Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 122 posts

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#111

Post by vorpalhex »

SomeCollegeBro wrote: post #69
vorpalhex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad advice. Parents are real people and need to work in balance with each other and the child. Sacrificing yourself only breeds resentment.

Honestly I disagree that it's bad advice. The advice I give to a lot of new dads specifically is that Moms #1 job is to take care of baby, Dads #1 job is to take care of mom AND baby. Even if the little one is formula fed, the weeks/months after childbirth are so difficult for mothers. Sacrificing yourself a bit, in my opinion, IS balancing the work. As time goes on and you have a toddler, things even out significant…

The child has to be integrated into the family.

Mom's job is not to sacrifice herself to take care of the child. She must both preserve herself, go through the healing process, and help take care of the child.

Dad's job is to also handle any healing, to help take care of mom, to help take care of the child, and to generally keep the house functional.

If Mom kills herself taking care of the child or sacrifices herself to take care of the child, that isn't functional. Something has gone wrong. If Dad has to sacrifice himself to take care of the child or the mother, something has also gone wrong.

You must _integrate_ the child into the family, not replace the family with the child. It is not just what works best for the child - it is what works best for the family as a whole. The child would love to constantly breast feed and comfort feed on mom forever - that is not functional for the mother, she must sleep and have time with the child off her nipple so she can continue to breast feed.

In the same way, it is not functional for dad to say, spend all his time cooking and cleaning and not sleeping. It is better for dad to sleep and some of the chores to go undone then it is to have a tidy home.

If you sacrifice yourself - if you spend and spend and spend - you will see it as a debt accruing that will never be paid back. You will breed resentment to your family. You will be unhappy and the family will no longer be a family. That does not work. It does not matter if you're the mother or the father, self sacrifice destroys families.

The family has to work as a whole. Everyone has to be integrated and the system has to work as a whole. What that looks like differs for every family and is an ongoing process, not a one time solution. The father and the mother have a relationship, and now baby is involved which means we went from 1 relationship to 3 (the baby has a separate relationship with each parent!). The family has to make that work not for a week or a month or a year, but for the rest of their lives.

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#112

Post by vorpalhex »

brudgers wrote: post #100
vorpalhex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad advice. Parents are real people and need to work in balance with each other and the child. Sacrificing yourself only breeds resentment.

If the child and mother came away from the birth with severe medical conditions, would that change what you imagine?

Which of you should be sacrificed for the child? Would it be ok to sacrifice a different child? Perhaps you could draw straws to see who gets sacrificed - that seems more fair than assuming which parent it is.

Could dad hire someone else to be sacrificed?

The answer to all of the above should be "Well no!". Which should lead us back to the problem at hand: "Why is it ok to sacrifice _anyone_?" It's not.

That you had a child with a severe medical condition does not mean you become subhuman. It means the task of integrating the child into the family has a different success criteria (your child with Down's is probably not going to be a functional adult at 18). The child still has to be integrated into the family - as a whole. You don't get to elect a scapegoat and skip out on that task. No child should dominate a family, regardless the medical condition of that child. The family works as an entire unit, not with some unlucky soul having the life sucked out of them for convenience of everyone else.

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#113

Post by ajhurliman »

strix_varius wrote: post #88
ajhurliman wrote: post #44

If they are crying, try walking around while carrying them. They cry much less while you’re walking. This is a lot more important than it may appear at first glance.

Sounds like a line from Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy!

The highest praise : )

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#114

Post by an_aparallel »

not a dad, or parent - but i randomly read "Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children" - by Sarah Zaske on a whim:

https://www.amazon.com/Achtung-Baby-American-Self-Reliant-Ch...

thought it was a really great book on something i'm completely oblivious to.

