Congratulations!! I got 21 months old and I read/skimmed through pretty much everything popular and did almost everything by books. Sometimes, I followed advic

Congratulations!! I got 21 months old and I read/skimmed through pretty much everything popular and did almost everything by books. Sometimes, I followed advices in the books and got different results, it made me feel a bit of failure. Of course, I understand that every child is different and parenting science is in infancy right now. But at some subconscious level, maybe I thought parenting is like programming and one can easily control output with their code. So be careful putting too much faith in these book even if they are evidence-based. At same time, I am surprised to see so many people recommending against reading up on parenting. Sure you will learn a lot of things from your parents and some of things that you will read in books might be common sense, but there will many new things you will learn. And some of common sense ideas are not even correct. These books/blogs helped me being better father & husband, and also helped me deal with a lot of stress. "Let them Eat Dirt" helped me relax about being dirty. "Brain Rules for Babies" helped me relax about not trying to teach my son all the time. "What to Expect First Year" had a lot of useful tips. I didn't know that one should not microwave in plastic containers. And definitely don't microwave milk.