There are some baby books that are for adults and not babies and I hate them. People get them as gifts for our baby, meaning well, but they just take up space on our bookshelves and never get used.
Replies
My mom did a pretty good job getting my baby book started, and when I got older I took over updating the book. I think I took over in high school, but I'm not certain. Either way, it was nice to get it after my sister died (she got it when mom died), and I love seeing what my mom wrote.
jun 12, 2025, 2:02 am • 1 0 • view
I think the OP is talking about fiction books, but I love your story of your family baby book and how it was created and passed along.
jun 12, 2025, 4:16 am • 1 0 • view
Before my SIL had kids, she gifted us Seinfeld ABCs and it was very long and boring for a toddler and not even that funny for us adults
jun 12, 2025, 1:05 am • 4 0 • view
Which ones are you talking about?
jun 11, 2025, 10:32 pm • 1 0 • view
Probably Go the fuck to sleep. I’ve given it to new parents myself ;)
jun 12, 2025, 12:55 am • 0 0 • view
You can give them to any library.
jun 12, 2025, 4:24 am • 0 0 • view
What makes a good baby book?
jun 12, 2025, 1:52 am • 0 0 • view
Donate them
jun 11, 2025, 11:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Oh come on GTF to sleep is a classic.
jun 12, 2025, 12:47 am • 17 0 • view
😂😂🤣🤣
jun 12, 2025, 2:58 am • 1 0 • view
One of my favorite children’s book is Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree I think you’ll like it Happy new baby ❤️
jun 12, 2025, 3:50 am • 0 0 • view
Don’t read them, send them back, get over it.
jun 12, 2025, 12:34 am • 0 0 • view
Isn’t it more about the sound of your voice? I don’t find myself having to talk to subcompact humans a lot, but when I do I try to engage them on the topic of comprehensive liability insurance.
jun 12, 2025, 8:52 am • 0 0 • view
Put them in a Free Library
jun 11, 2025, 11:45 pm • 1 0 • view
It's a different thing than reading them baby books, but pretty much anything you read or say to your baby is better than nothing. Minus that most of those books are made to make you cry!
jun 12, 2025, 4:21 am • 1 0 • view
The (fkn) Giving Tree 😭
jun 12, 2025, 4:27 am • 1 0 • view
I think it is completely possible to make developmentally appropriate baby books about social issues! But that is not what these are.
jun 11, 2025, 12:13 pm • 17 0 • view
Is it too early in your parenthood journey for the donation purges? Because I feel like regifting and donating is an important survival skill new parents have to develop.
jun 12, 2025, 1:36 am • 4 0 • view
Yeet them and take back the space for things you do want.
jun 12, 2025, 12:18 am • 0 0 • view
Such as?
jun 12, 2025, 12:54 pm • 0 0 • view
I don’t want to call out specific children’s book authors. It seems mean.
jun 12, 2025, 12:59 pm • 1 0 • view
I get that. Just curious. Been through a zillion board books in this house. Not your topic but FWIW The Rainbow Fish is some bullshit.
jun 12, 2025, 1:02 pm • 1 0 • view
Wait what’s wrong with The Rainbow Fish? I haven’t read that one in years.
jun 12, 2025, 1:03 pm • 0 0 • view
I think it encourages giving up pieces of yourself and literally taking yourself apart just to make others happy and like you. It's not about sharing or being generous, it's about others being selfish, IMHO
jun 12, 2025, 2:45 pm • 2 0 • view
Our library has a give/take shelf for books. Why keep them if you don't want them?
jun 11, 2025, 10:36 pm • 2 0 • view
The books that are transparently about how insecure the parents are about whether their kids love them just raise my blood pressure.
jun 11, 2025, 11:05 pm • 6 0 • view
When your baby is a little older, you'll start to hate kids' films that deliberately include jokes just for adults - not finely honed humour that appeals to all ages, but little wisecracks and digs that could even be considered age inappropriate. Cheap, and a betrayal of the kids, I always felt.
jun 11, 2025, 12:17 pm • 4 0 • view
That’s why I loved the “Curious George” movie—it was unapologetically sweet and 100% geared for children.
jun 11, 2025, 10:49 pm • 2 0 • view
...and the music by Jack Johnson was absolutely wonderful.
jun 12, 2025, 12:59 am • 2 0 • view
Curious George was one of those films that calmed any upsets - very happy memories of it. As a grown up, even on the occasions I couldn’t fully attend, it always felt like a little holiday.
jun 12, 2025, 4:47 am • 0 0 • view
I actually don’t mind those! A mix of appeal is fine.
jun 11, 2025, 12:24 pm • 2 0 • view
I hate the sniggery, knowing jokes in the middle of what's otherwise a kids film. Family films, that's different.
jun 11, 2025, 12:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Like every kid's movie has boomer jokes about phone addiction? It does get old.
jun 11, 2025, 12:59 pm • 0 0 • view
It’s when the jokes seem to take the piss out of the kids’ innocence that I get really annoyed!
jun 11, 2025, 1:32 pm • 3 0 • view
i used to work at a children's bookstore and i think those were like 50-70% of the board books
jun 11, 2025, 12:13 pm • 10 0 • view
About 1/3 of our board books are unfit for purpose.
jun 11, 2025, 12:24 pm • 5 0 • view
That drives me *nuts*. And my least favorite genre of this is the ones that are supposed to be teaching social justice-y concepts but do so in a way that is not *remotely* effective for young children. I take those values too seriously to want to fake it like that!
jun 11, 2025, 2:41 pm • 11 0 • view
In general, I don’t like the books whose purpose is to create the adult they will be rather than be for the kid that they are.
jun 11, 2025, 2:45 pm • 9 0 • view
It depends on what you mean by that? I think teaching children things in service of the adult they will eventually grow into is legitimate and often important. But you have to be teaching them as they are now, and not be addressing a person you’re just imagining.
jun 11, 2025, 4:00 pm • 4 0 • view
Why don’t you donate them to a library?
jun 12, 2025, 1:49 am • 6 0 • view
Pro tip: since the baby can’t read, just make up your own stories for the pictures (only works if pictures are worth looking at). I used to just trace shapes and faces with my finger and talk about them.
jun 12, 2025, 2:11 am • 4 0 • view
Can we exempt ‘go the fuck to sleep ‘
jun 11, 2025, 12:15 pm • 14 0 • view
That one is fun!
jun 11, 2025, 12:16 pm • 6 0 • view
Samuel l Jackson historic acting youtu.be/teIbh8hFQos?...
jun 11, 2025, 12:25 pm • 16 0 • view