All the experts say books are a great way to help siblings prepare for a new baby brother or sister, but which ones are tried and tested? I quizzed parents to find out which ones worked and why. The age, race and gender of the characters affected many parents' choices. Parents also looked for books that reflected their child's interests.

Very young children might like Helen Fuller's board book My New Baby.

For those who are learning to read or reading, The New Baby from Usbourne First Experiences was suggested as firm favourite by child minder and stay at home mum to two girls Mrs Cherry, who says 'my 7yo loved the illustrations and felt the pictures helped her know what to expect. She also liked the format, easy sentences for children to read at the top and more detailed ones for adults at the bottom. I liked it because of an illustration showing the mum breastfeeding, usually bottles are featured in new baby books.'

Do you look at your babies or children and get inkilings of what they might be?

How early can you predict what they might be in the future? At birth, one year old, two, three, thirteen, twenty one?  Personalities, temperament, interests and preferences can appear very early.

One of my favourite reads as a parent is the family supplement in The Guardian Weekend on a Saturday.  Many of the articles are like extended blog posts, packed full of the stories of real family life. Last weekend I read it at our local arts centre while my daughter did her Drama lesson and one article profiling Matt Damon's family really got me thinking.

His mother, an early year's professor, felt she knew her son would be an actor, and his brother an artist, from when they were very young, based on how they liked to play. Her predictions came true. As an early years professor, and with hindsight, it's perhaps easy to predict, or to feel you have predicted something. But there was something in it. I laughed at the image of a two year old Matt Damon refusing to leave the dressing up area at play school and I applauded his mum for telling the staff not to worry and to just let him be. While I try and give my children a fully rounded play experience, they both have very different ideas about what they enjoy.  As they grow I can see more and more natural preferences emerging. Property management, chef, office worker, pianist, artist, astronaut all look like favourable options...

According to NHS maternity statistics, C sections represented 24.8% of births in 2010-11.  However you plan to give birth, good antenatal preparation should explore every option, so that you feel in control of whatever happens. There has been a move to empower women having both emergency and planned C sections and much of this centres on making C sections integral to birth plans.  Considering and recording your wishes about C sections can make a big difference to how you feel about your birth should a C section become necessary.  Both of my sections were unplanned, but positive experiences. Second time round, I planned for a VBAC, but I also realised I could make my birth plan reflect my C section wishes even more clearly.

I'm including some photos this week, they were never going to be of amazing quality under the circumstances, but I'm including them because I think photographs can be a powerful tool in understanding a C section delivery. Here I am, still with bump, feeling fairly calm amongst the medical clutter. I thought I would be terrified and a theatre would be my worst nightmare, it wasn't like that at all, the staff were so personable and quick to explain everything.

Here are some ideas for your plan, what is possible may depend on whether a section is unplanned or planned.

I remember the feeling most strongly with my first child ....

... the urge to grab the clock and stop time passing so I could make the most of every single moment of baby time.  Then I started to take a picture a day to save in a special folder on my computer and I began to enjoy watching her grow and change. With my second child it was a case of scribbling down whatever I could to remember him as a baby, and accepting that one child only needs so many photos of their life.

This week I wanted to explore some of the ways you can document and craft memories of the baby days.

Daisy Baby classes work on object permanence a lot, with routines which allow baby to come in and out of eye contact with mum and other babies. Classes also incorporate lots of brain gym (cross lateral moves) to wire the hemispheres and everything is repeated three times over, to install muscle memory.  This reminds me of my mum, who when I forgot my camera, would tell me to blink very slowly to take a mental photograph.  You can't predict the random moments your brain will etch on your memory, but you can borrow some of its techniques to embed some of your own.

Memories are made in all sorts of ways.  When I was pregnant I turned to the old cliché of knitting and crochet.  My efforts at clothing were pretty rubbish/too small but I did find crocheting this Sock Monkey play mat out of granny squares very therapeutic.  Whenever I look at the blanket nowadays, thrown across my daughter's doll's bed, I think back to the evening in the top right picture.  I have a very vivid memory of my husband and I lying on the floor with our baby, marveling as she tried to copy our facial expressions and sounds.

I confess last week was the first time I have watched One Born Every Minute, but I was hooked, I was emotional, I was wincing, I was cheering and I was in tears when the babies arrived. The episode profiled a mum who refused to let her husband in the delivery room, instead favouring her mum as birth partner, and a mum who had her partner, her mum and for some of the time her partner's mum present.  This got me thinking about birth partners.

One Dad kept sneaking out for cigarette breaks, but seemed very at home discussing the gorier parts of labour and had a sense of humour, albeit a bit sexist.  Give or take a break, he was there for her, and his humour and encouragement helped to keep everyone going. I did feel sorry for the Dad who was ousted, especially when he returned to the delivery room minutes after the birth only to be told, via his partner's mother, to leave again. Although, I also thought the mum articulated her reasons very clearly when she said she felt birth was a female, a private and a magical thing she didn't want her husband to see, she added she felt he was very sensitive and would struggle.  The camera watched him sat alone in a waiting room, looking very worried and lost.

His mother in law however, didn't look particularly at ease watching her daughter in pain either, and at many points seemed to be struggling to find the words and excused herself from the room. Emily, who blogs at Never Bored of Bubbles, found her husband made great birth partner, but her mum found seeing her daughter in pain too difficult.  Fortunately midwives are also brilliant at coaching birth partners.

