Fortunately there is. The Expectant Father is that 3,523rd book. It is a well-written, month-by-month explanation of what is going on both emotionally and physically with the mother, the baby, and you the father. At 250 pages plus references, it is packed with information while still being portable. It doesn't necessarily go into a great amount of detail on each subject, but it mentions most important things at least in passing, and you can always refer to the Internet or What to Expect... (which your partner will undoubtedly have on her nightstand) for more details.

Be forewarned: this book is slightly new-agey at points. But hey, Brott is just offering suggestions that the reader is free to ignore. Overall this is a useful reference written with the father-to-be in mind as a principal reader, not an afterthought.


Good information; a lot to think about   March 13, 2000
 222 out of 232 found this review helpful

My wife bought this book for me during our fourth pregnancy. We both enjoyed reading it - I to read the perspective of another father and her to see if I was doing things the way I was supposed to. All in all, the book provides a broad spectrum of information for fathers-to-be - including everything from the physical and emotional changes occurring to the mother to how to plan for your financial future as a dad. The Expectant Father got me to thinking on many occasions and served as a starting point for many pregnancy-related conversations with my wife. Two other books I highly recommend are: A Child is Born which contains outstanding pictures and explanations of the development of the baby, and We're Pregnant!, a great book to read together because it was written by an expecting couple and provides a true-to-life rendition of the ever-changing life of expecting parents.


The best book on pregnancy for guys that I've read   December 31, 1999
 71 out of 73 found this review helpful

The author has the idea that the sooner dads get involved in being parents the better they'll be and that the best time to get involved is during pregnancy. I know this is true for me. I know it sounds funny but I felt like I was a real participant in the pregnancy. Yeah, my wife was carrying the baby but I was going through a lot of psychological stuff too and this is the only book out there that dealt with what my issues at all.

I read this book twice--the first time when my wife and I were expecting our son and then again during the months before the daughter we'd adopted from Korea arrive. Both times I was amazed at how calming and educational and really funny this book was. I'd never been a dad before. Never even held a baby before my wife got pregnant and I wasn't too sure about what to do. Of course it's all pretty natural, but this book really made me realize that all the worries I was having were normal and it gave me lots of great ideas of ways to be more involved in the process. It also got me thinking about the kind of father I wanted to be and whether I wanted to be the kind of dad my dad was or some other kind.

Being a father is really important for me and this book has made me a much better dad. I've been reading the next books in the series and they're just as reassuring and helpful.

Thanks, Mr. Brott!

PS I've caught my wife looking through the book and she's told me that it helped her understand me a lot better and made her see how important it is to me to be a good parent.


This is the ONLY book to buy for expectant dads   October 1, 2001
 50 out of 51 found this review helpful

My wife just had our first child a few months ago. While she was pregnant two of our friends gave me copies of The Expectant Father, which they recommended highly. I have to agree. I'd been reading my wife's pregnancy books, which were absolutely useless--they barely mentioned dads at all except to say that I should be sensitive to my wife's needs, which I already knew. And I'd checked out a few of the other pregnancy books for dads but they were so condescending and insulting that I practically gave up reading altogether.

This book is completely different. It deals with men's concers in a straightforward, sensitive, funny way. It's filled with very insightful information that helped me make sense of the feelings I was having during my wife's pregnancy and activities that I could do to stay involved. It's not always easy to take the stand to be an involved dad and this book helped me realize that I wasn't alone in what I was going through. I know that this book has helped me be a better father than I ever would have before. I'll be giving it to all my buddies whose wives are expectant. AND, I've already started the next book in the series, The New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First Year. It's great too!


Some good thoughts, some a little obvious   November 4, 1999
 47 out of 51 found this review helpful

As an expectant father for the fourth time, I read this book wondering what it would tell me that I didn't already know. For the most part, I felt I had instinctively done many of the things that The Expectant Father seemed to feel I needed to be told to do. In a way, it was reassuring to hear that I was actually a politically correct dad - at times though, I felt like the authors were stating the obvious. Bottom line, I think the idea behind The Expectant Father is great and if men read this book with the thought that it might provide them with some additional good ideas to try while their wife is pregnant, then it can be a very worthwhile book. A book I read right after finishing The Expectant Father was We're Pregnant!, a realistic and often funny look at life as expectant parents from both the father and the mother's perspective. The father-to-be's comments weren't always politically correct but speaking from experience, they were honest. Both books are good resources for father's and father's-to-be. When my first child was born eight years ago, it was hard to find any resources for men and now there are several. Read them and enjoy.