Cribsheet
2019 • 354 pages
Ratings27
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings27
Average rating4.3
From the author of Expecting Better and The Family Firm, an economist's guide to the early years of parenting. “Both refreshing and useful. With so many parenting theories driving us all a bit batty, this is the type of book that we need to help calm things down.” —LA Times “The book is jampacked with information, but it’s also a delightful read because Oster is such a good writer.” —NPR With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even greater challenge: decision-making in the early years of parenting. As any new parent knows, there is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and strangers on the internet. From the earliest days, parents get the message that they must make certain choices around feeding, sleep, and schedule or all will be lost. There's a rule—or three—for everything. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the trade-offs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision? Armed with the data, Oster finds that the conventional wisdom doesn't always hold up. She debunks myths around breastfeeding (not a panacea), sleep training (not so bad!), potty training (wait until they're ready or possibly bribe with M&Ms), language acquisition (early talkers aren't necessarily geniuses), and many other topics. She also shows parents how to think through freighted questions like if and how to go back to work, how to think about toddler discipline, and how to have a relationship and parent at the same time. Economics is the science of decision-making, and Cribsheet is a thinking parent's guide to the chaos and frequent misinformation of the early years. Emily Oster is a trained expert—and mom of two—who can empower us to make better, less fraught decisions—and stay sane in the years before preschool.
Reviews with the most likes.
I wish this had been out when my son was younger - the data-based format is strongest in the early chapters, where there have actually been studies on things like sleep training. A lot of the later chapters are basically “there haven't been enough studies, probably whatever you decide to do is fine,” which is reassuring in a way but not all that helpful when it comes to decision-making. I think this would be good as a gift to new parents but it's of limited utility once your kid is older. Oster is still a very entertaining writer, though, and makes the potentially-dry subject matter both funny and fun to read.
I really like Emily Oster. I like her writing style, her attitude towards parenting, and her ability to sort through academic papers and provide me with easy to understand summaries. Expecting Better really helped me navigate my pregnancy, and while much of the information in Cribsheet is less conclusive, it gives me a lot of comfort to know where research has/hasn't been done, and the fact that the conclusion she draws in almost every scenario is, “This will not break your child or damage their adult life.” Highly recommended for fellow anxious first time parents.
Man, do I love Emily Oster books. Your first book in this series, expecting better, was incredibly formative for how we are experiencing our first pregnancy. It was so helpful to get clarity on the multitude of opinions that exist around pregnancy and childbirth.
However (as she herself says in this book) after delivery, there's a lot less absolutism we can glean from data around raising kids. There are often multiple approaches that work better depending on who the kid ends up being, which you will never know before you actually have the kid. And for that reason this lost a star. Admittedly, these are for reasons beyond Oster's control, and where she is able to deconstruct and correct the predominant narrative, she happily does so; but it feels like the main point of this book is more to help parents trust themselves and trust their guts that there are multiple healthy routes to guide your kids down, and so as long as you have good intentions and due diligence, you will be fine.
I appreciate this message, and I find it really helpful. If anything, the data deconstructs the idea that there is one right way to raise a kid. But I feel like these books are sold under idea that they will help parents make data-driven decisions about their kids. But for nearly every topic she covers, the data are conflicting, lacking, inconsistent, or have some flaws. Again, this is helpful to know. But it's not why someone would open this book. She does give more information to help with the decision-making process, but in an individualized way, and not in an objective way.
So in the end, I leave this book feeling more at ease with entering parenthood, even if I don't necessarily feel more equipped to do so. Because no one can actually be fully prepped before hand. And that lesson made this book absolutely worth reading.
