How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers • Hacker News Board

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#201

Post by koolba » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

saganus wrote: post #192

koolba wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of the previous 4 months, felt like a full night's sleep but this is sleep deprivation territory, specially given the fact that it was 7 days a week. Assuming you have the space for it, I never understood couples that insist on both parents being woken up every night…

I'm not a parent so my knowledge here is pretty scarce, but what I've understood from friends that have kids, is that when a baby wakes up, both parents wake up due to instinct (i.e. is the baby ok?). So I wonder if what you suggest would require some accomodation. E.g. have the 'on-call' parent sleep in the same room as the baby, and the other one can sleep in another room with the door closed. Is this what you mean…

> So I wonder if what you suggest would require some accomodation. E.g. have the 'on-call' parent sleep in the same room as the baby, and the other one can sleep in another room with the door closed.

> Is this what you mean by saying that both parent need not be waken up? or are there some other methods that would help out with this?

That's what I meant by "Assuming you have the space for it...". If the baby is in a separate room and there's space for a bed or mattress, whoever is "on-call" stays there and the other parent gets an uninterrupted nights sleep. Or the reverse and the "resting" parent goes and sleeps on the couch. 7-8 hours uninterrupted on a couch wins over repeated interruptions on a bed.

Same system works if you have a grandma visiting to take over for a night. There's no merit badge given out for everyone being equally sleep deprived. It's just worse for everyone, including the baby.

If the mother is directly breast feeding then likely she's going to be taking the heavier end of this load. If the baby is formula fed or she's pumping, there's more leeway to switch off.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#202

Post by koolba » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:03 PM UTC

jly wrote: post #195

koolba wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of the previous 4 months, felt like a full night's sleep but this is sleep deprivation territory, specially given the fact that it was 7 days a week. Assuming you have the space for it, I never understood couples that insist on both parents being woken up every night…

Logically this makes sense but it can be tricky to implement successfully for everyone. For breast-fed infants, it may be the case that mom has to be more frequently involved in the overnight care. It makes sense for dad to get as much sleep as possible in this case, but that can lead to resentment and other issues. My wife and I traded off as you indicated but that was no picnic, either. We found it easier to split…

> Logically this makes sense but it can be tricky to implement successfully for everyone. For breast-fed infants, it may be the case that mom has to be more frequently involved in the overnight care. It makes sense for dad to get as much sleep as possible in this case, but that can lead to resentment and other issues.

Embracing marriage as a team sport goes a long way to avoiding petty resentment. It's also standard practice for the resting parent to ensure there is plenty of coffee after the non-resting parent's final 37 minute power nap.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#203

Post by tathougies » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #132

So, reading this thread is making me really not want to have children. Seems like one would have to be completely insane to voluntarily sign up for that. People that have children. Do you think it was honestly a good idea in retrospect, and if so, why? If your wife had been on the fence about having children, would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?

Well no.. I wanted kids as much/more than my wife. Why should I care about hormonal responses. My body is designed to get my wife pregnant and have babies. I embrace that. Whatever changes it undergoes is fine... That's the price you pay for family.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#204

Post by tathougies » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

drclau wrote: post #100

keymon-o wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess the idea of this study is not that having a child of your own somehow directly alters your brain biologicaly, but the experience itself is just that intense. I find it much more interesting, the fact that most of the changes mother experiences might not be the "nature's wonder", but lasting, painful, traumatic and exciting experience itself that affects one's brain. Edit: And that itself has much deeper rel…

> And that itself has much deeper relation to a biological child than to adopting one. Not that adopting isn't significant or emotional, it's simply not that varying level of experience. How do you know your child is actually biologically yours? Human fathers have no biological/natural means of identifying a child as theirs. So your hypothesis that having your own child va adopting is different does not stand. The fa…

If i recall correctly, men who are bonded (via sex of course given the huge oxytocin releases) to their childrens mother and who saw the mother throughout pregnancy and were sure there was no cheating have a higher affinity to that child and this can be measured hormonally. Its not 100 percent but probably good enough for natural selection. Also marriage and pair bonding is rather common among our closely related primate brethren

Edit: also the testosterone stuff is mostly a myth in the sense that, while testosterone of new fathers drops, it also recovers some months after the baby is born and older. So you get some months of baby snuggles and then you're back with your old libido. Also, men with kids are way more attractive to women (including their wives) anyway.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#205

Post by KaiserPro » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:11 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #177

KaiserPro wrote: post #81

my changes: o hair loss (Eldest's birth and early life was traumatic) o Loss of short term memory (mostly temporary, sleep loss related.) o loss of hearing (eldest was fond of screaming) o grey hair. We split child care into two shifts. I took nights, wife took days. Hence why I had less sleep than the wife.

