Advice for parents by parents

Heather Gibbs Flett and Whitney Moss have turned their parenting blogs into a business. Together they publish two websites: one is global, rookiemoms.com and the other is for their local community in the San Francisco Bay Area, 510families.com. In addition, they do freelance writing and social media consulting for consumer brands, large and small.
Heather has three sons aged seven, five and five months. Whitney has two children age seven and four.
In 2005, they were both working part-time and spending the rest of their days caring for their first babies. They say: "We noticed that those babies never suggested anything interesting to do. They never said, 'Mom, let’s go buy you some new jeans and a latte.' We started writing down our own ideas for fun things to do – with our babies in tow. We live less than two miles away from each other and could do many of these things together."
They launched Rookie Moms to share their inspiration and adventures with other mums. Since Whitney and Heather both have older children now, the website has grown up a bit with them. The core focus continues to be helping other new mums get through that first crazy year, but now there are first-person stories, tips and activities for mums of children up to age seven.
After the website had been up for about one year, Heather and Whitney felt they had enough content to produce a book. They acknowledged that every mum is not as obssessed with the blog world as they were, and so envisioned a version of their content that someone could give as a gift or carry around in her nappy changing bag. They approached a publisher and came to an agreement to produce The Rookie Mom's Handbook.

What mums should know
Fast forward three years, and The Rookie Moms were invited to write Stuff Every Mom Should Know, which provides a host of tips and advice for mums of babies up to tweens.
Heather says the best advice she herself has received was "never try to make a happy baby happier" from her pediatrician. That is to say, if the baby is content doing what he's doing, it's best not to interfere. Whitney believes the best advice she received was to make friends with someone who has a baby very close in age because no one else really wants to hear the detailed reports on nappies and sleep habits.
Heather and Whitney say that although Stuff Every Mom Should Know is full of practical tips and instructions, it doesn't dive deeply into how a woman feels to be responsible for all of this care-taking and problem solving. They joke that they will save that topic for another book.
Stuff Every Mom Should Know is published in March, price 6.99. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rookiemoms
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rookieheather. Picture credit: Whitney Moss.
*Read our review of Stuff Every Mom Should Know.