Ask HN: Best Resources and Books for a Soon-to-Be-Dad?

If to be honest, this is the only book from my list which I haven't read also. But I have read very thoroughly the "Eye Brain Vision" by David Hubel. He did not set his experiments to human and nowadays that kind of experiments seems like not possible any more even to animals. He might consider a child who has not received his 30M words as a "deprivation" if he worked in a human field (he worked only with cats, I mean young kittens). And he demonstrated a lot of examples about what deprivation does to a cat brain. I believe anything which is in Thirty Million Words without reading a page from it because I used to watch a lot of deprivation examples from kind of more advanced source. But of course Hubel's book is not about parenting at all.

(2) eg we didn't potty train until she was just 3. We tried before that but it was stress with no upside. After three she had like maybe 5 'mistakes' over three weeks and that was pretty much it. You mileage may vary.

(3) When your new born is about two weeks start staring in their eyes and stick out your tongue. It takes a few days but in a while they'll stick out their tongue in response. From there the sky's the limit for tongue communication. Way more fun that you think. I did this on my own but there's an early childhood educator who recommends it too and wrote a book (can't recall the name)

(4) Discipline. Use the 'block system' it can eliminate almost all the time outs. For age 2y and 3y use five plastic blocks. Every time (use your judgement) they do something bad put a yellow plastic block in a visible but unreachable place. After they have five blocks up they get no more videos for the day. For age 4y and 5y do the same but use 3 blocks (at the younger age they eventually clue into 'oh, I have five blocks, I can burn three of them with no consequence').

(5) videos are not the tool of the devil. Kids naturally pay attention to the highest source of information that's available. In a boring house with slow changes (unlike, say, moving through the landscape all day long with a nomadic tribe) that information source is videos...but watch out for sunny bunnies no more than three day :)

(6) Between the ages of 2 and 10 kids are good for absolutely nothing except learning languages, at which they are certifiable geniuses. Try not to waste this valuable window in time.

You could take a look at Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care: 10th edition

Pretty complete book of all the different phases without being to dogmatic.

My personal advice: Try to reduce stress (and work) wherever possible. It's good to be prepared, but don't try to plan or read too much, because you can't prepare for everything. There is always something, you did not have in mind. An example: The things you read about sudden infant death syndrome are frightning, really. The fear of doing something wrong will be with you from day 1. Try to keep it on a healthy level and do what you can. You will both be very tired in the first days, there are so many little things that WILL go wrong, but pretty likely nothing will ruin your childs life forever. It's ok, nobody is perfect.

The things you should prepare is a pregnancy course (where you get much more information), organising a midwife after birth and get your documents ready... nobody want's to fight a paper war in the first days after your child is born.

The weeks after birth will be extra hard, especially for your wife. Try to help her regenerate and keep an eye on her. Best case: Ask your / her parents / friends to support you in this time, e.g. with cooking, shopping and all the things that take much time or are exhausting, so you can focus on getting a rest and getting to know your baby.

Oh, and get rid of the rumors, that breast feeding has to stop after 6 months. It's the best for your child, even with more than 18 months. Of course your wife should decide this....

Good luck!