Ask HN: Best Resources for a New Dad? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best Resources for a New Dad?

I recently became a dad and only now I realize how difficult it is to gather the right information about anything related to the baby (from breast feeding, feeding issues, sleep, etc - to potential depression and hormone issues for the mother, etc).

I am so surprised that in 2024 there still isn't a good consensus on things that are best to raise a child.

For the parents out here: can you please provide as much help as you can to a father who feels quite hopeless? :)

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>>I am so surprised that in 2024 there still isn't a good consensus on things that are best to raise a child.

No-one knows for sure. Just love them (and make sure they know you love them), give them structure, don't be a dick to them.

The best resource is your heart. Be guided by it and you will do okay.

As for the practical side of it, it's not really complicated and you can figure everything out as you go. As we've done for centuries !

I strongly disagree with this comment.

For centuries we lived in large families and those within communities where everyone witnessed birth at home with multiple siblings and responsibilities around raising children from a small age. The current atomic families with two adult both completely inexperienced in raising a child is unprecedented in history.

For a newborn you can sail on your heart but later on it is insufficient unless you had a good upbringing where you naturally learned patterns - but in that case this question would not be here.

In my personal experience having a good overview on what to realistically expect from a child of a specific age gives a great boost to empathy and patience. You also need a good understanding on what do you want to change in yourself and start working on that because your child will copy you a lot.

OP - you don't find resources because your search it too broad. Try searching for specifics for the first year and start from that.

/rant on, sorry, this topic just gets to me

There is no consensus on how to rise a child because there are so many different paths to take.

You can simply not care that much as your heart could dictate that kids are annoying and not for you in the end - there is a system in place to do that for you that is either a babysitter, a child-care or a school where professionals can do it much better than you anyway. Your heart may dictate that you did not have time for your old hobbies and friends and you really deserve it now that the kid reached school age.

You can decide that you care and spend a lot of time with them so the child will be balanced, feel safe and feel loved with the hope of not having that much emotional shit to figure out in their 30s. Maybe you want to search for the best tutors and send your child to excel in sport or music or sciences so they get the pressure they need to grow and the knowledge to excel in adult life. Maybe you give them as much freedom as possible to do what they want so they can learn the world as it is at their own pace. Maybe you are just lonely and they make you less lonely so you are now best friends forever with them. Your heart would love that, no?

Anyway, there are some questions that cannot be answered by "follow your heart":

- Where should you put your baby when he shat himself to the neck and you try to change the diaper and someone is at the door?

- What guidelines to follow when you want them to learn to close the FUCKING door?

- How involved should you be in his school/homework?

- There is a general consensus on what a newborn needs (mother, milk, sleep and clean diaper) but what does a kid _really_ need at year 1, 2-3, 3-6, 7-11 or more? What to realistically expect from a kid of that age and what should we not?

- Why do they sleep so much and what how much sleep should a kid of age 0,1,2,....18 get?

- What's up with movies and phones and TV? Are they really harmful? How do they measure that?

- Okay, kids needs boundaries but how to set those up? From what year? Why is that one boundary works for one kid and not for the other? Why do they need boundaries btw?

- Why is the first kid and the second kid so different in personality brings the questions of what kind of personalities there are and if they are related to birth order?

- Today's culture says "hitting the child is bad m'kay" but why is that and what is the recommended alternative to getting to a healthy and respected relationship with your kid?

- Should you try to be friends with your child? Why or why not?

- There are disturbing people that can make connection and build trust with your child within one minute - how do they do that?

/rant off

The first two questions are so different than the rest and oddly specific.

Haha, yeah, personal experiences.

Tha answer to the first is "to the floor" because they cannot fall from there.

The answer to the second is to praise them every time they successfully close it. Positive reinforcement seems to work much better.

I didn't say it's easy !

And you have a very good point with large families vs today. But I think what I wrote still stands.

Most of your questions don't have an answer. Life is not about optimization, we are humans and there is no 'one perfect way' to live or raise a child.

Children and their circumstances are so different that it's kind of easy to find yourself in a situation where no one knows what to do. Like everything that matters experience is the only real teacher. Keep trying.

If you can talk to people from your parents' generation that had children. Everyone has a story or a skill to share that helps make it all make more sense.

If you can afford to hire professionals they are generally more helpful than books. Doctors obviously are good to consult. Post partum doulas have lots of random knowledge that they can diffuse to you while they help out around the house. If you are having feeding issues OTs and lactation consultants can be quite useful.

Making friends with new parents will allow you to learn together.

Penny Simkin's book "The Birth Partner" is mostly about birth but had helpful ideas on sleep rotations and early feeding.

Random but I found this less wrong thread helpful for working through antivax ideas in good faith: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oFXXfP88nJrseeoMD/the-litera.... Particularly Lao Mein's comment. It is a very difficult topic to deal with head on since biology is so complicated and the surrounding discourse is all poison.

