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Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

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Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#111

Many people gave you advice and said loss of your personal life. Invite your kids into your life. I like video games so I offer to play them with my son. I like movies so I find ones we can watch together. I like martial arts so when he’s old enough I’ll offer to do Jui Jitsu. Kids are an amazing opportunity to teach and love

Best advice I ever received:

You are a parent, not a friend. Don’t only do things to please your children.

You are a person too, not only a parent. Do things yourself your children will be proud of you for; it will teach them to do the same.

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going to second this. There is absolutely no medical reason to do this, only religious dogma. You're taking away protection, some level of gratification, and a few other things.

> There is absolutely no medical reason to do this Phimosis, Fournier's gangrene, and potentially permanent deformation of the glans.

A person can get circumcised when (if) those things happen.

There's no medical reason for indiscriminate circumcision at birth.

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#113

Don't circumcise (genital mutilate) your kid if he's a boy.

Notice that the single bit of medical advice in this thread - among the tens of medical decisions you'll have to make and literally thousands of decisions you hope to not need to make - relates to religious aspects. And I'm sure that the guy who posted it was well-meaning, without a hint of religious hate in his blood. This is a terrific example of the "useful idiot" phenomenon. Those who hate any group - be it Jews…

If the group's core values include mutilating infants, and if the group's values widely affect the actions of the population (as is the case in the US), then it is absolutely neccessary to share advice that goes against those values in order to negate those harmful effects.

You use "miniscule risks" as an argument - the problem isn't the risks of circumcision, it's the circumcision itself. It is (in majority of cases) a completely unneccesary form of mutilation.

It seems to me that your argument boils down to "how dare you tell people mutilating infants is wrong when my culture has been mutilating infants for millenia?". Most people don't circumcise their kids because of religion - and those they do won't listen to this advice anyway.

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#114
Not a potential father, but a somewhat (2 yrs) experienced mother.

Get a good baby scale. It helped us realize that ours wasn’t gaining weight at 4-5 weeks, despite not acting like he was hungry (I breastfed), which prompted us to supplement with formula and me to pump more aggressively. He never really got into nursing, but I was able to pump most of what he needed, and my husband was game for doing the nighttime and wake up feeds and diaper changes while I pumped.

I rarely changed an overnight diaper. My husband was (and is) amazing.

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#115
Get a sleep consultant as soon as your baby is ready for it. Many parents suffer from lack of structure the baby needs, which leads to bad sleep habits and trickles down to parents.

Also newborns pretty much need to sleep and eat. As parents we want to play with them. But that’s a recipe for crying baby and then they can’t go to sleep upset. Vicious circle.

Watch out for iron deficiencies at around six month mark.

Look into baby lead weaning for solids introduction.

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#116
The "cry it out" / Ferber method taught our kids how to fall asleep on their own and saved our sanity. It used to take hours to get a baby settled and one of us had to be there the whole time. By letting them cry for a bit (occasionally showing up to reassure that we're still there), it took like a few days for them to go to sleep on their own. It was an amazing change, and one I wish I had put in place much sooner.

The idea (from what I remember, it's been years), is to put them down and leave the room. Then come back for a bit, and then leave for a longer period of time, say double, etc. It's gradual and, in our case, was ridiculously effective. Nothing works for everyone when it comes to kids, but it's totally worth trying after they pass, say, 6 months.

Once they get this down, it is important _not_ to walk on eggshells while the babies (and when they're older) are sleeping. Get them used to being able to sleep when there's noise. It'll make your life so much easier in the future, and you'll be able to bring kids into social situations, or bring social situations into your home, without the stress of kids unable to sleep due to noise.

Final word of advice - you will be showered with metrics and progress reports, statistics on how your child compares to others, etc. Ignore all that. Kids normalize over time and these deviations become way less significant. You'll have to make a conscious effort to ignore this noise, because fears for your kid are natural and will inevitably bubble up to the surface. Be the best parent you can be, and ignore the mountains of contradictory advice you'll get from friends, relatives, media and strangers on the internet ;) a lot of it is bullshit, so don't sweat it, your kid will be fine!

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#117

Many people gave you advice and said loss of your personal life. Invite your kids into your life. I like video games so I offer to play them with my son. I like movies so I find ones we can watch together. I like martial arts so when he’s old enough I’ll offer to do Jui Jitsu. Kids are an amazing opportunity to teach and love

Best advice I ever received: You are a parent, not a friend. Don’t only do things to please your children. You are a person too, not only a parent. Do things yourself your children will be proud of you for; it will teach them to do the same.

Exactly. In one of the parenting books I read it stated that we are inviting our child into our life, not the other way around.

We already know what happens when parents make their children a priority over everything else. I still plan to love my wife in 50 years and make friends I can invest in along the way, because one day my kid will be grown up and out on their own adventures.

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#119
post #115

Get a sleep consultant as soon as your baby is ready for it. Many parents suffer from lack of structure the baby needs, which leads to bad sleep habits and trickles down to parents. Also newborns pretty much need to sleep and eat. As parents we want to play with them. But that’s a recipe for crying baby and then they can’t go to sleep upset. Vicious circle. Watch out for iron deficiencies at around six month mark. Lo…

Had a double-take then realized "baby lead weaning" should be "baby led weaning".

I don't think lead is all that healthy. ;)

Re: Ask HN: I will become a father tomorrow, what advice could you share with me?

#120

- I didn't feel connected to my son until he was nine months old. At which time I traveled for work and heard another baby cry-- this induced sudden anxiety in me that required me to call home immediately. I puzzled at this until I realized I had developed a paternal instinct. This grew over time. My 28 year-old lives with his wife in my home and I'm glad of it. Moral: don't worry if the birth of your child is not "t…

I don’t understand why people say you stop seeing your friends after having children! Me and my wife are still going out and seeing friends and practicing out hobbies and our kid is approaching the 4th month of age…
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