Good to Be Grand Book Review

Good to Be Grand: Making the Most of Your Grandchild's First Year by Cheryl Harbour

For many families, grandparents are an integral part of life, but even the best parent/child relationships can be strained during pregnancy and beyond if there are mismatched expectations.

As part of the process of expanding my resources for grandparents, I recently added this book to my lending library. A quick, enjoyable read, it was a good balance of empowering grandparents to embrace their own style or caregiving while also educating on the things that have changed in recent decades. It breaks up baby's first year into several sections and discusses the joys and concerns of each age. With information about bonding, developmental milestones, car seats, introducing solid food and more, each chapter gives a refresher of things that are still the same and then presents developments that they may not have heard about while babies were off their radar. There's even a section on suggestions for picking your grandparent name! Good to Be Grand also contained valuable advice on shifting gears from "Parent" to "Grandparent" while managing to not be condescending or trite. It affirms the importance of their wisdom and experience, but also invites the parents of new parents to consider what they want their relationships to look like and to be mindful of how they react when their children make decisions they disagree with.

Doulas can support not just the baby, but the whole family as they take on new roles and adjust to shifting circumstances, grandparents included!

If you'd like to buy this book as a gift for a new grandparent in your life while also supporting local booksellers and my community projects at no extra cost, you can buy this book here!