Trust your instincts and a grandfather's wisdom. Don't waste time reading anything. Eschew any and all academic or scientific takes on parenting. Fathering is like breathing. We've been doing it without thinking about it for millions of years. Seriously: just trust your instincts.

Are you worried about your wife, as you mention hormone issues?

My wife was depressed for a time after our first child. This was a difficult time for her and I felt like an absolute failure. My church minister asked me one day did I think my wife was depressed. My wife and I talked about it, she went to the doctor, took medication for a month or two and was back to her normal self. She had never taking similar medication before or during the last 30 years.

Do your bit, be a good provider and hopefully one day like myself and my wife you will be drinking hot chocolate in your child's apartment like we were last night, having a laugh and a chat.

being a parent has been done to death. hundreds of thousands of morons have raised kids and we are all fine. drop the books, drop “consensus” (do you REALLY want your child like all others???!) and just be there, just be there and be a dad

> thousands of morons have raised kids and we are all fine

Not sure I agree that we are all fine.

Back in my school, teachers would beat up kids because it keeps them from becoming drug addicts. So the definition of fine back then was "not a drug addict". If you were ambitious, it would be "graduated from college".

Ironically, drug addiction is often related to early life trauma.

Stops the teachers from becoming drug addicts? A good bit of HIIT to fuel their dopamine I guess!

school is a WHOLE OTHER story from parenting though… most schools will F kids up :)

there 8+ billion of us, not all can be fine I agree. my comment was just a general principle that we overdo and over think parenting. BE THERE and use common sense - that will take care of most of what your kid needs.

In the UK there are a few support options, including Dad-specific Facebook and WhatsApp groups run by PANDAS foundation. https://pandasfoundation.org.uk/how-we-can-support-you/suppo... (You can prob access outside UK)

There are also general parenting support organisations such as Family Action and podcasts like First Time Dads might be helpful.

I actually got some useful ideas on previous hackernews threads on fatherhood and parenting. There were usually one or two ideas that resonated with me. I suspect the points that resonate will be different for each of us. Here's one of the older threads with a lot of responses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31976803

Bryan Caplan's book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids helped me calm down a lot about this topic.

https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/046...

> I am so surprised that in 2024 there still isn't a good consensus on things that are best to raise a child.

Because it’s tough to screw up. Think of all the absolutely moronic people who manage to keep kids alive who then turn into relatively normal adults. There’s not much to it.

For newborns I don’t think you need a manual. The baby sucks on moms tit, sleeps, and cries for a year. No blood, fever, or discoloration? Don’t worry about it too much otherwise see the doctor. Do your vaccinations and check-ups.

Once they start to wake up to the world it becomes more complicated. People have all sorts of ideas about how to best raise a child. Listen to your heart. The right way is the way that’s right for you. For example, most people and so-called experts told us to “sleep train” our child, making them sleep in a separate room or bed on a strict schedule. We didn’t. Our child sleeps with us in our bed (he’s 4 now, still sleeping with us). It works for us. Do what works for you.

As far as books go I recommend “Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges” by Patty Wipfler

> most people and so-called experts told us to “sleep train” our child

There does seem to be surprisingly large amount of advice which centres on being vaguely unpleasant to your offspring, it always puzzled me.

I actively avoided adopting such ideas, I did everything I could to be kind to them, to pay attention to them and to show them love. For what it's worth my children have turned out, I believe, pretty well and as they've got older it's touching (and almost humourous) to realise that they are increasingly taking the same approach to me !

Sleep training is not about the child, it's about the parent. No child is going to thrive if their parent doesn't. My kid's chance of death reduced significantly after sleep training because I wasn't hallucinating from my own lack of sleep.

Also, a lot of things your kid needs to be functional involve being unpleasant to your kid. Ignoring their bad behaviors so as to not encourage them. Not feeding them exactly what they demand every day.

Parenting is a balance between my needs and the kid's needs. I tell my kid to go away and leave me alone because if she doesn't give me a break from her constant need to be touching me, I will scream and snap at her. I'm not a machine with infinite patience. It's better that she learn to exist separately from me on occasion than have a cranky parent who is snapping at her for reasons she won't be able to understand.

In Canada they give new parents a book about that. Maybe ask around to see if your gov is doing the same thing?

Unfortunately a kid is not a computer, there is no 1 or even few right answers, not in 2024 not in 4042.

Anything beyond common sense and general knowledge about all mentioned topics is impossible to make applicable as is to your particular kid.

So all advice about "listen to your heart" are actually very true, because by design parents are made in a way that fits baby the best (or vice versa :). As long as they come from a place of good intentions and sincere altruistic love.

Playful Parenting; Raising sour Children, Raising Ourself; Unconditional Parenting.

Three books I feel I can recommend.

The Home by Jon R Rice

I would recommend reading Cribsheet by Emily Oster. She is an economics professor who got obsessed with figuring out what advice people give actually has solid evidence supporting it, and what is bullshit.

I've also used this site https://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/month-by-month/ which gives you a decent idea of what to expect from your baby each month.

