A hilarious take on the all too real struggle of living with a toddler. There's no sugar coating here, this book gives it to you straight with a side of much-needed humor. Raising kids is hard and often leaves you on the brink of tears or laughter. Choose this book and choose laughter. I can't wait to gift this book to all of my friends who've yet to experience the terror of an unappreciative toddler terror.

If you are the parent of a toddler (and even if you only visit the home of one of these families occasionally), I'm sure you know very well that your everyday life differs greatly from the romantic vision that you had in your mind when you, along with your partner, decided to introduce a new member to your family. The first steps, the struggle with food or sleeping time, unsuccessful attempts at maintaining a social life, and various mischief are just part of the deal you take in the bundle with a small person who has come into your life.

I have read many of these types of books, but this is by far the best I have read!Well done!

This title was archived before I could download it, and is no longer available for review, but as a mom of two toddlers, I can relate to the topic of this book and look forward to reading it when it comes available.

If you are the parent of a toddler (and even if you only visit the home of one of these families occasionally), I'm sure you know very well that your everyday life differs greatly from the romantic vision that you had in your mind when you, along with your partner, decided to introduce a new member to your family. The first steps, the struggle with food or sleeping time, unsuccessful attempts at maintaining a social life, and various mischief are just part of the deal you take in the bundle with a small person who has come into your life.

How challenging it can be to live with a toddler is very well known to Mike and Heather Spohr, the parents of three children and authors of the fun book "The Toddler Survival Guide ", a survival manual intended for the parents of a toddler.

If you've read any of my earlier reviews, I'm sure you already know I do not have any children of my own (at least not yet), but you may not know that my life is still filled with a multitude of 'toddlers'. Next to my nephews (some of which have already outgrown this phase and some just walked into one), there are also a lot of friends who were recently blessed with these small beings (I still see only the blessings, I try to be blind for the rest, until I experience everything on my own skin), so I believe I'm quite familiar with this problem. And that's exactly why, after I was laughing at a few introductory jokes, this book soon became a bit tiresome. Why? Answer arrives ...

I really don't think that life with a toddler can be all 'milk and honey'; I've seen my share of angry outbursts, crying, disorder and mischief, but still, I'm reluctant to compare them with the attack of the zombies. But, that's exactly what the authors of this book are doing and that is also something that should be funny to their readers. Specifically, their book should be a parody of "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks (of course, instead of zombies, this one is dealing with children), with the aim of giving you practical tips to survive this phase in your child's life, and at the same time to have some fun.

As I said, after I smiled a few times, I was lost trying to understand the intentions of this book. Not only that I thought it wasn't really funny to compare the children to beings with whom they should not be compared, but I also lost the sense of the whole purpose of the manual. The content of the book seems to be something 'already seen' (or 'already read') and also it isn't vivid enough to keep the parent's attention to the ideas that actually might have been useful for them (if they toddler give them some time to read it).

In order not to be completely negative, I have to praise the part of the manual in which the authors bring us some stories about toddlers in history, to show us that raising children has always been equally challenging. So we meet the Stone-age 'toddler' who painted the walls of his house / cave; the child who traveled to the New World on the Mayflower, and with his cry brought other travelers to the edge of despair, and also some other interesting stories. This part certainly rejoiced this little historian in me, but it was also interesting enough to help me to reach the ultimate goal – to come to the last page of this book.

I believed in the potential hidden in this book and I hoped that it might be interesting, and also useful for present or future parents, but unfortunately, after a few smiles, I was quite disappointed and even uninterested in its further content. I still believe that kids are a miracle, even when they are nervous and challenging are when we yearn for some rest. My recommendation for the other readers would be to leave the manual about zombie kids far behind, actually, to leave the zombies for some other horror literature. That's what I'm going to do!

Funny and entertaining and made a pleasant change from the crime and thrillers I generally r ad

I really enjoyed this smarmy title from authors who CLEARLY have, or have dealt with the joys of an infant developing into a psychopa-er-toddler. As a mother of a 17 month old myself, when I finally got a breath, wiped the puke and smashed banana from my shirt, removed the lego embedded in my foot and clicked off Paw Patrol for the first time in 16 god forsaken hours, it was a treat to be able to enjoy my cold coffee from 12 hours earlier and the surviving bite of a granola bar while I read that someone similar is going through the same hell....er....ordeal(?)....adventure(?). The advice was sound and simple with a twist of sarcasm and heaps of humor and anecdotes. I have a few friends whose children will soon be bursting into toddlerhood. And I can't wait for their precious, sleeping infants to erupt into insanity so I can share this gem.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGally for an honest review.
Author: Mike & Heather Spohr
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group – Voyageur Press

One of the genres I don't realy enjoy reading is the guides about raising children. "How to train your baby to sleep through the night" or "How to survive the first year"... The reason I don't like these books ia that they "inhabit" a parallel universe, wher parents are always well rested and armed with infinent amounts of patience and the kids are cooperative and responsive.