We've been through births, second births, marriages, house moves, bereavements and more birthday parties than a retired clown, but my 10 woman ante-natal group still runs strong after 5 years and 21 babies. Whether its being part of a big group, or finding a best mum mate, peer support as a new mum can be invaluable in helping you adjust to motherhood. So after reflecting on my pre birth friendships last week, this week I'm reflecting on what helps make mum friendships work.

Here I am on my 29th birthday, 5 months pregnant with my first and looking for new, non alcoholic ways to celebrate.  We hired a boat on the Thames and picnicked.  You might spot the Jo Jo Bebe Maman bag, the birthday presents have shifted slightly, to mark my mum-to-be status

I think it is fair to say I was an early adopter to pregnancy amongst my closest friends.  Shortly after this my husband and I decided to leave behind our life and friends in London to set up business and home in Nottingham.  I decided to leave teaching and to be a full time mum for a few years. Looking back it was a pretty huge transition.  I approached it alot like freshers week at university and joined as many antenatal or baby related groups as I could.  I soon made lots of wonderful new mum friends, many of which I see on a weekly basis 5 years on.

But what about my friends of old,my school friends, the gang of girls I went to university with and then gravitated to London with?  I missed them hugely, I didn't see them as often and sometimes, especially when I had to say no to things, because I was still breastfeeding, because I didn't feel ready to leave my babies or because I was tired or strapped for cash, I felt our lives had moved in different ways. But, despite missing a few birthdays, not keeping up on gossip and feeling a little like I was missing out on their child free fun, we are still going strong.

Parenting it's a juggling act .....

..... it's easy to get lost sometimes, in the frustrating things, like being overtired, not having time to go to the gym or the toilet, not being allowed to hold a proper conversation, but what's the bigger picture? What do we gain? Lazy Daisy is a really positive space, which to me seems like a great foundation for the life changing journey that is parenthood. So this week I asked fellow parents if parenthood gave them a greater sense of purpose in life.

Here are ten of the life enhancing changes children made in our lives, do you agree?

This week Penny explores Raising Girls .....

Follow on from last week's blog Male bonding

It was bedtime last week,  I stood bemused in the kitchen as my 3yo son lobbed the empty beaker he'd asked me to fill with milk, across the kitchen. My husband was reasoning through gritted teeth with our 5yo daughter who was getting closer to tears by the sentence.

'Swap?' said my husband.

Last week I mentioned I read a book about Raising Boys, by Steven Biddulph,

it's a fascinating read that helped me to prepare to raise a boy. So this week I'm reflecting on how to raise happy boys.  It's the girl's turn next week.

For me, I think the difference in girls and boys first hit me when my mother in law commented on my baby boy's need for closeness.  He would wind his fingers in my hair, sneak his head under my cardigan, push his toes in my pockets.  It was, my mother in law said, just as my husband had been as a baby, 'as if he wanted to be back in the womb'.

Now aged 3, throughout the day at regular intervals, he will come and find me, clamber on me or cuddle me, in order to charge his emotional batteries. Last weekend I returned from a weekend away, and while my daughter proceeded to bamboozle me with chat, my son jumped on me, gave me the hugest cuddle and once I had collapsed onto the sofa, attempted to put both his feet up my jumper and pull it over his body like a duvet.

Knowing the sex of your unborn baby

Last week’s post on Reach out and touch me provoked interesting debate here and on Twitter, so this week I thought I would keep on the bonding theme.

Last week my brother sent me a text. It simply said 'It's a boy!' He’d just come out of his girlfriend’s 20 week scan.  Straight away, proud aunty-to-be that I am, I called him back shrieking 'I knew it, fantastic, congratulations!'  Cue obligatory jokes about footy teams, and him being a striker.

Doctors this week suggested there is no need for parents to know the baby’s sex at a 20 week scan. A specialist recommended 30 weeks. But how important is this information to parents?

My mum and grandmother marvelled at my scan photos and the idea that we could know our babies' sex in advance. I couldn’t resist finding out, there was something magical about being able to bond just a little bit more with my babies.  During pregnancy lots of time is spent dreaming and fantasising about your baby, and the child they will be.  For me knowing whether I was having a girl or boy made those images more tangible. 

I’m biased, so I asked my fellow bloggers what they did. Mostlyyummymummy has found out, not found out, and for one child wasn’t able to tell at the scan.  Her favourite she says, was the exciting surprise of the ‘it’s a boy/girl’ moment at the end of labour.  @Clearbean explained her thoughts changed with each pregnancy, the first time she was impatient, second time she wanted to prepare her first child and third time did not want to, but her partner did.

For her first two children Rachel of Right from the Start didn’t find out, she felt that it would take something away from the birth, looking back she has no regrets and felt it added to the magic and surprise of having a newborn.  But, for her third child she found out, because she had 2 girls at this point and wanted to be prepared, boys names were proving challenging, as was choosing a third girl’s name.  But she says knowing she was having a girl the third time didn’t take any excitement away.

I’m Penny, a freelance writer, mum to two and a blogger at Alexander Residence.   I’m really excited to be blogging on a weekly basis for Lazy Daisy.

Where better to start my first post than at the beginning of my parenting journey?

This week, after a comment made on a recent documentary about parenting, I briefly found myself questioning whether my children, both born by c section, had really and truly bonded with me.  Seems ridiculous now I write it, they are after all 3 and 5 and going forth happily in the world, but rarely does a day pass as a parent when you don’t question some aspect of what you are doing, and sometimes this means scrutinising events that happened years ago.

Instead of letting it buzz round my head creating unhealthy doubts and niggles, I decided to look at the evidence.  I turned to the photos of the first weeks of their lives.  Before I had children I was a drama teacher, I can’t help but analyse body language, eye contact, facial expressions.