'Emily Oster is the non-judgemental girlfriend holding our hand and guiding us through pregnancy and motherhood. She has done the work to get us the hard facts in a soft, understandable way' Amy Schumer Parenting is full of decisions, nearly all of which can be agonized over. There is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and strangers on the internet. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the trade-offs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision? Armed with the data, Oster finds that the conventional wisdom doesn't always hold up. She debunks myths and offers non-judgemental ways to consider our options in light of the facts. Cribsheet is a thinking parent's guide that empowers us to make better, less fraught decisions - and stay sane in the years before preschool.

From the New York Times bestselling author of THE FAMILY FIRM, comes a practical exploration on how second (and later) pregnancies can feel different to the first time around. On what can feel like uneven terrain, navigating or planning a pregnancy after complications can plunge you into an unfamiliar world of decision-making; conversations with medical providers can be hard and scary, and with a lack of information given to you, it can feel like you aren't given any choices about what happens to you at all. Second pregnancies can present you with a whole new set of questions and perspectives on your experience, body and wellbeing. And with around 50% of pregnancies experiencing complications, this means as much as half of later pregnancies carry this extra layer of difficulty. Will the experience of conception and pregnancy (good or bad) be the same this time around? How do you navigate pregnancy and birth with a child already around? Perhaps above all: how can you make the best decisions for yourself? THE UNEXPECTED will answer these questions, and many more.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Chart a child's path with less stress and more optimization for healthy habits and future success' Time From age 5 to 12, parenting decisions get more complicated and have lasting consequences. What's the right kind of school? Should they play a sport? When's the right time for a phone? Making these decisions is less about finding the specific answer and more about taking the right approach. Along with these bigger questions, Oster investigates how to navigate the complexity of day-to-day family logistics. The Family Firm is a smart and winning guide to how to think more clearly - and with less ambient stress - about the key decisions of these early years.

From the author of Expecting Better and The Family Firm, an economist's guide to the early years of parenting. "Both refreshing and useful. With so many parenting theories driving us all a bit batty, this is the type of book that we need to help calm things down." -LA Times "The book is jampacked with information, but it's also a delightful read because Oster is such a good writer." -NPR With Expecting Better, award-winning economist Emily Oster spotted a need in the pregnancy market for advice that gave women the information they needed to make the best decision for their own pregnancies. By digging into the data, Oster found that much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom was wrong. In Cribsheet, she now tackles an even greater challenge: decision-making in the early years of parenting. As any new parent knows, there is an abundance of often-conflicting advice hurled at you from doctors, family, friends, and strangers on the internet. From the earliest days, parents get the message that they must make certain choices around feeding, sleep, and schedule or all will be lost. There's a rule-or three-for everything. But the benefits of these choices can be overstated, and the trade-offs can be profound. How do you make your own best decision? Armed with the data, Oster finds that the conventional wisdom doesn't always hold up. She debunks myths around breastfeeding (not a panacea), sleep training (not so bad!), potty training (wait until they're ready or possibly bribe with M&Ms), language acquisition (early talkers aren't necessarily geniuses), and many other topics. She also shows parents how to think through freighted questions like if and how to go back to work, how to think about toddler discipline, and how to have a relationship and parent at the same time. Economics is the science of decision-making, and Cribsheet is a thinking parent's guide to the chaos and frequent misinformation of the early years. Emily Oster is a trained expert-and mom of two-who can empower us to make better, less fraught decisions-and stay sane in the years before preschool.

The instant New York Times bestseller! * One of Behavioral Scientist's Notable Books of 2021 "Emily Oster dives into the data on parenting issues, cuts through the clutter, and gives families the bottom line to help them make better decisions." -Good Morning America "A targeted mini-MBA program designed to help moms and dads establish best practices for day-to-day operations." -The Washington Post From the bestselling author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet, the next step in data driven parenting from economist Emily Oster. In The Family Firm, Brown professor of economics and mom of two Emily Oster offers a classic business school framework for data-driven parents to think more deliberately about the key issues of the elementary years: school, health, extracurricular activities, and more. Unlike the hourly challenges of infant parenting, the big questions in this age come up less frequently. But we live with the consequences of our decisions for much longer. What's the right kind of school and at what age should a particular kid start? How do you encourage a healthy diet? Should kids play a sport and how seriously? How do you think smartly about encouraging children's independence? Along with these bigger questions, Oster investigates how to navigate the complexity of day-to-day family logistics. Making these decisions is less about finding the specific answer and more about taking the right approach. Parents of this age are often still working in baby mode, which is to say, under stress and on the fly. That is a classic management problem, and Oster takes a page from her time as a business school professor at the University of Chicago to show us that thoughtful business process can help smooth out tough family decisions. The Family Firm is a smart and winning guide to how to think clearly--and with less ambient stress--about the key decisions of the elementary school years. Parenting is a full-time job. It's time we start treating it like one.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting meets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist and author of Cribsheet, The Family Firm, and The Unexpected disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they’re expecting.

Pregnancy—unquestionably one of the most pro­found, meaningful experiences of adulthood—can reduce otherwise intelligent women to, well, babies. Pregnant women are told to avoid cold cuts, sushi, alcohol, and coffee without ever being told why these are forbidden. Rules for prenatal testing are similarly unexplained. Moms-to-be desperately want a resource that empowers them to make their own right choices.

When award-winning economist Emily Oster was a mom-to-be herself, she evaluated the data behind the accepted rules of pregnancy, and discovered that most are often misguided and some are just flat-out wrong. Debunking myths and explaining everything from the real effects of caffeine to the surprising dangers of gardening, Expecting Better is the book for every pregnant woman who wants to enjoy a healthy and relaxed pregnancy—and the occasional glass of wine.

This classic psychological case study focuses on one talkative child's emerging ability to use language, her capacity for understanding, for imagining, and for making inferences and solving problems. In wide-ranging essays, scholars offer multifaceted linguistic and psychological analyses of two-year-old Emily's bedtime conversations with her parents and pre-sleep monologues, taped over a fifteen-month period. In a foreword written for this new edition, Emily, now an adult, reflects on the experience of having been a research subject without knowing it.