Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool (The ParentData Series)

I love this book and Expecting Better! I genuinely feel like I've learned so much and been able to develop opinions on topics that would have otherwise taken me days to research and try to parse information together. I love the way Emily writes! I think this book is extremely useful for all expecting parents and will be recommending it to friends and family in the future.

Emily Oster uses the same data-centered approach in Cribsheet that she did in Expecting Better. (You can read my review of that here.) That’s why I loved Expecting Better so I knew I’d love Cribsheet too. Oster wrote Expecting Better after she had her first child and drew on her own experience of pregnancy for that book. She would present the data and explain why she made the choice she did but was never judgmental about it. The choice was ultimately left up to the reader. Cribsheet is the same, only Oster wrote it after the birth of her second child. She knows from personal experience that all children are different and what works for one may not work for another – even if they have the same parents. Cribsheet covers the most heated topics related to a baby’s first year – sleep training, breast vs. bottle, vaccinations, working vs. staying home, etc. The section on toddlers includes walking, talking, potty training, discipline, education and more. Like in Expecting Better, she presents the various approaches to each topic and then her analysis of the available data, without judgment. My oldest child is 16 years old and my youngest is 18 months old. A lot has changed in 16 years. One example is that it’s now recommended that children sleep in the parents’ bedroom for their first year. This blew me away! My older kids were in their own room within weeks of birth and this was pretty much standard at the time. After reading Oster’s section on sleep, I understood why the recommendation had been put into place and was able to decide how long I thought it was appropriate for my new baby to sleep in my bedroom given the available data. I hope that Oster continues to write books as her children grow. I’ll be first in line for all of them!

Liked seeing all the data but some of the most important ‘myths’ were left open ended and the data was inconclusive

I read expecting better and loved the book, so I was ready for my next steps of reading books about what to expect after the baby is born. I had some books gifted to me that I started reading and they would just make me stressed and overwhelmed. So I knew I should give this one a try. This book is the BEST. Emily feels like a best friend and therapist at the same time, giving helpful data-based answers without exaggerating, making you feel stupid or just giving you advice without any basis for it. I love that. It’s so easy to read, it makes me feel supported as opposed to stressed, and makes me feel better equipped to become a mother soon. I love the chapter that talks about post birth effects on the mother (as those are not talked about enough). Thank you! I highly recommend.

Much better book than the others I had ordered. This is data driven and far better explained.

This book is excellent. I loved it. I’d put it on my recommended reading list for new parents who want to know what the research really says about the first three years of parenting, from the perspective of a data-driven economist. The book takes a unique approach by combining an economist toolkit for reviewing and evaluating research with practical, experience-driven tips and advice on the first three years of parenting. The book tackles a number of critical issues that often trouble and confuse new parents. We’ve all heard so much “conventional wisdom” in both directions on many issues that we don’t know what to think. Oster comes to the rescue by providing an empirical evaluation of the research on each topic. For each topic, Oster presents (1) what published research is out there, (2) a methodological evaluation of that research, (3) the core takeaways from the research, and (4) how to think about the findings in the context of other practical considerations of being a parent. Overall, the book is a brilliant yet accessible synthesis of empirical research, parenting tips, real-life experiences, and humor that any parent can appreciate and learn from. I loved it and finished it within a few hours of receiving it earlier this week. Highly recommended! DeForest (Economist) Boston, Massachusetts

One of the most overwhelming things as a parent is making decisions about what will be best for your child and your family. I’ve definitely had my preferences about sleep training, baby feeding, and discipline, but I think every mom doubts herself sometimes and wonders if she’s really doing things the “right” way or if she’s completely screwing up her child. This is why we needed Emily Oster’s book. Her pregnancy book Expecting Better was like a guidebook for me during pregnancy, and although I had to wait 2 years for this parenting book, it was definitely worth the wait. Oster simply outlines the research behind many of the big parenting decisions, including how and what to feed our children, vaccinations, discipline, education, screen time and potty training. Just like in Expecting Better, she doesn’t give advice but simply outlines the research, allowing the reader to use that information to guide their own decision making. As a mom, I’ve loved reading about which decisions don’t really seem to matter much in the long run, and which I should take a little more seriously. This book helps me feel like an informed parent, which allows me to feel more confident as a mother. But my favorite part of this book is that in almost every chapter, Oster doesn’t just discuss how parenting decisions affect the children, but the parents as well. Almost all parenting advice that you read only talks about the children, but what about us? We are also impacted by our parenting choices, and we should consider our own well- being when making any decisions about our family. I hope that this sparks a new trend in parenting advice, where parents are allowed to think about themselves also.

As physician scientists we are both very data-driven, and really wanted to like this book. It is mostly okay, 60% of the content is common sense (like the vaccination section) and stuff we already knew, 30% of it basically boils down to “you can do things either way and there’s no tangible benefit or harm”. A few chapters were on contentious subjects where every parent has a different opinion (like sleep training - we would never use the cry it out method and mainly think this sleep training business is just a big racket). The breastfeeding section is what we disliked the most. It’s a touchy subject for many women, and a lot of mothers feel judged and/or guilty (sometimes rightly) about their decision to breastfeed or not, and the anxiety surrounding breastfeeding doubles when going back to work and pumping gets involved. It’s perhaps due to this reason that the author gets really defensive in this chapter, and the advice is based more on personal experience and not really evidence-based. For instance, she talks about how difficult pumping is, and her bottom line is “pumping sucks” - that’s not paraphrased, it’s literally what’s written in the end of chapter summary. You can imagine that it will potentially make the reader anxious about pumping too, if they’re a first time mom. What she should’ve said is “pumping sucks - for me”. There, fixed that for you. There are a few more things in the book that are defensively written and not really data-driven, though I’m having trouble recalling exactly what they were. I do identify with how the author and her husband kept records of everything like feedings and diapers and growth charts, and made graphs with the outputs and analyzed them. It’s the sort of thing we like to do as parents as well. Overall, it’s a fresh perspective. A lot of childcare books, particularly the older ones, have a paternalistic, this-is-how-it’s-always-been type angle, as opposed to scientific basis. However; like I said, this book’s impact is marred by the author trying several times to pass of her personal experiences as evidence-based. Our personal decision was to stick to a up-to-date reference book written by physicians (the AAP’s Caring for your newborn and young child), though this book was definitely an interesting read.