This book however, seemed different... The comparison between toddlers and zombies sounded like an interesting idea (even though the zombie genre isn't one of my favourite either) so I decided to give it a chance... What a big mistake!

First of all, the promise of humor is never fulfilled. Every attempt of humor is not only forced but often offencive ("psychotic toddler" is only one example).

The portrayal of the parents is caricaturistic, weak and helpless, they appear to be left at the mercy of their so called "psychotic toddlers", who on the other hand appear to be super villains, whose only purpose is to deliberately embarrass them, physically hurt them, destroy their immaculate house and make their lives a living hell.

Yes, having kids is not easy (I have two of them and both toddlers for all it matters), yes, they do turn your life upside down and no, they don't come with a user's manual, but they are not the plague describrd here.

I know this is (supposed to be) a humor book and some mesure of exaggeration is to be expected, but if people who haven't had kids yet read this book, we are doomed to extinction.

As a parent DEEP into the toddler years, this book was perfect!

Basically written much like a zombie survival guide, THE TODDLER SURVIVAL GUIDE is meant to amuse while showing parents how to basically toddler proof their lives. Helpful reminders about needing to step up the baby proofing because toddlers can and will climb EVERYTHING are sprinkled throughout the humor, etc.

As a non-parent surrounded by the parents of toddlers (and a few almost toddlers), the book made me laugh until I almost peed my pants, thinking of the horror stories they tell. It's like a built in birth control book, as if my friends' stories were not that enough already.

The book would be a great present for those parents who need to be reminded their struggles are not unique and they are not completely alone (all though, realistically, those parents don't have time to read a book). I'd also say it's a must read for those deciding if they are ready to have kids :-)

This is a great and funny look on parenting a toddler! Anyone who has been through it will laugh and say how true to themselves! Raising kids is hard and sometimes leaves you on the fine line of crying or laughing so you don't cry! This book has so much truth in it and some helpful hints. Dealing with my second toddler now I truly appreciated this book!!

This was funny. As a mother of a toddler it was pretty accurate in a lot of ways too. If not trying too hard.

The toddler survival guide was a humorous read for me (especially because I am currently in the toddler stage with my eldest and my youngest is not far behind). I found myself both laughing, and being horrified, but in all honesty there is so much TRUTH in this book. Toddler parents to-be really should read this so that they know what they are getting themselves into. Toddlerhood is NOT, I repeat, NOT like infancy! Its a whole new ballgame.

The Spohrs touch on real life problems that non-parents would not even know exists unless witnessed first hand. Humor was brought to situations that when knee-deep in it is not humorous in the slightest, but it is when looking back at the toddler experience.

My eldest may be one of the 1% that actually does not give trouble to go to bed, eat, go to the doctor/dentist and the like but for those that struggle, the tips and tricks in this book really would help in a more sane day to day with a toddler. As I read this survival guide (during “me time”) I nodding along with the things I already to and things I have no had to deal with because of these steps. Needless to say, my life is this book (some parts not included) and take it from me, toddler life is rough but there is a light at the end and in a couple years, I will get there HA HA! For the parents that are not yet in the toddler zone, I recommend sprucing up on your ninja reflexes because you will 100% need it!

Don’t let the cuteness of a toddler fool you, they are always up to something and they move very fast. Especially when they know they’re not allowed to do said thing.
I recommend this book to all parents and toddler parents to be.

Key advice for parents to keep in mind when thinking of “expanding the family”.

“Adding to your family when you have a toddler, to paraphrase Jim Gaffigan, is kind of like being handed a baby when you’re already drowning….- parenting a toddler and a baby at the same time will regularly approach four-kid levels of stress”



I would like to thank Quarto Publishing Group (Voyageur Press Imprint), The Spohrs and Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.



I also reviewed this book on: Goodreads, My blog, and Amazon
This book is also featured on my Instagram.

