Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #250565 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 266 pages

Synopsis
Mothers know intuitively that the first months of life are vital to the long-term well-being of their children. In this, they are absolutely correct, say authors, Glenn and Janet Doman. But mothers and fathers do not have the information they need to use these first months to their baby's best advantage or to make the first six years of life as stimulating and rewarding as they could and should be. That's because until now, the world has had little understanding of the true potential of a newborn. "How Smart Is Your Baby?" provides parents with all the information they need to help their baby achieve his or her full potential. The authors first explain the newborn's growth and development, including all of the critical stages involved. They then guide the parents in creating a home environment that enhances and enriches brain development. A developmental profile, which parents complete, allows Mum and Dad to track the progress of their child, to determine the baby's strengths and to recognise where additional stimulation and opportunity are needed. Most important, parents learn how to design an effective and balanced daily programme for physical and intellectual growth.

When parents understand how their child develops, they can become the best teachers their babies will ever have. Best of all, this joyous programme brings parents and babies closer together, establishing a life-long bond of learning and love.

Customer Reviews

Hothousing babies - scary stuff!
Oh my goodness! Wouldn't generally give up my time to review something but felt an obligation to balance the 5 star reviews above.

As an Educational Psychologist, mother of three and someone who is passionate about optimising child development, I was rather perturbed by this book. Indeed, I would strongly suggest that anyone set on buying it should ensure they obtain a balanced view of child rearing by agreeing to read something like 'Einstein Never Used Flashcards' before making up their mind about following some of the advice contained in here.

The daily checklists here are insane and overwhelming - here's just a brief example for a 3-6month old:

shining a light on and off for your baby 10x daily
showing black and white pictorial cards 10x daily
banging blocks to startle your baby 10x daily
stimulating a vital response 12x daily

(and that's just half of the daily sensory programme - bear in mind there's a daily motor programme too and lots of kit to make, such as crawling tracks around your bed, a neck brace, a climbing ladder).

In fact, I wonder what SIDS researchers would make of the picture on page 71 where the newborn is encouraged to sleep face-down on a crawling track around the parents bed, with a blanket the child could easily slip down underneath and with not enough room each side of the baby for her to roll back to her back or free herself from being entangled in the bedcover??? The rationale for this is that "precious time will be wasted" (direct quote) is an infant is left to just sleep, without making the most of this opportunity to direct any sleep movements towards crawling behaviour. Worrying stuff!!!!

The authors come from a background of working with brain-injured children, and I imagine that the repetitive drilling of some of the sensory activities might be warranted and help recovery in certain cases of special need (I have had experience of LOVAAS type drills having a similar beneficial effect with toddlers with autism) HOWEVER I would certainly be highly concerned about the artificiality, intensity, lack of spontaneity and adult-led rather than child-directed nature of this programme.

If you're need any further convincing on the 'hothousing' aspect to this book, just check out the other titles from these authors - e.g. 'How to Give your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge' or 'How to Teach your Baby to be Physically Superb'.

I certainly believe in scaffolding an infant's development through a wide range of developmental opportunities (preferably spontaneously embedded in child-directed play and general day to day life) but this book does not fulfil such aims.

Read with caution!!! Inflict/Impose upon your precious baby at your own peril!!!!!

Wrong Title :(
I'm expecting my first child in 8 weeks and received this book (and How to teach your baby encylopedic knowledge) from my brother. At first I was highly sceptical because of the title. I expected it to be a book about pushing children into areas of skill or expertise at the worst or performing endless tests so a parent can brag to neighbours about how intelligent their child is at the best. How wrong I was and how delighted I am that my clever brother gave me these books.

The idea of the book IS to use testing on your baby, but not for bragging rights. Tests include things like eye constriction monitoring (at the start of the babies life) to balance monitoring (a month or two later). The aim of the tests is to see where along the route of NATURAL human progression the child is so we can spot anything suspect and fix it so the child doesn't lag behind its own best potential. (If a childs eyes aren't responding efficiently to light then they aren't going to be able to see fine images properly and hence be slow developing reading. If their hearing isn't great then they aren't going to be able to speak properly or develop language correctly)

With regards to the book itself-it is an easy to understand book in a pleasing format. Topics/tests build upon each other and the reasons for them are explained easily. A number of tools are required to perform some aspects, but all are cheap to make and instructions are given in very good detail. I haven't started yet but I'm looking forward to collecting the pictures of butterflies and ladybugs that the book suggest.

Any parent who loves their child and wants to take an active role in developing them, instead of letting it happen by accident, will like this book too.

Great book!
This book is really really good! My baby has not been born yet, but I have all the materials ready that I have made, which the book recommends to use. I really agree with the Glenn Doman methods and have used his other book with my older daughter. I am excited to see my baby learn things in an environment which enhances her opportunities and experiences, instead of just learning by accident, as the author says most babies end up doing.

There are some things like banging blocks and pricking your the hand of the baby to check reflexes, which I will not be doing, but there are also so many good ideas. You can pick and choose what you like and feel comfortable with.