Raising Your Spirited Baby

A Breakthrough Guide to Thriving When Your Baby Is More...Alert and Intense and Struggles to Sleep

By: Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

“Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, Ed.D., brings her expertise in raising spirited children to help you understand and soothe your spirited baby. Her research-based, parent-tested strategies will help your baby sleep better and develop a calmer, more resilient brain and nervous system. I'll be recommending this for all new parents.” —Dr. Laura Markham, founder of AhaParenting.com, and author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids

From the beloved bestselling author whose award-winning parenting books have sold over 1 million copies—an indispensable guide to the unique needs of Spirited Infants™.

Does your baby bursts into tears when another baby in the same situation sleeps soundly?

Do the strategies your friends swear by not work with your baby?

Do the upsets and shrieking come out of seemingly nowhere and take forever to subside?

Moms and dads who answer “yes,” are the parents of a spirited infant. Spirited infants are the outliers—the exceptions to the “rules,” the extraordinary ones. They arrive in this world genetically wired to be alert and intense. Spirited babies put parents to the test and raising them takes special skills and patient perseverance.

In this groundbreaking new book, beloved parenting expert Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, Ed.D., offers her findings in the fields of neuroscience, sleep, temperament, self-regulation, attachment, and parent-child interactions, and shares what she has learned from hands-on experiences with families to bring this much-needed perspective to the parenting of babies under eighteen months of age. She provides extensive research, parent-tested strategies, and a clear shame-free, guilt-free guide to nurturing and caring for spirited babies.

Kurcinka reveals a plan for success with a 5-step Spirited Baby™ Methodology to give parents—and everyone who supports them—a how-to handbook that will be embraced as a simple, trusted companion.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2015 Mary Sheedy Kurcinka (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

The only book that has helped!!

I have read/listened to SO MANY parenting and sleep books trying to figure out how to handle my high needs baby, and this is the only one that actually has helped!!! I'm so grateful to have found this book, it makes parenting this little firecracker seem manageable!

Often unrealistic

Overall, most of the general spirited child info can be found in articles online these days. But I'm giving this book and the author extra credit for being one of the first.

The routine-instilling methods are insanely elaborate and were unnecessary for my daughter. It was much more important to make sure she eats animal protein and fruit or starchy veg instead of the crackers, cereals and sugar nonsense people give to their children.

Misleading title - “spirited” is not accurate

Spirited, if you look it up, means “full of energy, enthusiasm, and determination” - which my baby is. He’s loud and brash and really know what he wants. He tries to grab everything forcefully. He’s ridiculously strong for his size too. He already wants to crawl and walk and gets frustrated as he can’t do it yet at only 4 months…

She defines it as “hyper sensitive”. This book is about how to handle hyper sensitive babies. Not spirited babies. My baby is not hyper sensitive. He doesn’t cry randomly because of a loud noise, he’ll just get startled for a second, look, and go back to what he was doing. He isn’t scared of strangers, he smiles at them. He’s good natured.

Anyway, this book was a total waste if my time. As the title is not accurate whatsoever. You don’t get to reinvent words randomly. 😤🙄