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Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
11–20 of 122 posts
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#12"best data-driven, tactical field-guide"
sorry you are completely wrong here, this new life episode has no pragmatic cheatsheet, forget everything from your career, enjoy it and be patient!
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#13The book you are looking for is too simple to sell.
What you need to do:
Mom says, “Will you…?”
You say, “Yes of course.”
Always and forever.
The new human being requires
a mother.
The new human being is
priority one.
Mom is priority two.
You are priority three.
Unless you have a dog.
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#14I was in this same spot couple years ago. I read this book that was recommended in this very same forum. It's called Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool. It's by Emily Oster. It was helpful.
I really appreciated the economist view of parenting as trade-offs and acceptable risk she presents. The way medical information is communicated to general public is very binary and once a particular practice is recommended, it is treated as an absolute must. I'm sure this makes sense for communicating to the general public, but I am very capable of understanding risk and probability and making a weighted choice for what makes sense.
Also, the baby-industrial complex loves this binary view because it allows them to sell products that are "better".
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#15If you can, volunteer to do the first 100 nappies in a row. Then you have 100 nappy changes "in hand" for when the poo turns smelly. It starts off just smelling faintly of butter.
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#16I think the only reason the "parenting book" industry can exist is because there isn't a single right way to do it. And people who are looking for some semblance of certainty can find a book to back up any preexisting intuition they have, and feel justified. Therefore, I say save your money and just go with your intuition, since I believe that's what most parents are doing anyway. There are, of course, trade-offs to every single choice you make along the way. (You might rightly ask me for a book that covers this meta-analysis, which I'm not aware of one such and would probably be a bestseller too...)
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#17The problem is you are not having "a baby" you are having "your baby" and each one is different. Also there are a million opinions on every subject you'll have to decide for yourself which side of the argument you're on. And it's impossible to decide just by reading ahead of time. I'll give you a great example from a friend who read ahead of time that glass bottles were the way to go, plastic bottles leak chemicals i…
I hear you, but I wonder if like in most fields, there are some basic truths that can be relied upon, but that total "juniors" will be ignorant of.
I agree with commenter that there's a good reason general advice doesn't exist. I have some tips for the first couple of months that I collected in an iOS note after the second kid, but they're all little practical things that are pretty personal and make me sound like a crazy person, which to me proves the point.
Baby tips
- have some of the next size diaper around so you can try it earlier instead of making the kid wear too-small diapers for a week, leaking everywhere. this happened to me every size transition
- precut a bunch of little rectangles of paper towel for butt cream application
- pump and use a bottle or just use formula if the baby is having a hard time eating in the first week, don’t let the breast dogmatists scare you
- early tummy time with them kneeling on the bed, head on your stomach. it’s easier and they can actually lift
- keep a box of gloves near the changing table. rather than leaving someone watching them on the table to wash your hands, just take off the gloves
- changing table in your bedroom (we didn’t do this the first time)
- don’t wear slippers in the hospital, wear something harder you can really clean
- soap bottles for bath should have pumps for one-handed operation
- don’t be afraid to give tylenol when they’re sick. there were several times we held off when we absolutely should have given it
- try to avoid having too many visitors in the hospital. you need to sleep or at least rest instead. we had both our families visiting the first time and it was so much worse than covid-era visitation
- they like to be swaddled much tighter than you think you should
- bring velcro swaddle blanket to the hospital
Products
- cardinal gates stairway angle gate
- teether thing you can put fruit in
- phone tripod for facetime
- bottle washing box for dishwasher
- hand pump is a cheap way to relieve pressure
- lanolin and hydrogels
- velcro swaddles and then sleep sacks
- Dutailier glider
- a decent otoscope is handy to have around (you are constantly wondering whether they're cranky because they have an ear infection) but it's _very_ hard to see an infant's eardrum
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#18There isn't one set of advice that works for all babies.
The only thing you really need to do is try.
Just keep being there, keep watching your baby and doing your best to decide how to be your best.
The worst thing you can do is stop putting in the energy and just let time pass. Other than that, this is one of those things where simply making the effort is all that is really needed.
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#19Cribsheet, by Emily Oster. She also has one about pregnancy, Expecting Better, which might help you support your wife in decision making at the hospital when you go in to deliver.
Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?
#20Even though it's something that's not much talked about in public the first thing I would recommend doing, and I absolutely hope it won't happen to you, is not to get too attached yet. You're still very early, 10 weeks probably, and the chances of having a miscarriage are far from zero. For me, I wasn't prepared at all, it was the saddest I've remembered ever feeling. After that, having done some looking things up, it's not uncommon and something that regularly happens.
Other than that, the single most useful advice someone once gave me was whenever baby is throwing tantrums, won't stop crying and you feel like it's stressing you out, maybe making you a little angry, always remember that baby is not giving you a hard time. It is _having_ a hard time and there's nothing baby can do. No ability to deal with that whatsoever, it needs your help. It's a mindset that helped me take the edge off many times in the beginning and became natural later on.