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Comment by dnsworks | Hacker News Reader

Oh and hope you get lucky like I did with a daughter who slept through the night from day one. It helped to have a large # of people around the first week or two constantly playing with her (as people do around new babies), keeping her generally awake during the day and exhausting her at night.

Also, don't buy any books. They're all a waste of money, and you probably have enough common sense and natural instinct for the first 18 years.

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Oh, boy. No, don't rely on common sense, particularly because you won't have much at the beginning (lack of sleep can make you impressively stupid).

You don't have to buy lots of books if you know a lot of smart parents who can bring you up to speed (and who live nearby or with you), but there's a lot of info to learn if you don't have solid kid experience yourself already.

I disagree, especially considering the audience here. Most of us are trained at functioning for long periods of time without sleep, especially those of us in operations. I did all of the middle of the night diaper changing the first month, I got to the point where I could have her changed in 2 minutes without opening my eyes. It was like being on-call but far more pleasant, somehow. In the midst of all this we also moved our Datacenter 900 miles north to Seattle, as well as our employees, and ourselves. I'm saying all of this because it isn't as frightening as you think. The exhaustion isn't so bad because it is born in "purpose".

Ugh, even worse, don't ask the smart parents to bring you up to speed, at least not the ones who are going to start cramming some ridiculous child-rearing philosophy down your throat. I will not reproduce again, because I never want to hear the terms "La Leche League", "Co-Sleeping", or "Attachment Parenting" ever again.

> a daughter who slept through the night from day one

As the father of two -- neither of whom slept through the night from day one -- I had to restrain myself from downvoting you for that one, bud :-)

> don't buy any books ...

You're joking, right?

Yeah, we got really lucky with Kaylee, she was always a night sleeper ... well sort of lucky, since I'm not really diurnal, but am rather nocturnal ...

As for the books, yes. I feel that most of them are detrimental and written by quack new-age hippy psychologists. One of the books we were given literally told us to place crystals next to our daughter when she slept to keep her "biorhythms" in check.

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