Shelter -- A design opportunity -- Who are the people in your neighborhood? -- How much negativity is helpful? -- Registering : what you really need in the nursery -- The thousand-dollar question : what kind of stroller are you? -- The disgrace that is the U.S.'s leave policy -- How we think about work -- The truth about cats and dogs and babies -- Blogs and confessions -- TV or not TV? -- Scary stories -- Travels with baby -- Marital relations -- Those first weeks back from leave -- Cars and trucks and things that go -- Other people's kids -- Share and share alike -- The great sleep-training debate -- Anxiety-free potty-training -- Postpartum and post-postpartum depression -- Sex and marriage -- Language development craziness -- The almighty nap -- Danger! -- School days -- Becoming like our parents or not -- First friendships -- Cracking the whip -- How many kids should you have? -- Food -- Defending junk -- Booze and drugs (for you, not the kid) -- Time to eat -- A modest proposal : bring back home economics -- Snack attack -- Allergy alert days -- The evil turkey sandwich -- The breastfeeding wars -- Eating together as a family -- Love -- The name game -- When you're pregnant, it takes a village to judge you -- A reality check for working parents -- Here's to babysitters -- Birth stories -- Labor plans and realities -- Real abuse -- The hard parts -- Party time! -- In praise of stepchildren -- Separation anxiety -- Regretting your life -- Vaccination paranoia -- Taking the kids along -- The great circumcision debate -- Toddlers in love.

From the founding editor-in-chief of Babble.com, a complete and completely reassuring guide that will show parents how to abandon their insecurities, trust their instincts, and enjoy raising a happy, considerate child. What's the right way to parent? Venture into any playground or online message board and you'll find as many opinions as there are adults present. Every subject -- from sleep training to time-outs to pacifiers -- has its supporters and detractors, and every viewpoint can be backed up by a truckload of research and statistics. It's enough to reduce a new parent to tears, if the 3 a.m. feedings and endless recitations of Goodnight Moon aren't doing that already. Yet there is a way to end the madness, to calm your fears, and to make those precious early years a source of joy for both of you. Ada Calhoun, a young mother herself, infuses Instinctive Parenting with the smart and candid approach that earned Babble an ASME nomination for General Excellence Online and close to two million readers. Her simple yet profound advice: Find what works for you and your family and ditch the anxiety and judgment. Everyone wants to do what's best for his or her child, yet the fact is there is no universal "best." Whether you start solids at four months or eight, whether you co-sleep or Ferberize, whether Junior's mac'n'cheese is dayglo orange or 100 percent organic matters a lot less than other parenting books -- and other parents -- might have you believe. What does matter is providing the few absolute essentials (love, food, shelter) while teaching your little one how to be a kind, responsible human being. With its compelling mix of entertaining, hilarious fi rsthand accounts and refreshing common sense, Instinctive Parenting will show you how to do that -- and even show you how to retain your sanity, your friends, your sense of humor, and your personal life in the process.