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Comment by dalyons | Hacker News Reader

And you feel justified in espousing this harsh judgement of others parenting choices based on what evidence?

What seems obvious to you isn’t for others, and parenting threads are typically just trading anecdotes and judgement without data.

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I do, actually.

First, forcing children to solo-sleep was invented by the aristocracy. It doesn't come naturally (as evidenced by archaeological record, anthropological studies of primitive societies, and primate studies).

Second, none of the so-called benefits of child solo-sleep are supported by solid evidence.

Just because it became the "norm" in modern society is not sufficient reason to give it credence. We also used to push formula on infants because it was supposed to be better for them (my immigrant grandmother had a fit when she discovered that the hospital was feeding her drugs as a matter of course to stop her lactating). This policy was pushed by doctors and hospitals and public health officials for decades, with no evidence to support it (this is not a rant against medical personnel, but rather against procedural inertia without evidence - the very reason why we have the scientific method).

It's right up there with the bizarre America-wide policy of washing the protective film off eggs so that they now need to be refrigerated to prevent spoilage (and of course, every American "knows" that you must refrigerate eggs).

If you wish to push for something artificially induced only recently, the onus is upon you to provide extraordinary evidence to support it.

To give a little perspective, we would cosleep back home when there's familial support. But we would let the kids sleep on their own when we're living in foreign land with no one else to help us.

Babies want physical connection during sleep, sure. But they also need me to not end up bed ridden because I pulled my back carrying them after having slept only 3 hours and forgetting to bend my knees. Twice. True story.

It's a balance of quality care. There's no need to turn everything into a giant conspiracy theory. Also, first baby fed with formula, second baby breast fed. IMHO, absolutely no difference other than having to supplement vitamin D for the BF baby, and the mother is ten times more depressed.

Even if America is dysfunctional, not everything needs to be hero derp murica.

Man, I would not want to personally know you.

This comment swings so hard at "you're a bad parent because..." that lacks any compassion for how difficult raising children. I have doubts you're a parent, but if you're a parent and are able to hold this highly judgmental opinions then your kids are the best sleepers in the world. Or perhaps have lots of help to be able to ignore everything else in life.

You're very lucky to be in a camp that can hold such opinions.

Have you been on mum groups? It's 80% awesome and supportive people giving advice, and 20% intense judging. Of that 20%, there are so many parents with their own biased experience trying to justify their parenting actions by telling others it's the only and right way to raise kids, even when the answer is almost always YMMV.

I think of it as their own way of surviving parenthood.

Oh I actively avoid those (definitely not personally knowing any of them). But, I get it, it's your child and you only want the best - especially if its your first born.

But man, have a second kid - see if you still hold those ideals, haha. If you do, then respect - but still don't want to know you.

Some know-it-all with quite well behaving kids are the worst.

The funny thing is that what works is very child specific. So parents give each other good advice for their own children but might be terrible advice for others. Talking about child care became so much easier once I realized this.

This is more about breaking persistent bad policies and social norms that were enacted without evidence, and empowering parents to withstand the public pressure to conform, much like the "free range kids" movement, and the breast milk movement. Now if we could just break the "nuclear family" norm...

If even one parent reads my post and says "hey yeah, we don't have to conform to this arbitrary social norm - there's nothing wrong with our child sleeping in our bed!" then I'm happy. Solo-sleeping was popularized by Europeans - it's not a universal thing, even today.

> If even one parent reads my post and says "hey yeah, we don't have to conform to this arbitrary social norm

I don't disagree with you there. I think that's a good goal.

But why do that in a way that lays down another arbitrary social norm? That seems contradictory to your stated goal.

Man, I would not want to be your child.

The poster was asked to provide arguments to his opinion, and when he did, your only reaction is "how dare you call me a bad parent"? I bet you also believe physical violence is great because it is so convenient for parents - just beat their ass, and the little mofos become nice and docile. I mean, it's so hard to be a parent! After all, the poor parents are suffering so much, what's a little violence in comparison? Little shits should feel lucky they're getting beaten.

You seem to make sleep training and corporal punishment morally equivalent.

Nice attempt at a strawman though.

I never said or implied that, I only think that such defensive parents are more likely to justify everything they do with their "being a parent is so hard" attitude, so much that they probably think corporal punishment is fine as long as it makes their jobs easier.

Nice attempt at a strawman, though.

Here's a decent article summarising the state of th evidence evidence. (I'm not making any claims about what the evidence says, I just found it interesting) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-traini...

> Results One hundred eight intervention and 107 control families provided six-week follow-up information with complete actigraphy data for 96 in each group: 96.9 % of intervention and 97.9 % of control infants had an average of 2 or more nightly wakes, a risk difference of −0.2 % (95 % CI: −1.32, 0.91). 4 % of intervention and 14 % of control infants had parent-assessed severe sleep problems: relative risk 0.3, a risk difference of −10 % (CI: 0.11, 0.84-16.8 to −2.2). Relative to controls, intervention parents reported improved baseline-adjusted parental depression (CI: −3.7 to −0.4), fatigue (CI: −5.74 to −1.68), sleep quality (CI: −1.5 to −0.2), and sleep cognitions: doubts (CI: −2.0 to −0.6), feeding (CI: − 2.1 to - 0.7), anger (CI: − 1.8 to - 0.4) and setting limits (CI: −3.5 to −1.5).

> Conclusions The intervention improved caregivers' assessments of infant sleep problem severity and parental depression, fatigue, sleep, and sleep cognitions compared with controls.

This is largely true for myself - sleep training is for the parents to get some semblance of their lives back.

The first 3 months of my daughter's life - i'd never been more tired in my life.

So it's a selfish choice that doesn't necessarily take into account the child's wellbeing. I don't know your religious/cultural motivations but maybe don't do something that makes you miserable and severely disrupts your life?

See the co-sleeping debate is never ending and highly dependant on family genetics but the statistics referenced above are related to the parents' perception and well-being and not the cognitive development and well-being of the infants themselves.

Parental well-being is important too, especially if increased risk of depression leads to a parent having suicidal thoughts. Having depressed or fewer parents raising the child is not a guaranteed improvement

Ah yes so parents should be more likely to be depressed, become unfit, lose motivation for life because they need to 100% be with their baby at all times. You are aware how that's not a viable long term solution right?

No government forces you to have kids. If you’re up to the task then do it perfectly and enjoy while doing it; if not don’t bring misery upon yourself, your baby and potentially the society by raising a kid without catering to their emotional needs because you’re too busy.

However my views are based on the economic/societal/parental expectations in (progressive) North America and it’s certainly different elsewhere.

Edit: Added specificity

It's okay. I was like you. Once you have kids the position and understanding shifts to be more compassionate towards other parents and their situation.

Yeah I read that last time there was a big thread about this on HN. It’s all pretty inconclusive. My clearest takeaways from that were that doing sleep training too early is not recommended, and that there was no observed long term difference in kids either way. And that we shouldn’t judge folk who need or want to try such things because they’re working parents, depressed, or have other family problems caused by lack of sleep.

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