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#115

Post by brudgers »

vorpalhex wrote: post #111
SomeCollegeBro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I disagree that it's bad advice. The advice I give to a lot of new dads specifically is that Moms #1 job is to take care of baby, Dads #1 job is to take care of mom AND baby. Even if the little one is formula fed, the weeks/months after childbirth are so difficult for mothers. Sacrificing yourself a bit, in my opinion, IS balancing the work. As time goes on and you have a toddler, things even out significant…

The child has to be integrated into the family. Mom's job is not to sacrifice herself to take care of the child. She must both preserve herself, go through the healing process, and help take care of the child. Dad's job is to also handle any healing, to help take care of mom, to help take care of the child, and to generally keep the house functional. If Mom kills herself taking care of the child or sacrifices herself…

debt accruing that will never be paid back

A child doesn’t owe their parents jack shit.

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#116

Post by brg »

A few tips. 1) If either you or you spouse feel you should go to the hospital, don't consider anything further and just go. It's not worth further consideration. 2) Don't expect milestones. They come when they come. Having preset expectations of sleeping through the night, rolling over, crawling, or speaking will make your experience worse. 3) Set a routine, and stick to it. 4) Find time to enjoy the experience, whether its feeding or strolls. 5) Find time for a regular break, whether its a quick lunch outside or a stroll around the block. 6) Take enough pictures, but take many more candid pictures than set pieces. 7) Take time to look at all the pictures you took. 7) As a dad, change all the diapers, wash all the dishes, and never mention that you are doing so.

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#117

Post by Freak_NL »

scorpioxy wrote: post #78
Freak_NL wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - changing table in your bedroom Unless you want the child in their own room as soon as possible. If you can hear your child from your own bedroom having a room dedicated to the child is a good way to keep a little bit of space to yourself and your partner (and stop your bedroom from smelling like baby poop and wet wipes). Some people are into what's known as 'attachment parenting' where you keep the baby in a cot…

Can you elaborate on why you think that people who sleep in the same bed as the baby are "idiots"? In most non-western cultures, the mother sleeping in close proximity to the baby is the norm and anything else is considered quite unusual.

Because traditionally, the risk was either considered acceptable or misunderstood. Co-sleeping causes a lot of unnecessary infant deaths (actually, not reputedly; look up the advice on this topic in most countries), and a lot of national health agencies strongly recommend that babies have their own crib.

Just because it is or was normal in some cultures, doesn't make it safe or a negligible risk. Ignoring evidence-based guidelines for something like this just because it feels better is perhaps not the best way to go about it — I would say 'idiotic'.

Sleeping in close proximity can be done in other ways, like the co-sleeping cots that one can put next to the parental bed. It's still not necessary or even good for the baby really, but at least it can be done without unduly increasing the risk of child mortality.

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#118

Post by shrikant »

abstractbill wrote: post #21

Parenting is, in my experience, quite a bit like taking care of a drunk person who very slowly sobers up over several years. The internet is generally a terrible place to get parenting advice/support/etc from. For some reason it's a topic that brings out the most judgemental in people. Parents of one child are often the worst to talk to. They have figured out what works for their one kid, and are quite unaware that i…

> Parents of one child are often the worst to talk to. They have figured out what works for their one kid, and are quite unaware that it doesn't generalize at all.

Parent of one child checking in -- strongly agree with you! I generally phrase myself very carefully around newer parents to avoid sounding like I'm giving general advice, and stress that I'm only talking about my experience with my kid -- and also, crucially, only when my thoughts on the matter are solicited.

The super judgey, sanctimonious tones of similar one-child parents who have everything figured out with their ONE SINGLE DATA POINT is really grating, and I try to steer the conversation away from there right away.

Re: Ask HN: Concise, pragmatic baby manual for first-time dad?

#120

Post by peelle »

My kids came with manuals. Every new baby in Taiwan does. We also got a manual for the pregnancy. Very useful.

I know that one of the public health orgs in Australia has something similar. You should be able to google for it. It was a mostly no nonsense PDF with bullet points outlining the what and when, divided by an age range the milestone expected to happen during.

Post reply on HN