This was a unique way to give parenting advice. As a parent of 3 boys, that were all toddlers back to back, I could totally relate to this book. It made me laugh out loud at the circumstances that come up. Especially the part about your house; we lost 3 flat screen tvs to our toddlers. I think this would be a good gift for a dad or good humored mom of a 6 month old. I liked how they gave REAL LIFE parenting advice, along with hilarious illustrations, on what to expect. On second thought, because this book is so real, I don't know if this is best to give to a new parent, they may be fearful of what's to come (they should be!) or to give it to a parent that just survived the toddlers years as therapy from their PTSD of raising a toddler (or two). Either way , this was cute and different from most self help books.

I'm not yet a parent/mother so I still cannot relate on how to take care of a child or a toddler. But based from my cousins and friends stories, taking care of a kid is really a HUGE responsibility and takes a lot of time. Imagine running around just to make sure that the child will not get hurt and to be attentive always on the kid's whereabouts and actions. I'm not an athletic neither an active person so dealing with kids, as of the moment, is really not in my agenda.

Reading this book is not only entertaining because of how funny the authors wrote the given situations & advice; but also it really is a BIG help for parents or older siblings with toddlers at home. I would definitely recommend this to my friends who currently both have toddlers.

As the parent of a toddler that is slowly morphing into a preschooler. The book takes a humorous approach to the transition to sweet cooing baby-dom to zombie (their words) toddler-dom. I chuckled out loud as I read and looked at the completely accurate illustrations of what life is like with a toddler. On a serious note the title offers fool proof strategies on protecting your cellphone, tips on keeping hairstyles simple (though I would have added there for children with ethnic hair protective styles that can last a few days-braids), and how to change diapers on a plane. Overall this book is funny but also practical in its application of advice.

I didn't care for the format of this book but I thought parts of it were very funny.

While I'm not a parent and don't plan on being one any time soon, I couldn't help but compare this to James Breakwell's book on how to fight zombies with toddlers! This book is funny, and actually seems to have sound parenting advice. Some of the advice is common sense, but works well in the wacky situations the author presents. The images were my FAVORITE part - they absolutely made the book for me.

This seemed like the perfect little book for me. A book based on the Zombie Survival book only now with Toddlers instead of zombies? Sure, sign me up.

I don't have kids myself, but I worked at daycentres/daycare/etc. before, plus done babysitting, so generally I quite like these books. Often agreeing with the writers and finding recognisable parts. Sadly, this one turned out to be a dud. I got to 20% before I just had to give up. It just tried too hard to be funny, and well, aside from a few chuckles, I wasn't really laughing much.

The illustrations were a nice touch, those made me chuckle the most.

But yeah, not my book. So I have to give this one up. :(

"If you've ever seen a horror film where zombies relentlessly come after human flesh with single-minded determination, then you've got a pretty good idea of how toddlers feel about candy."

As said, this book is a humorous guide to raising your toddler or praising yourself for life with toddler. 
And that's exactly what this book is! I mean while reading this book I might have laughed more than I actually have laughed during my kids' toddlerhood. I can agree with almost everything stated in this book and the ones I can't agree with, are something that I haven't done with my own: for example we haven't been in movies because I know that all hell would break loose then. :'D
This is great book to those who doesn't have kids and to those who have. At least for me it was an awesome reminder that this doesn't have to be so serious, you can do this through humor which makes everything so much easier with my toddler drawing to those new tapestries we have just put on the walls or refusing to potty training and still screaming her lungs out when she does her thing in her diaper.
After all I'll rate this book with 4 stars. It was good, I had a blast while reading it but I would have wanted something more. It felt kind of like it's repeating itself with everything.

Full disclosure: I am living in a house that has been forcefully occupied by toddlers for the past two years, with no withdrawal or peace treaty in sight, as my youngest is about to get his fully fledged toddler credentials. The Toddler Survival Guide knows what I'm talking about. There are constant stand-offs, and breaches of ceasefire agreements happen multiple times a day.

I enjoyed reading this humourous look at life with a toddler. It is interspersed with mock-historical accounts of toddler behaviour in history - as far back as the neanderthal toddler scrawling on the cave walls. There is also some sage advice given. Take heed. Toddlers are little ninjas.

A perfect gift to any parent on their sweet baby's first birthday, as they are bound to need this shortly afterwards.

Thank you to the authors, publisher, and netgalley for a review copy. This is an honest review.