Also for me, the first 4 months were pretty rough. Lack of sleep for everyone, and wife still recovering from birth both mentally and physically. But after 4 months it got a lot better, and has actually been a lot of fun. Hopefully things will get better for you and your family too!

For something a little contrarian and very interesting: Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing by Alexander Neil

TLDR: Children do not need teaching as much as they need love and understanding.

It would be hard to compile a comprehensive guide on such a vast topic. It would be more like an entire library. Consider that there are many areas where cultural differences preclude concensus.

The closest thing available is probably public health guidelines. These are reliable, evidence-based resources that have been carefully crafted to be useful to all people. For example:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/caring-for-a-newborn/

Of course, the context of a public health guideline is limiting. The average person cannot be given the whole, messy truth. The public health guidelines are a way to simplify that complex landscape, and provide a guide that is easy for that average person to follow correctly and safely.

Breastfeeding often does not come as naturally as one might think. A newborn's brain may be barely developed enough to do it. It is not unusual for new mothers to enter a state of negative thinking as a result of breastfeeding difficulties (or anything else, really). A lactation consultant can help a great deal. They can provide advice on technique, and they can act as a coach/therapist.

The postpartum period may be difficult for the mother. Try to be a keen observer, and don't hesitate to ask your doctor for advice on how to proceed if it seems like things are not going well.

On a related note: seek help. In the context of the entire history of human parenthood, it is very unusual for the two parents to be the only direct caregivers of a child. If you have a support network that would help you, make use of it. This could be family, friends, neighbours, or people from some other community group you are a part of. Hire someone to help if you can. This is not just about helping hands; it is also valuable to receive outside input and emotional support. For example, someone with parental experience knows that caring for a newborn is typically straightforward and easy in many respects, whereas a new parent on their own may find it overwhelming and frightening. Even just having someone at your side will help make you feel more at ease. It is also very nice to have a reprieve.

I recommend this series of articles on baby sleep, sleep training, and more:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220131-the-science-of-s...

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-traini...

I also recommend this subreddit as a jumping-off point for more evidence-based resources (the typical caveats about information from social media apply):

https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/

I found Emily Oster's books pretty informative (she's an economist by training, she does kind of a meta-analysis of research on various topics of interest). Her books should at least give you a good jumping off point if you want to go deeper into studies on particular topics.

That said - all this stuff is a quagmire. Advice that works well for one kid might not work at all for another kid. Any lay-people you talk to will tell you what worked (or not) for them and their kid(s), and they will tell you with great certainty that they are right. But someone else will tell you the opposite with just as much certainty based on their experience.

We all want to do the "right" thing for our children, but on many topics, there just isn't a one-size-fits-all answer.

By virtue of the fact that you're asking this question, here, I assume that you're up on the basics of newborn care/current SIDS prevention recommendations/etc (ie the stuff about which there is consensus across sources), so please allow me to throw out some generalities that have been helpful for me:

- Check in with your partner! More than you think is necessary. New moms are absolutely slammed with hormones, and the relative balances shift around quite a bit in the first few months. Also, she is probably even more sleep deprived than you, and probably has even more of her ego and self-worth tied to being a good parent. Whenever my wife is breastfeeding, I try to make a point to ask her if she needs anything (snacks/water/phone/whatever). Take care of as much day-to-day household stuff as you can for her. Encourage her to take a break/nap while you watch the kid. If she is having a hard time about anything, try to gently remind her that everything she is going through is perfectly normal, and validate that she's doing a good job.

- Check in with yourself! Your testosterone has probably taken a nose-dive, and the effects can sneak up on you. It's likely that approximately zero people are going to ask how you are holding up, so you need to ask yourself.

- Strive to maintain a calm, stable environment. Sometimes the baby is going to be freaking out, and nothing seems to work. Keep calm. When you find yourself getting frustrated, consider this: there will come a time when you will feel that you would give anything to hold your child as a baby again. You will look back and say that you would gladly be sleep deprived, covered in urine, and deafened by crying just to relive the moment. From birth to age 18 is about 936 weeks, so every 9ish weeks, another 1% of their childhood has passed. I keep this firmly in mind, and try to savor every second.

- No plan survives contact with the baby. Be flexible. The river bank guides the river, but the river shapes the bank.

- Kids internalize a lot about their environment. They'll (mostly) do what they see you do, not what you tell them to do. Want your child to eat healthy? You need to eat healthy. Want your child to spend a lot of time reading? You need to spend a lot of time reading. Want your child to call and visit you when they're an adult? Exercise? Language? *Become the person that you want your child to imitate*.

- Practice empathy. Imagine not knowing anything. The first time a newborn gets gas, it must seem like the worst pain in the world for them. Imagine how confusing and terrifying the world is for them. You are an island of love, stability, and comfort while they figure things out. Don't forget empathy for your partner, and empathy for yourself!

Disclaimer: I'm also a new dad, and it's too early to tell if I know what I'm talking about :)

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