Ask HN: What was life like before and after a baby
My first is due 3 days ago. I'm told that I'm going to have no time any more and good sleep is a thing of the past.
I'm worried, I don't work well when tired. I'm just starting to get in the habit of investing in myself as a developer and am reading a lot, practicing a lot. This has made me, in my estimation, a much better programmer. Does this end when you have kids?
What was it like for you out there that have gone through this change in life?
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 216 ms ] threadPro-tip: co-sleeping. I know this is considered heretical in the US, but the rest of the world does it because it's so much easier, and unless you're morbidly obese/drunk/on drugs it's fine.
Most spouses are also less than keen on sexy time if they've had to drag their chronically sleep-deprived asses up a flight of stairs from the bedroom to the nursery every 45 minutes for the past three months.
A lot of people there say that sleeping is ruined. Maybe just a small change in habits helps.
It's not, children under 2 are not fully equipped to free themselves if they get stuck or covered by something or someone. I'm not here to give parenting advice so, you do you, but it's irresponsible to suggest there is no risk when there very much is increased risk of death. The risk goes down as the child matures of course, but some parents sleep lighter than others, some move in their sleep, some sleep in soft beds with lots of bedding or pillows, or high up.
These are not remotely comparable and it's dishonest to argue otherwise. In-bed co-sleeping mats are banned in many countries. Cribs are not.
I'm not based in the US (Australia) and it's quite frowned upon here.
It seems selfish to me to put that kind of risk on your own kid.
Here's one (small) study that says cosleeping is safer that an separate room:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-1754.2007...
https://rednose.org.au/article/Co-sleeping_with_your_baby (Australian non-profit raising awareness against SIDS)
https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/sleep/where-your-bab... (Australian government-based parenting resources)
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/caring-for-a-newborn/redu... (UK Health service)
It's all official health advice from government bodies which say it's unsafe regardless of the parents situation.
I've found though this debate is similar to the "anti-vax" one, in that most people are quite emotional about it regardless of evidence, and can't generally be persuaded.
Can you imagine a scenario in pre-history (when we could first call ourselves homo-sapiens) when the parents would be like "okay, you can fuck off a sleep in the corner now"? There's a reason children scream like that when you try it. Listen to the difference between that crying, and crying when there's just generally something a bit wrong like they're hungry. You can rationalise it all you like, but you're traumatising the child.
Having said all that, I did _not_ find it easier, but incredibly difficult.
If you want to sleep near your child, a bassinet near your bed is just as close but much safer.
There's a PaulG tweet about this that I'll have to dig up sometime about how parenthood changes you and yes it will change you.
The first six-months to a year you won't have decent sleep. You'll learn how to function.
Really I think the difference is that you don't have much time anymore for distraction, you don't tolerate it. You can't tolerate it. Sure, you'll still be able to browse HackerNews and play games (sometimes). But those long periods of drifting off, spacing out, taking hours to finish something...you'll learn to stop that.
You'll become more efficient. You'll have to: the baby is hungry or needs to be picked up from daycare. Dishes need washing, diapers need changing. Some young dev is dawdling on about something in their day? No. Where's the MR, here's what you need to fix. Get it done. Push it out. We don't have time for this sh*t.
It gets real. In a good sense. In the best sense.
I think you'll wish you did this years ago.
- hot shower (not bath) before bed
- immersion school in another language
- sleep training
HTH, congratulations, and good luck!
Second, two tips more tips from a dad of 5 children:
1. From somewhere after around 1 year: Put effort into teaching sleep skills: I did it by leaving the room after singing and prayer and coming back every 1 + 2n minutes where n is days. (Of course, use your parental judgment.) This was surprisingly effective in teaching them that Dad leaving the room doesn't mean Dad had disappeared, only that Dad is elsewhere and will be back soon. Important: do come back. Use a timer and follow it exactly. Come back even if the kid doesn't cry. It is important that they realize they don't have to cry for us not to disappear.
2. Also, when teaching them to sleep, don't let the fall asleep with anything (persons, toys, food, music, tv, absolute silence) that won't keep all night. We all wake halfway up many times during the night to check if everything is OK. For a small child a missing milk bottle is enough to signal "not ok".
