parenting little people. From being bombarded with conflicting opinions to tackling sleep regression, she provides data that'll help you feel less frazzled as you make decisions that actually work your kid.

Bringing Up Bébé

American born Pamela Druckerman took on parenting the French way and shares her discoveries in this cute little gem.

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year

Anne Lamott tells the story of her first year as a mother to a baby boy. She was single, 35 and a recovering alcoholic. Her honest descriptions of new motherhood are smart and up-roaringly hilarious.

The Montessori Baby

There's a reason The Montessori Baby almost has a five star rating on Amazon and it has everything to do with parenting from a place of love and respect rather than being authoritative. The pages are filled with practical advice that'll help you create a loving environment that creates safe places for your little one to learn and play.

New Dad Baby Hacks: A Contemporary Guide for Dads, Strategies For The 1st Year That Every First Father Needs

New Dad Baby Hacks is another book that's honest, but doesn't include confusing language. It helps first-time dads understand what they can expect during their children's first year of life and makes them feel included in the process.

The Organized Home for New Parents

Ría Safford is not only the queen of organization, but she's a married mom of three kids. Basically this means she totally understands that life can get messy when you've just brought home a newborn. In The Organized Home for New Parents, she makes it easy for you to keep your life and home organized so that you're not scrambling to find things you need. Better yet, she checks in with you and your partner before diving into the many ways you can keep your home organized as new parents.

Not Your Mother's Postpartum Book: Normalizing Post-Baby Mental Health Struggles, Navigating #MOMLife, and Finding Strength Amid the Chaos

Raise your hand if becoming a mother for the first time threw you for a curveball — I'll go first. Since I experienced a lot of moments that felt jarring during postpartum, I wholeheartedly recommend reading Not Your Mother's Postpartum Book because touches on things some new moms feel ashamed to admit they're experiencing. Maybe it's the millennial in me, but I'm not a fan of pretending moms never have mom guilt, bad days, or sore bodies after giving birth.

Enough About The Baby

This book is asking for new moms to step away from the red cape that says 'superwoman' on the back of it. It's full of personal experiences from Becky Vieira and other moms who share things they struggled with as moms. Not only that, but Enough About The Baby includes tips to help lessen any confusion and frustration that may come up.

Self-Care for New Moms: Thriving Through Your Postpartum Year

If you listen to society and some people who have a more traditional view of motherhood, you may feel selfish for even thinking about taking care of yourself. But Self-Care for New Moms expertly shares why it's essential for not only you, but your baby.

Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts: A Healing Guide to the Secret Fears of New Mothers

Listen moms — you're human. Sometimes that means you have scary thoughts that aren't on par with the clean-cut version of motherhood we've been shown in religious settings and pop culture. What Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts does is normalize what we consider to be intrusive thoughts instead of us penalizing you for not feeling positive about mothering a little person.

To Have and to Hold: Motherhood, Marriage, and the Modern Dilemma

I bought this book at the beginning of 2023 because I was this close to walking away from my dream of being happily married with kids. It was frustrating and felt like the women in my immediate family were saying the same thing — "It's hard, so you better get used to it." Uh, where is the support when you need it?

So, I turned to To Have and to Hold, and found solace in Millwood's words about how to navigate things when they're really hard. It's a beautiful book that shows how complex marriage and motherhood truly are without making the reader feel like there's something wrong with them for not being able to readily handle tough moments.

How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

Some couples are lucky because they may not experience friction in their romantic relationship. However, How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids is for anyone who's wondered how they can go from being head over heels with their partner to being irritated after their baby is born. It covers why relationships and marriages can feel disrupted after adding a baby to the picture, but also helps couples evaluate the new ways they can approach a plethora of things.

Help! I'm a New Mom: Toddler Edition

I could've used this book when my son a couple of weeks after my son turned one because it seems like the floodgates opened. I knew about baby proofing, but was wildly unprepared for the defiance and temper tantrums that occurred. Help! I'm a New Mom: Toddler Edition does an excellent job of covering the different things you may face during toddlerhood and gives you tools to navigate them.

Why Some Animals Eat Their Young: A Survivor's Guide to Motherhood

Don't let the title fool you — there's no tales of cannibalism in this witty novel. What Dallas Louis does is expose everything that happened once she met the love of her life and quickly gave birth to their children in a short amount of time. Through her experiences and learned lessons, she helps you find ways to laugh when life feels chaotic as a mother.

How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids

This book is for all my moms and parents who are trying their hardest to learn how to regulate their emotions. Here's a bit of truth — sometimes it's really hard to do when you're dealing with little people who definitely don't know anything about navigating their emotions. How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids is a loving wake-up call for all parents so we can learn how to model the behavior we actually want to see in our kids.

It's one of my favorite books that I've put into practice during the past year and can see a difference in how my toddler responds to things. He's able to name his emotions in a calmer way because, well, his dad and I are also calmer. If you don't buy any other parenting book this year, let it be How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids.