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Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

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Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#211

Post by notenoughhorses »

gameshot911 wrote: post #103

Of kids I've always thought "maybe one day". I can see how it'd be a tough, but extremely rewarding and meaningful endeavor. But reading this article made me think for the first time "actually, I think I don't want kids." So many "mental CPU cycles" spent learning about pregnancy, babies, why they cry, how to care for them. It just doesn't appeal to me at all - I think it'd resent it taking me away from spending time…

I’m not a “kid” person, basically never held a baby before we had our first this August.

As the child bearing person in this equation, I also did the most research on pregnancy, birth, subsequent baby stuff. (My partner did do some reading too, but not the same extent of feeling like he needed to figure it all out.)

One thing that’s interesting is that in many ways, even the pair of us who knew nothing about babies have pretty good instincts for what they need. We got some help from a post partum doula to show us baby care, since we figured you can’t learn all that from reading.

We did read some books. I tried to stay away from articles because they are incentivized to act like there’s conflict or “new” stuff to talk about to keep engaging readers. The most useful resource has been a private Reddit forum of other people who had babies the same month, so we can compare what’s worked for lots of people, what popular info seems totally wrong to lots of us, etc.

Kids aren’t easy, but they are not hard the same way our knowledge-worker jobs are to learn.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#212

Post by bredren »

gameshot911 wrote: post #103

Of kids I've always thought "maybe one day". I can see how it'd be a tough, but extremely rewarding and meaningful endeavor. But reading this article made me think for the first time "actually, I think I don't want kids." So many "mental CPU cycles" spent learning about pregnancy, babies, why they cry, how to care for them. It just doesn't appeal to me at all - I think it'd resent it taking me away from spending time…

I was on an eight year run at Burning Man. Have the cool cat, sold a SaaS I built, could do and just about did anything.

Had our first born this past June, I see now how much more there can be.

I still do much of what I did before (BRC excepted). But there’s more gravity to my existence.

PG has an essay that describes having kids that you should read. It may not make an impact but perhaps it will join the chorus of replies here.

I’d say stay open to the possibility. Yes, you learn a lot. But if you enjoy knowledge, skill building and life experiences, having a kid is just as fascinating as any of that other stuff.

And your life gets wider and deeper.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#213

Post by mortehu »

Underphil wrote: post #85
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #2

Great if it works for you, but for those who are dealing with babies, I wouldn't beat myself up if this advice doesn't apply. The parenting advice world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Maybe they always worked for their particular bab…

My only advice to new parents is to largely ignore other parents' advice. Except mine, and only in this one instance.

There are definitely a lot of families with sleep problems that could be solved if they read "Solve your child's sleep problem" by Richard Ferber (not just the famous two pages about baby sleep training). Many parents I talk to spend years dealing badly with sleep problems.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#214

Post by bitshiftfaced »

em-bee wrote: post #113
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have found correlations between breastfeeding and later outcomes. But those studies have a bias. For example, mothers who graduated college are more likely to breastfeed, and their children are more likely to go to college. The only way to factor out the biases completely is with a twin study: same mother, same environment. That's what they did with the "Twins Early Development Study." This study found no cor…

did that study also look at health? my understanding is that the point of breastfeeding is a better immune system

In the PROBIT trial, "13 percent of the children of mothers in the group that wasn’t encouraged to breastfeed had at least one diarrhea episode, versus only 9 percent of those whose mothers were encouraged. The rate of rashes and eczema was also lower in the group whose mothers were encouraged to breastfeed: 3 percent versus 6 percent."

"In this particular study, we cannot reject the possibility that breastfeeding could matter in either direction—that it could decrease or increase respiratory infections. What we can say is that the data doesn’t support the claim of a reduction in respiratory infections as a result of breastfeeding."

"These researchers have continued to follow the children in the trial through the age of seven. They find no evidence of any long-term health impacts: no change in allergies or asthma, cavities, height, blood pressure, weight, or indicators for being overweight or obese."

Quotes from Crib sheet by Emily Oster. On the other hand, one compelling reason to breastfeed is for the mother, not the child. Breastfeeding lowers risk of breast cancer.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#215

Post by analog31 »

gameshot911 wrote: post #103

Of kids I've always thought "maybe one day". I can see how it'd be a tough, but extremely rewarding and meaningful endeavor. But reading this article made me think for the first time "actually, I think I don't want kids." So many "mental CPU cycles" spent learning about pregnancy, babies, why they cry, how to care for them. It just doesn't appeal to me at all - I think it'd resent it taking me away from spending time…

In my view, it's a kind of mental paradigm shift. Before you have your own kids, they're an abstraction. Afterwards, they're people, and in fact they're your family.

I love my own kids, but I'm not sure I love kids. I don't choose to hang out in places where there are lots of kids. Nobody goes to a children's music recital or sports game unless their own kids are involved.

For many, that shift is not a hard edged step function. For instance if people grow up in large, tight knit families, then they've experienced kids and the relationship with family, before having their own. They may have participated in raising little kids. So they might not have fully experienced the paradigm shift, but have learned from cultural immersion that the shift is usually manageable and desirable.

Another paradigm shift is that before having kids, it's hard to judge whether articles like TFA are insightful, or twaddle. After having kids, you quickly learn that all parenting articles are twaddle. ;-)

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#216

Post by bitshiftfaced »

jl2718 wrote: post #55

I found this to be quite accurate based on my experience, and I have written things very close to this to my personal contacts that are entering this phase. The most important thing to internalize, is that the baby is crying for a reason, and your life will go a lot better if you figure out how to solve their problem immediately, rather than ignore or get upset about it yourself. I can’t tell you how many people have…

One thing I thought was interesting that came out of the AAP book, "Caring for your Baby and Young Child," was that sometimes babies cry to just to get energy out before getting to a more contented state.

It's not always something that needs to be "fixed" right away. It also mentions, as do several other sleep books, that many babies need to cry as part of going to sleep (after the newborn phase).

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#218

Post by sergers »

hvaoc wrote: post #210

Newly minted dad of twins and uncle for 5 others. Infant phase The work is intense when they are young since they can’t do much on their own and need help very often. But this doesn’t last for too long. Most parents exaggerate this phase since it is very intense from their otherwise happy days without kids. I had enough nephews and nieces around that I helped with so my kids are not the first time I am doing somethin…

We were definately a dog family, when we had our first born kid, untill she was 2 years old there were so many things we related to same as a puppy

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#219

Post by daleharvey »

rp3 wrote: post #206
daleharvey wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author did not make it seem like that, they explicitly pointed out otherwise, the 5th paragraph: > This is not to say that there aren’t some benefits to breastfeeding. In poor countries where water quality is very poor, these benefits may be very large since the alternative is to use formula made with contaminated water. In developed countries — the main focus of the discussion here — this isn’t an issue. Even in…

They literally linked to a study, said "this is the best study", then said "this study didn't show benefits in [any] these areas", without mentioning the benefits the study did show. Belarus is/was not a country at risk of contaminated water, even after the collapse of the USSR.

You are replying to a thread that already contains 2 direct quotes from the author specifically discussing the benefits that the study did support.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#220

Post by bitshiftfaced »

martingoodson wrote: post #109
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles…

There is good evidence that breastfeeding is protective against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. There is a dose-response relationship, which is good evidence for causality. The risk is cut by about half, depending on how long breastfeeding continued for. This effect is not explained by socioeconomic factors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29084835/

> There is good evidence

Is there? How were the controls selected in that study? Were they from people who were called on the phone, meaning the controls were from a group of people willing to talk to strangers about something as as deeply personal as having a child die of SIDS?

In this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2351639/

The controls were visited by the same home-visiting nurse, and it found no correlation.

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