We just had our first this past weekend and so far your post reads entirely true, especially this.
You feed a baby they're happy, you change a baby, they're happy, you get them to sleep and they'll be happier. It's a very different experience IMO to anything else: it takes as long as it takes, and it's all necessary, but the feedback loop is close to instant.
Source: am the father of an almost 7 month old so far (and was extremely skeptical I'd enjoy it as much as I actually am).
It doesn't have to be as bad as you describe it, you need to communicate with the mom and agree on responsibilities. If you're providing and need time to keep up to date (so that you can have a career progression and provide even more), make it clear.
If you're both working, I doubt it will work. You're either going to hate each other, cannibalise both careers or not dedicate enough time to the kids.
After 3 it's easier as nursery / school give you some extra alone time - at that point I'd consider switching back to two workers in the family.
We're lucky that we're on the same page. I want to work, she wants to be a stay at home mum.
After kids: jealous of others laying on their couch
All jokes aside, congrats. You’ll figure it out.
It will be fine, especially if this is your first. The first 6 months to a year are the hardest. Once the baby is sleeping through the night, and especially once you start daycare, you will have a normalish schedule. You must conform to a very strict 9-5 style schedule for both work and professional development. This will force you to be productive during those hours and then hard-stop. Evenings will be a crapshoot. Sometimes you'll have the energy, mostly not.
I'm not saying his to rain on your parade. I'm saying this because not all people are created equal. You don't have to like parenthood. I love my kid but that doesn't mean that I love what I've become. If you find yourself there (or if anyone else is reading this and thinking they can't believe I'm saying it out loud), it's okay. You can still be a good parent, even if you don't love it and you're not a bad person, as long as you try.
Parenthood didn't solve anything for me except that I got the partner I wanted.
FWIW, my office is and always has been isolated from the main part of the house, if not entirely detached.
It’s good to remember kids aren’t just short adults. They are irrational, creative, come up with strange assumptions…
Also good to remember that kids don’t choose to be born, or who their parents are, or where they live.
It’s also good to learn a bit of child psychology along the way. And to truly listen.
All that stuff you mentioned- the negotiating, the crazy constant messes, getting dinner on the table… It sucks.
But it only sucks when I’m living in the imaginary world in my head, which is not reality. I can think of all sorts of things I would do if I wasn’t a parent.
In the real world, I have kids, and I make the choice to be here for them. I don’t know about anyone else here, but my Dad really sucked at being a father.
Though a lot of this is because I have a lot of friends with children around the same age and complaining brings me a lot of joy. So I'd strongly recommend finding some fellow parents to chat with as you go (and unfortunately you'll find people without children to be living in a different universe).
Among my friends those who wanted to be parents are amazingly fulfilled, albeit sometimes tired and stressed. They are also focused and ruthlessly prioritizing, and still get a lot of the most significant things they want to done. Those who fell pregnant through questionable life decisions are mostly less fulfilled with a couple of happy accidents thrown in the mix. Most of them do not have children however. Civilization thanks you for your service (assuming you do it properly).
We did not have a kid through any mistake. There was an understanding. Sometimes you do things you don't like to get what you want.
Civilization would be better off with fewer people, not more. That's a weird thing to say.
I thought my point was clear but I guess not.
Enjoying being a parent is not a requirement. Good on you, if you do. If all you do is try hard and don't F them up, that's good too. It's not said enough but not everyone likes kids or parenthood and you don't have to feel alone or bad. It's ok.
This seems to be a major point of contention today. I suspect the belief that the world is better off with either more or less people underlies many disagreements in political policy.
People have tried to make me feel bad about it but that doesn't bother me either. I can feel how I want as long as I'm being a good parent for my children.
While I know the fun things will come back as the kids get older and become more independent (or want to take part in my interests with me), I can tell that it's going to take a long time before things return to a degree of normalcy. An example of this is that I used to game with my wife most nights - now I couldn't name the last time this happened. We're both too exhausted by the time we finally get free time around 10-11pm. I also used to do dirt bike riding with my wife - it'll be several years before we can all go and do that. I miss being able to come home from work and relax too. Now it's just different work once I'm home.
It's relentless and exhausting, and while I love my kids I wouldn't choose to do it if I had my time over again.
