Click any of these model children for an excerpt from The Perfect Baby Handbook
Ensure your infant sleeps all night with these cutting-edge European methods
Camouflage the figure problems of the recently born with expert fashion tips
Want to raise an infant who’s anything but routine? Adopt this daily agenda
The new secret to finding a bewilderingly special moniker for your child
–Alison Stridelmann of San Francisco, California
My new-parent friends were going nuts coping with the increasing societal pressures to raise this mythological ideal child. I thought they could use some comic relief.
Q: Did it ever occur to you that your friends might want a mythological child? Like a very young Poseidon?
You’ve got me there. Perhaps I’ve been presumptuous.
–Valerie and Misha Borodin of Seattle, Washington
Most experts define a perfect baby as “a superior infant whose name is either Ava or Bartholomew.”
Q: Isn’t that definition a bit narrow?
Yes. That’s why Dr. Martholobew Smith, an associate professor at Yale University, insists that a “perfect baby” is simply a child who’s been given every opportunity to pursue flawlessness and a doctorate at Yale.
–Peter K. Ninton of Brooklyn, New York
That depends: Do you have a baby?
Q: Yes.
And a passing interest in perfection?
Q: Me? Nah.
Are you sure?
Q: Hold on, let me ask my wife: Honey, do I have an interest in perfection? Uh-huh…oh, right. [Pause.] Apparently, I once spent eleven hours getting ready for a movie.
What was the issue?
My hair wouldn’t lie flat.
In that case, this is the book for you.
–Cecile Schoen and Webster Civet, of Atlanta, Georgia