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Ah, I'll have to share this with my wife! We welcomed our first child in November. Since then, we've been pretty sleep deprived thanks to the nightly feedings a

by j79 9y ago

Ah, I'll have to share this with my wife! We welcomed our first child in November. Since then, we've been pretty sleep deprived thanks to the nightly feedings and diaper changes. Both of us were remarking this morning how forgetful we had become, even to the point that we couldn't recall how the night had gone.

DaTruthHurts 9y ago
Congrats to having a child. A study claims, "Stimulating the Brain’s Emotional Center Enhances Memory" https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/stimulating-the-brains-emotional-center-enhances-memory https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/st... Perhaps you can deduce a cognitive exercise to juggle up your memory prowess?
whafro 9y ago
Since having a kid myself, I've pretty much settled on the notion that it's an evolutionary trick: since you don't sleep much, you don't remember the hellish times during those early months (years?), so you're willing to have a second – or third, or fourth – kid down the road.
- aerophilic 9y ago
  Ha! Funny but makes sense, though I think in this case it is a by product of our young forcing us to “pay attention” to them. The thing I always found more interesting is how babies tend to look more like their fathers than mothers at birth. The evolutionary advantage being to make it more obvious “who’s kid it is”. It is fairly easy to know the mother, but harder to “prove” the father, at least evolutionary speaking.
  - wincy 9y ago
    The young aren’t forcing you to “pay attention” to them, they just want their needs met. One of those needs is to not be eaten by snakes or other predators, so they don’t want to be alone. How people ever came up with the idea that putting a helpless baby in a different room was a good idea or even preferable to just cosleeping is beyond me.
    - skc 9y ago
      Presumably it's a good idea because there is now no risk of them being eaten by snakes or other predators. Are we supposed to stop adapting to our environment?
      - memebox3v 9y ago
        But they dont know that. And the stress they experience as a result is potentially damaging to a developing brain.
- wincy 9y ago
  If you cosleep you don’t end up sleep deprived at all. The first year of my daughters life was a joy and super easy. The worst part was the three days when we weaned but she was already 2. 99% of our nights were full sleep, my wife commented on how it was amazing that the baby didn’t eat at night, but what was actually happening was my wife would automatically roll over and feed her when she’d fuss a little bit. Western society still clings to these Victorian notions of child rearing that makes everything absurdly difficult.
  - stevekemp 9y ago
    Co-sleeping, where the child is in the same bed as the parents, is generally considered dangerous. But I suspect you're biased, we have a baby that slept overnight (mostly) from seven months, but we have friends with a five year old who won't sleep for more than two hours at a time. Some babies are easy, some are not. Just like they're people, really!
    - dminor 9y ago
      Our first was sleeping 5-6 hours after 2 weeks. Everyone told us we were lucky how easy she was. Our second is almost 3 months old and it turns out everyone was right :) We're ecstatic if she goes for 5-6 hours, which happens only occasionally. Both children slept in their own room from the start, but we're considering getting a co-sleeping bassinet which attaches to the side of the bed for this one.
      - stevekemp 9y ago
        We're in Finland so our child did sleep in a famous cardboard box, in the same room as us, for a few weeks. But then in a cot next to us as the box started to get a little beaten up. Having the child nearby is definitely good!
    - AceyMan 9y ago
      >>>Co-sleeping, where the child is in the same bed as the parents, is generally considered dangerous. Citation, please? Yes — done wrong, it has some (very manageable) risks, but if you've gone so far as to choose to bring another human into the world it behooves you to do the modicum of reading to make sure you do it correctly. And most of these risks (falling on the floor, etc.) are by-products of our modern era, hence were no factor in early human times. The advantages of co-sleeping are myriad and various and many, if not most, early childhood specialists encourage the practice.
stewbrew 9y ago
In German, some use the term Stilldemenz, which literally means "dementia from breast feeding". It's probably related.

by j79 9y ago

DaTruthHurts 9y ago

Congrats to having a child. A study claims, "Stimulating the Brain’s Emotional Center Enhances Memory" https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/stimulating-the-brains-emotional-center-enhances-memory https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/st... Perhaps you can deduce a cognitive exercise to juggle up your memory prowess?

whafro 9y ago

Since having a kid myself, I've pretty much settled on the notion that it's an evolutionary trick: since you don't sleep much, you don't remember the hellish times during those early months (years?), so you're willing to have a second – or third, or fourth – kid down the road.

aerophilic 9y ago
Ha! Funny but makes sense, though I think in this case it is a by product of our young forcing us to “pay attention” to them. The thing I always found more interesting is how babies tend to look more like their fathers than mothers at birth. The evolutionary advantage being to make it more obvious “who’s kid it is”. It is fairly easy to know the mother, but harder to “prove” the father, at least evolutionary speaking.
- wincy 9y ago
  The young aren’t forcing you to “pay attention” to them, they just want their needs met. One of those needs is to not be eaten by snakes or other predators, so they don’t want to be alone. How people ever came up with the idea that putting a helpless baby in a different room was a good idea or even preferable to just cosleeping is beyond me.
  - skc 9y ago
    Presumably it's a good idea because there is now no risk of them being eaten by snakes or other predators. Are we supposed to stop adapting to our environment?
    - memebox3v 9y ago
      But they dont know that. And the stress they experience as a result is potentially damaging to a developing brain.
wincy 9y ago
If you cosleep you don’t end up sleep deprived at all. The first year of my daughters life was a joy and super easy. The worst part was the three days when we weaned but she was already 2. 99% of our nights were full sleep, my wife commented on how it was amazing that the baby didn’t eat at night, but what was actually happening was my wife would automatically roll over and feed her when she’d fuss a little bit. Western society still clings to these Victorian notions of child rearing that makes everything absurdly difficult.
- stevekemp 9y ago
  Co-sleeping, where the child is in the same bed as the parents, is generally considered dangerous. But I suspect you're biased, we have a baby that slept overnight (mostly) from seven months, but we have friends with a five year old who won't sleep for more than two hours at a time. Some babies are easy, some are not. Just like they're people, really!
  - dminor 9y ago
    Our first was sleeping 5-6 hours after 2 weeks. Everyone told us we were lucky how easy she was. Our second is almost 3 months old and it turns out everyone was right :) We're ecstatic if she goes for 5-6 hours, which happens only occasionally. Both children slept in their own room from the start, but we're considering getting a co-sleeping bassinet which attaches to the side of the bed for this one.
    - stevekemp 9y ago
      We're in Finland so our child did sleep in a famous cardboard box, in the same room as us, for a few weeks. But then in a cot next to us as the box started to get a little beaten up. Having the child nearby is definitely good!
  - AceyMan 9y ago
    >>>Co-sleeping, where the child is in the same bed as the parents, is generally considered dangerous. Citation, please? Yes — done wrong, it has some (very manageable) risks, but if you've gone so far as to choose to bring another human into the world it behooves you to do the modicum of reading to make sure you do it correctly. And most of these risks (falling on the floor, etc.) are by-products of our modern era, hence were no factor in early human times. The advantages of co-sleeping are myriad and various and many, if not most, early childhood specialists encourage the practice.

stewbrew 9y ago

In German, some use the term Stilldemenz, which literally means "dementia from breast feeding". It's probably related.