Quick edit - I should add that I give 100% to parenting my kids. I chose to go down this path with my wife and I make sure that my kids don't suffer for my displeasure. They're awesome people and have a great life. I just sorely miss my free time and my ability to be productive at work.
3-4 weeks after the baby was born, we were going out to eat, mainly family-friendly restaurants at first. We also traveled frequently both by car and plane.
I would say, having a baby didn’t take away too much of our sleep and we didn’t slow down much at all. It helped that we had a happy, relatively quiet child, though she could occasionally scream with the best of them. Overall, a child brought great joy to our lives, which vastly outweighed any negatives.
Congratulations and remember to enjoy every minute of the experience. Before you know it, they’ll be a teenager. Then the fun begins… ;)
* Definitely lost a lot of sleep in the early months due simply to how often the baby needed food. This does start to taper off eventually, but whether or not they will sleep through the night is a coin flip for a long time.
* If this is your first, and your partner is in the picture, I actually think that free time can generally still exists. I think I read more books, played more games, and wrote more in Baby 1 Year 1 than I did the year before due to the fact that we were stuck at home a lot more. My advice to try and preserve that time is to establish early a policy of trading off "baby time". In the early months maybe it is sleeping shifts (Person A goes to sleep real early then wakes up at 1AM and is on "duty" while Person B is on "duty" until midnight and gets to sleep in). And then as they start sleeping longer swap off who puts the baby to sleep.
* I have found that the biggest change is in the period after work ends and until they go to sleep. As they get older it just turns into a massive list of "I have to do this" during those hours. Whereas before kids that was a very unstructured time
* For mine the free time crunch was actually the worst in the 2-4 timeframe because they are old enough to be bored, too young to always entertain themselves, and are in constant need of assistance with life things like eating, drinking, being read to, etc.
One of the biggest things that having kids did for me was cause a "hobby triage" where many of the things I was doing had to be re-evaluated to allow for time to do the things that gave me the most joy. I don't binge watch as much TV, watch as many movies, or play a 1/10th of the video games, but I can still focus on the things that bring me the most joy and satisfaction.
But it's lovely. Spend the time with your kids so that they end up becoming people you enjoy spending time with.
The silence of your house. The silence of your mind. The sounds of just you and your spouse talking, eating, sleeping.
The silence you never hear after you have kids. Parenting is full of noise. From the second they wake up, to the moment they close their eyes at night. There's always something making a sound.
It's the sound of laughter, and sometimes tears. The sound of little feet running, and big feet stomping. The sound of dishes clattering, and laughter echoing.
It's the sound of life, and it's beautiful. So cherish the silence while you can, Because soon enough it will be gone.
1. If you have hobbies, put them on hold indefinitely. Your about to get new ones. This is ok, though. I've found I have time for one only. The rest of my time has been re-discovering the world with my young daughters. Cherish it, and have fun with it. Enjoy refamiliarizing yourself with simple things, like watching a sugar ant walk across the floor.
2. Ive learned to make it a point to immediately put my phone or laptop away as soon as my kids are in the room. I don't have peer reviewed to evidence to back up my claim thatit has done wonders for the self esteem and confidence (compared to waht I often see) but it seems like it has. Always be attentive to them, first and foremost. HN can wait... it is probably just another post about a note-taking app anyways.
3. You can absolutely still learn and progress amd a fast pace in your career. You'll have to learn to study hard in short blocks of time, but if you make it a priority it will happen.
4. Kids have a weird way of getting between you and your partner. Don't forget to make intimate moments with them.
5. Some days and weeks are just going to suck. Just remember, it will be alright
6. If you have close friends or relationships you care about, I'd put some monthly reminders in your calendar for the next couple years to just gently remind yourself to call/text/email/whatever. It is hard to keep friends when you have young kids.
Disclaimer: I have a almost 4 and an almost 2 year olds -- these are just the things I've learned. More wiser (more kids, older kids) fathers probably have better wisdom to impart.
Edit: format
I especially love the "re-discovering the world" part. Watching my kid learn concepts, coming from a totally different starting point and putting her own spin on it has been wonderful.
That said, it is HARD to be a good parent. It's super rewarding but it's not easy.
