241–250 of 684 posts
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"So many kids in my area have their days booked solid" Sounds like a wealthy thing, not a Western thing.
Queue the Doctor / Lawyer married couple with 2.5 kids who vacation twice a year, lease German cars, and have positive net worth crying about 'only being middle class'.
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> If you are not a scientist who has actually conducted one of these studies; if you are not intimately familiar with the methodologies and the math techniques used in the analysis; if you've only ever read the headline and maybe an abstract of a study- then please don't give advice to anyone on the topic. Please don't spread "information" that X is better than Y. I'd say this advice doesn't really go far enough. I'm…
> is that worth a year of suffering and untold hours spent feeding Suffering? Sure NOT breastfeeding is very inconvenient, not least at night. And few things are more intimate and loving than the act of breastfeeding. Robbing the child or mother of that is horrible.
Of all the "weird" things we do as parents in euro/anglo nations, sleeping arrangements seems nowhere near the top. IMO, the top "offender" is over-scheduling kid's activities. So many kids in my area have their days booked solid with sports, academic tutoring, music lessons. Approaching zero free time to enjoy being a kid. Edit - and this isn't really a western thing, "Tiger Mom" and similar probably pre-dates this…
"So many kids in my area have their days booked solid" Sounds like a wealthy thing, not a Western thing.
The only thing I'm really jealous of from spending time around people who've grown up with more money is that, assuming your family are basically nice, it's much easier to brush over any cracks or for the children to mentally seperate themselves e.g. The house I grew up is fairly miniscule, the first thing I noticed visiting a large house was not only that they had (say) a music room [so separation] but also that the children could hide within the house outside of earshot of their parents.
I recommend Sweet Sleep as a resource for anyone interested in cosleeping/bedsharing. It gives a lot of practical advice and looks at the research to address the safety concerns. The conclusion is that bedsharing will multiply existing risk factors for SIDS but if those risk factors are already low, adding bedsharing into the mix does not increase the risk by a significant amount (assuming it's done in accordance wit…
I was under the impression that the risk of SIDS isn't the only thing when it comes to bed sharing. Adult beds are softer and have more give, so babies get turned over more easily so that their airway can get blocked in the mattress. There are more things like pillows and blankets that can get block the airway. And then there's of course the parent that's sleeping next to them. Do all of those risks get clumped into…
"If you are: 1. A nonsmoker 2. Sober and unimpaired 3. A breastfeeding mother
and your baby is: 4. Healthy and full-term 5. On his back 6. Lightly dressed
and you both are: 7. On a safe surface
Then your baby in bed with you is at no greater risk for SIDS than if he’s nearby in a crib."[0]
A safe sleep surface means the mattress is not too soft (we tested our adult mattress to make sure it met the standards for crib mattresses), no gaps by the wall that the baby can get wedged in, bed only (no couch or recliner), light bedding, sleepwear without long ribbons or drawstrings that can strangle, etc.
It's important to do the research and not be cavalier about the risks, but I think it's worth learning how to work around them so everyone can get great sleep.
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Queue the Doctor / Lawyer married couple with 2.5 kids who vacation twice a year, lease German cars, and have positive net worth crying about 'only being middle class'.
Technically, aren't they right? Middle class typically means you still have to work, strictly speaking. I'm going off of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class#Three-level_econo...
most people tend to think what they have isn't quite enough, twice as much would be just right, and anything more than that is excessive.
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That has never been the meaning of the term historically and doesn’t capture the magnitudes-difference between the middle and upper classes.
I agree. I was just pointing out that there is a portion of the HN readership that tends to use the strictly economic definition (rightly or wrongly). Also, the meaning has shifted over time. As used in the early 1900s - I realize the term was coined even earlier than that - it referred to what today we'd likely call upper-middle-class (or if you're a fan of Engles, the bourgeoisie). White-collar, professional, well-…
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4781366/ Almost every study on breastfeeding will have a disclaimer like the one in this meta-analysis (or ought to if it doesn't). "Because almost all the data in this review were gathered from observational studies, one should not infer causality based on these findings. Also, there is a wide range of quality of the body of evidence across different health outcomes." I d…
Also "Formula-fed children have about twice the risk of vomiting or diarrhea during their first year." Yes, that's bad. But it's not that bad. Try your best at breastfeeding, and if it doesn't work out, so be it. Better to focus your energy in being a good parent in other ways that you can excel at than dwelling on what isn't working for you.
Outside of neglect and abuse, is there really a WRONG way of raising a child? You see multiple different styles in different cultures. Some cultures where bed-sharing and baby-carrying is common also beat their kids and use other forms of punishment for disobedience. Wouldn't that be much "weirder"? It seems in Europe breastfeeding rates are really low and people use prams, but they might not beat the child as much (…
I'm in the U.S. I personally know a non-trivial number of women who have gone through absolutely intense (real, diagnosed) anxiety and depression because of having to feed formula to their child instead of breast milk. If you ever get to peek into these "mommy groups" on social media or in person, you can see how much shaming goes on in there. And the breast milk one is one of the biggest issues people get shamed for…
They'd say like "Sure, breast feed if you can but if you can't that is totally a-ok too. Get some formula, get some skin to skin time. Your baby will be fine". I liked how much effort the classes were putting in to not pressure people to breast feed when it wasn't always an option.
There's no need to feel, as a parent, that you've failed your child if you're not breast feeding.
Of all the "weird" things we do as parents in euro/anglo nations, sleeping arrangements seems nowhere near the top. IMO, the top "offender" is over-scheduling kid's activities. So many kids in my area have their days booked solid with sports, academic tutoring, music lessons. Approaching zero free time to enjoy being a kid. Edit - and this isn't really a western thing, "Tiger Mom" and similar probably pre-dates this…
It's a weird and tricky balance that one has to strike, in the US, in 2021 ...
On the one hand, I feel strongly that kids should have free time and energy to explore and experiment and I am reinforced daily in my instinct that a "bored" kid is just another 10 minutes away from doing something interesting and magical.
On the other hand, as my oldest children reach pre-teen age, and I pay more attention to their pre-teen peers, I find myself agreeing with the "idle hands are the devils playground" heuristic. I want my teenage children busy doing constructive and healthy things.
But it gets complicated ... you can't just plug your kid onto a age 12 or age 13 baseball or hockey team. Those kids have been playing the sport (and playing the sport together) since they were 4 or 5. Your kid will not make the team or will be conspicuously out of place. So if you've been free-ranging it for their first ten years you're going to need to get more creative as you transition to the teenage years...
I have seen things like mountain biking and BJJ be good options...
One of the hardest thing about being a parent today is the constant shame and confusion about the “right” way to do it. We don’t live in a hunter gatherer society anymore, we just don’t. There’s lots of wisdom in that way of life, and sure we could learn from it — but there’s enough anxiety as it is, parents don’t need more of it. We have three kids and we sleep trained them. (Not a pediatrician, standard disclaimer.…
>Just raise your kids with love. Be compassionate, and patient. Right and i would add, give them as many time with you as possible. Some of my greatest memory's was strolling around my dad workplace, when he had work todo. Children's don't need parent's as entertainment, but as adventure preparers.