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Ask HN: How does having a baby change your life?

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Re: Ask HN: How does having a baby change your life?

#211
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - evidence is awesome. Here's a pretty good assessment of it: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/774928.html One thing I don't think is in dispute: "Cry it out" works quickly and involves less exhaustion for parents and children.

Wow, nice link! It really seems to boil down to a big ol' "I dunno" from science, which is at least a bound on the virtues/dangers of the approach if nothing else. As someone who is actually relatively interested in science, I have noticed that it isn't very helpful when it comes to parenting, except in a few cases which tend not to be very surprising ("hey, don't smoke around your baby"). The studies are so small an…

I agree with you - most of this stuff has a marginal difference on long term outcomes. The way I interpret the data is: as long as you don't abuse or neglect your kid, they'll be fine.

Most parents don't want to hear this - but I think it's great! I don't have to participate in science-approved stimulation activities, I can just play with my kids.

Re: Ask HN: How does having a baby change your life?

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was pregnant with my twins, I worked full time, mostly from home. The key was a sweet recliner, good laptop, and laptop stand. I got plenty done. After they were born, I spent so much time nursing them for the first 2 months, that I had plenty of hack-y time (alternating with episodes of Buffy). You need a good nursing pillow and a comfortable seat, but you need those even if you're just watching Buffy. My bel…

lol, since I started on maternity leave I have in fact alternating hacky type stuff with watching Buffy! (which I'd somehow managed to never watch, and should keep me going for a while) Thanks for the tips too!

Just a warning: there's a place between 3 months and a year where your evening productivity may drop, depending on how well your baby sleeps. I was doing ok for a while, then went back to work full time, and got pretty much nothing done on my side projects until they were a year old. Now at 18 mos, they sleep from 7:30 - 7:30, and it's much easier.

Re: Ask HN: How does having a baby change your life?

#213

When the baby is born someone does an execve on you. You inherit your original PID but everything else is replaced. There is no way back to the original process, but you keep open file descriptors to your close friends. Friends without children were likely marked close on exec.

Friends without children were likely marked close on exec. Hopefully dependent on who the friend is. One of my best friends had a daughter a year ago, and I've seen him about as much as I did before he was a father. (Which is less than I like, but I no longer live near my family and oldest set of friends.) But that works because I'm fine with going over to their house and sitting around talking while watching their l…

How easy it is to keep in touch with non-parent friends depends largely on their tolerance for sleep-deprived conversations about poo :-).

Re: Ask HN: How does having a baby change your life?

#214
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you have none. Kids, I mean.

Too bad that the comment you replied to was deleted, although the choice of language wasn't the better it was the only one dissenting view on the entire page.

I didn't notice the [deleted] and it made sense to me :-) Obviously, I haven't got any wiser.

(I do think I try harder not to be unwise, though ...)

Re: Ask HN: How does having a baby change your life?

#215
post #15

Living with one child is like living with a demanding, but mostly reasonable, roommate who really likes spending time with you until she goes to bed early. Having two or more children is like living in a circus where all the performers are deaf.

Yeah I am probably never have kids. Thank you :)

Re: Ask HN: How does having a baby change your life?

#216
post #15

Living with one child is like living with a demanding, but mostly reasonable, roommate who really likes spending time with you until she goes to bed early. Having two or more children is like living in a circus where all the performers are deaf.

as my own mother put it (here on the eve of our second): with one child, your world is turned upside down, but it's still essentially you're world they're living in.

when you have 2, you live in their world.

this is going to be fun. :)

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