Following is a guest post by Amy Webb, Communications Director for the Arkansas Department of Human Services.  Healthy Families is an initiative of DHS.

About two weeks into my maternity leave with my daughter, I remember thinking, “My friends lied to me.” I wasn’t filled with adoring, loving thoughts of motherhood; and my baby wasn’t quietly cooing in my lap as we “enjoyed” our time together. All she did was cry for HOURS, and no amount of swaddling or attempts at bonding seemed to make a difference.

Depressed and worried I was doing something wrong, I turned to people like you – moms who had blogs filled with real stories about their own parenting struggles, depression, colic and concerns of not bonding immediately with their
children. The relief was immediate. I wasn’t a horrible mother, and my baby girl wasn’t malfunctioning. (And in fairness to my wonderful friends who supported me during that time, I just don’t think they wanted to scare me before the baby
was born!)

Eventually, my family settled into a routine, and I took a job as the Communications Director for the Department of Human Services. One of my first assignments was to help revamp the Healthy Families program, which included the Happy Birthday Baby Book. The first line to moms in the book read, “Congratulations! Having a baby is a special and exciting time.” I thought, “The author forgot, ‘hard’ and ‘exhausting!’” Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE being a mom, and my now toddler is an amazingly sweet and funny child. But as rewarding as parenting is, it is hard work and people don’t always tell you that before you have children. So I wanted to make sure the new Happy Birthday Baby Book gave moms all the information they needed to be a successful parent and have a healthy child.

The women working with me on the book – and its sibling Happy Birthday Baby Book: Book Two – agreed, and we added all kinds of new information. There are sections for dads and grandparents. There’s information about how to cope with
crying and how to create a crying plan. We also added information on domestic violence and created an entire new book dealing children from birth to age 5. Oh, did I mention that I also changed the opening line. “Congratulations! Having a
baby is one of the most exciting yet difficult journeys you’ll ever take.”

I must echo Beth’s comment: Healthy Communities Are Every Blogger’s [or Arkansan’s] Business. Tell your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc. about www.HealthyFamiliesNow.net and the Happy Birthday Baby Books.

I hope you enjoy the books as much as we enjoyed working on them and the new Healthy Families website. There is tons more information in the books and online than I could ever mention here. The books are free and easy to order online. And you don’t have to be a parent or a mommy blogger to get one. Order them for your pregnant friends, neighbors and co-workers. Or just tell them, to read them online.

Amy Webb, is a former journalist, who has been working for the Department of Human Services and the Healthy Families campaign for just over a year.