Having kids is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And it’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. It’s exhausting and expensive and terrifying and messy and exhausting, but I wouldn’t ever give it up.
Whatever I thought “joy” felt like before kids… wasn’t it.
As for sleep, you might be only a few months away from consistent sleep. Whatever the case, rather than waiting for the early months to pass, try to enjoy them because they are the shortest time. The "chapters" of life get longer, there was little difference between 1st and 3rd grade, years of the same (still plenty to enjoy though). Yet those first hours, those first days and week are each their own chapter; the first 6-months it's own chapter. They go by fast, things change fast in the beginning. Just be aware.
Spend more time on my phone though, due to the opportunity cost of doing anything except reading books(now web serials) in short bursts.
Harder to be spontaneous about weekends now, have to plan things out more because of all the work in taking small children out for the day.
My wife and I have strong opinions on different kids shows.
Two pieces of advice: Once they're on solids, brush their teeth twice a day. If they haven't spoken more than 5 words in their first 18mo, ignore everyone saying "they're just slow talkers, it's fine" and take them to a speech therapist. If you don't need it, awesome. If you do, early intervention has more impact.
At least we have that one sorted.
After our baby was born, initially my girlfriend spend most time with our daughter. I did carry our baby around a bit, but did not really do any of the other things like feeding, cleaning diapers and such. My girlfriend seemed to really want to do these tasks, so I let her be.
When our daughter got a bit older, initially my girlfriend was annoyed that I didn't play much with our daughter. But I guess when the baby is still very small, it just something that is hard to do for me, perhaps because I am male. Children don't get that interesting for most men until you can more properly interact with them, from what I understand, so I shouldn't be an outlier here.
Once our baby could walk a bit and talk I would spend much more time playing with our daughter. And our daughter now much prefers to play with me compared with my girlfriend.
Nowadays (daughter 5.5 years old) I feel as my girlfriend still mostly takes care of the feeding and showering as well (though I am happy to shower our daughter if she asks for it, as she did like up until half a year ago). I spend a lot of time playing with our daughter each day. We both help her a bit with homework.
Now our daughter does tend to get sick a couple of times a year, so that can be a bit of a hassle. We both get a bit more easily sick now as well. I guess it got something to do with our daughter going to school now and getting germs and spreading those in our home.
Since I work at home, it can be a hassle to work at times, especially if our daughter has a day off from school. She wants to spend all day playing with me, while I try to focus on doing work.
"I had plenty of happy times before I had kids. But if I count up happy moments, not just potential happiness but actual happy moments, there are more after kids than before. Now I practically have it on tap, almost any bedtime."
This to me sums it up very well. Yes,parts of me miss the things I could do earlier. But as with all things in life, is this change a net positive in terms of happiness? "It very likely will be" - has been my experience thus far. My child, still a toddler, continues to be a suprisingly reliable source of happiness and laughs, well into their 6th year. [touches wood].
b) I had a fairly strong attachment to my wife/best friend as I do today too. However, pregnancy, and having a kid reduces your partner's influence on your happiness funnel. They are , for very good reason, less available during the first year of the child's growth.
I would thus highly emphasize on diversiyfing your sources of happiness ( with hobbies, men's night out etc) - otherwise, like I saw, there will be a quick fall in happiness levels in the initial few months.
The only thing more stressful than your first is twins as your first.
1: get a baby bay. I cannot over emphasise how good this is. You can sleep next to baby without worrying that you are going to crush it so you get much better sleep. And once it’s feeding time, boobs out feed, sleep, easy. I’m on my third kid and the baby bay was the game changer.
2. Don’t feel bad about the whole “sleeping though the night” thing. The study that said kids do this had a VERY narrow definition of sleeping through the night (midnight to 4am) and most of the kids then didn’t continue to “sleep through the night”.
3. Once it is appropriate to stop feeding at night (I forget is it 1 year?? 9 months???) then do that but still give baby water. They will start to sleep through completely once they don’t need to feed.
4. Don’t believe any of that Victorian BS about baby needing to “self sooth”. Kids thrive when they feel loved and protected. Let them sleep in your bed for as long as they want like they do in east Asia. Being safe and secure at night helps them feel confident in the daytime