I have a 15 mo girl.

My wife read lots of books. I read a few. With a few exceptions, the books have been a waste of time and money. So many of the books in this genre have the feel of the Learn Blub in 21 Days line of programming books. Accept from the get-go that parenting is hard, there are no silver bullets, and you are going to spend a lot of time and energy if you want to do a good job, and filter anything you read from that perspective.

Nevertheless, we did find some helpful books. The most useful books we have are a reference book given to us by our pediatrician and a book about baby sign language (The following link is to the revised edition, which is not the one we have, but it's cheaper on amazon http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Signs-Revised-Linda-Acredolo/dp/B...).

We went through a lot of "the book says" conversations early on, especially related to getting her to sleep. The thing to realize here is that it is up to you how to do it. There's a book out there that will support your position, and many of the books are contradictory. So, in the end, you'll end up having to decide what you think is right. The book many parents find useful is merely the one that reinforces their opinion, and they will use that book to appeal to authority in the passive-aggressive conversations that all new parents seem wont to have.

I had trouble finding what I felt like were unbiased opinions on sleep in particular. This book: http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/03... was helpful, mostly because it more or less laid out three approaches and passed few, if any, value judgements on going to the baby vs. letting her cry herself to sleep.

In the end, I decided I couldn't stand to let her cry, so we settled on developing a very predictable routine at bedtime, and it has worked well. We have had our bumpy patches, particularly during illnesses, teething, and major milestones, but in general my child looks forward to bedtime and naps.

The sign language seems somewhat controversial among our peers, but we are in the less progressive southeastern US. The common fear is that it will retard speech. I just wanted to be able to communicate with my child, and it has made for a pleasant experience so far. She seems to be developing vocbulary at an above normal rate. I don't necessarily attribute that to signs, but it is at least one counterexample to the fear of significant speech retardation.