It seems unlikely that a child could scream loud enough to cause significant hearing loss.

Babies can scream at 120db. (supposedly 130, but I find that hard to believe)

not only that its at about 3.5khz. now look at this graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour

Right in the loudness contour.

children, less so, babies yes.

number two is nowhere near as loud or as prone to screaming

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#206

Post by randlet » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

peteridah wrote: post #115

This has been a very useful thread.I have struggled with weight for many years. I have sufficient motivation to exercise and I am normally able to keep a disciplined schedule. But with our 2yr old daughter, sleeplessness has kind of messed me up and I struggle to keep any form of discipline now. It's hard. I am just glad to know that I am far from the only one :)

Exercise helps a bit with weight, but the overwhelming factor in weight loss/gain is the amount of calories ingested.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#207

Post by bluntfang » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

senorjazz wrote: post #157

keymon-o wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good joke! The experience itself is different. While for women it is more shocking and exciting, men still need to handle their partner and other responsibilities during this period and pretty much share that experience which, as article suggests, alters them both in some ways.

> alters them both in some ways. meh, not really. I don't think you can equate having to walk around mother+baby type stores on your weekend with growing a baby inside you. Life doesn't change "that" much for fathers during the pregnancy apart from support the mother with the changes she is going through After the birth, then hold on, the ride is now beginning and everything you ever know is turned upside down

>I don't think you can equate

GP is not equating, and explicitly says so in the first real sentence of their post:

>The experience itself is different.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#208

Post by sweeneyrod » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #114

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #42

Looking into the T drop in fatherhood, the original study seems to account for self reports of 'sleep quality' but I wonder if sleep deprivation is not still a confounder in this finding. Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'depriv…

I always view articles skeptically when they talk about testosterone as effecting behavior. Most modern studies tend to conclude that testosterone levels changes after changed behavior rather than before, and artificially lowering or increasing testosterone within human levels does not usually have any measurable effect on behavior. For example, the article stated that there is a correlation between lower testosteron…

It's possible (and indeed seems very likely) that testosterone and behaviour both affect each other.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#209

Post by geden » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #116

reallydontask wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'deprivation' to impact T production. When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of t…

I haven't noticed the "anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive" in my group of friends, especially my work colleagues. I've been pretty straight forward about how hard the whole thing has been, especially adding a second child to the mix before the first one was 2 yo. I wouldn't recommend having a second child to anyone unless they really, really wanted it. It's hard af. Logarithmically harder than…

Agreed, but weirdly our experience was that three was easier than two. We truely had to let go of the idea that we could do everything the 'right way' and as a result became more relaxed and confident parents as a result.

Anecdotally our third child is the least anxious and most confident out of the three. We were clearer about the stuff that really didn't need sweating over - we had no choice!

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#210

Post by auiya » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #132

So, reading this thread is making me really not want to have children. Seems like one would have to be completely insane to voluntarily sign up for that. People that have children. Do you think it was honestly a good idea in retrospect, and if so, why? If your wife had been on the fence about having children, would you have preferred to go child-free, in retrospect?

People have a hard time admitting in retrospect they wished they didn't have kids because of biological bonding. My life would have INFINITELY less responsibilities and much more money had I not had a child. Are those things worth trading in retrospect? I don't know the answer to that because the toothpaste is already out of the tube. I'm currently middle aged, but if given the opportunity to go back in time and choose to either have kids or not, I probably would have chosen not. It's not because I don't love my kid to the moon and back, but it's a huge responsibility not many people can deal with. It's worth noting this is mindset is exacerbated by being divorced from my child's other parent, and it forces me to have to interact with a formerly abusive partner periodically.