Your One-Year-Old by Ames, Ilg and Haber

As parenting books go, this was a good one. I liked that it wasn't a 'how to' book but more observational.

I particularly liked the first chapter, which summarises how many children behave at this age (based on research by qualified individuals). This is good when you've never had kids before, nor been around kids of this age very much (or recently). It answers all those, "Is this normal for this age? Should I be expecting something different?" questions which are often instigated by shouting/throwing food/kicking etc.

It talked some about developmental milestones and 'techniques' which tend to work best at this age but none of it was too preachy and instead focussed on getting through the difficult stuff with minimal damage to all.

I love the Q&As at the end which had to do with sleep - an issue which tormented me for the first year or so of my dear daughter's life (now I see how unnecessary this was, the torment anyway) - which basically said, "Sorry your kid's not sleeping! If you're not getting enough sleep, get some help for yourself."

I have already bought "Your Two-Year-Old" - it's sitting on the bookshelf, waiting.