8 ms·

Great if it works for you, but for those who are dealing with babies, I wouldn't beat myself up if this advice doesn't apply. The parenting advice world is choc

Great if it works for you, but for those who are dealing with babies, I wouldn't beat myself up if this advice doesn't apply. The parenting advice world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Maybe they always worked for their particular babies, but I have been in situations with my kids where neither shushing and patting nor holding and walking worked to stop crying. My general feeling is that you can drive yourself nuts trying to figure out why your baby is crying, and, as the blog author mentioned in his conclusion, you may still be unable to figure it out. IMO this is a great time of one's life to discard the illusion of control.

duxup 5y ago
Yeah babies are different. My kids didn’t scream or cry much at all. Friends whose kids screamed all the time were astonished and tried everything to figure it out. But we had opposite experiences with kids sleeping through a the night, I’m tired just thinking of it.
- senectus1 5y ago
  yup.my son slept through at 6 weeks, but refused to sleep at all during the day. My daughter slept happily during the day and didn't start to even attempt to sleep through the night till after week 9... never consistently sill after week 12
spdegabrielle 5y ago
I’d like to add: it is ok to ask for help.
- progre 5y ago
  This. My wife went half crazy from sleep deprivation when our baby was about 1 month. One time both she and our daughter fell asleep after late night feeding. I went to make a sandwich, and when I came back my wife was crying in bed trying to wake the sleeping baby because she thoght she had been sleeping for 5 hours but in reality it was more like 20 minutes. She was desperate because the baby wouldn't wake up and eat. After that we realized that we were heading in a dangerous direction. We started the baby on formula instead of breast milk (at the time there was a somewhat agressive push from the baby doctors to keep breast feeding as long as possible). This meant we could share feeding duties. When she was comfortable with formula we actually left our (about 2 month old at that point) with my parents for 1 night a week so we could both sleep.
  - arbol 5y ago
    Grandparent help would have been far more common in the past due to shared living arrangements. Makes you think it might be harder today when coupled with both parents working.
    - progre 5y ago
      I agree, but this also in opposition to the prevailing (maybe cultural) drive for everyone to live their own life. Most people I know wouldn't want to live with their parents or their inlaws. Most parents don't want their grown up kids around. So we build kindergardens and other social services to help with that. And underfunded schools somehow gets stuck with actually making functioning adults out of kids. In Sweden, where I live, stay-at-home parents don't get a full share of the pension funds so the system discurages staying at home with kids. So much for the vote-yourself-rich democrazy. It's a mess. It should be noted though: The small family unit came first, with industrialization. The social network is there to support the industry, not the family.
  - dtech 5y ago
    I don't think you need formula, around here they recommend expressing and storing so both partners can feed breast milk.
    - progre 5y ago
      Sure that can work. In our case the breastfeeding hormones was definetly a contributing factor to the crazy so that wasn't an option.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      It's really hard for some moms. Do you feel like ejaculating 15 times per day for a year?
    - sergers 5y ago
      My wife tried breastfeeding, it was too much for her and wasn't really working how much she tried. We had all the pumps, techniques, just wasn't worth the stress. The important thing is your child is being fed. There have been multiple cases where infants have starved to death after being born because the mothers were convinced only to give breast milk, and couldn't produce enough. We switched from 50% formula/breast milk to strictly formula. If u aren't giving breast, there's additional vitamins you need to give aswell Do what works best... In many cases it's not breast milk for everyone's health and sanity. When we switched to ready made Enfamil, that was such a lifesaver for me and my wife
donw 5y ago
Exactly. Babies cry because they're new to the world. They have not yet grown the moderating influence of context provided by experience. Every baby is unique, with a different emotional balance. A big chunk of parenting is figuring your kids out, and balancing that with the set of experiences they need to have in order to grow. Many of those experiences are painful, which means you also need to figure out the balance of "let them cry" and "comfort them", which also changes drastically over time. That's where having both parents really matters, as the tension between them is essential in finding that balance.
furyofantares 5y ago
Here's one that always worked for me from about 6mo to 18mo: If she was crying and I played Hamilton on my phone, she'd immediately stop crying. Then I'd figure out that had been wrong and solve the actual problem for her. This was a 100% thing, it felt like magic, but of course I'm not gonna dole it out as even remotely likely to work with another baby.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  For my oldest child, it was Dominion Road by the Muttonbirds[0], that calmed him, and only that. It was sheer luck I found that out. But, after having more children than you could fit in a regular car, I've realised that each child is an entire bag of quirks that don't apply to others. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk
- progre 5y ago
  For mine it was Ensigns of Victory by Winterfylleth. My wife would say i was Perfect Day by Lou Reed. I never had any luck with Lou Reed.
farmerstan 5y ago
Babies only have a single mechanism of communication and it takes a while to debug it. Imagine you had a computer that would crash every time something went wrong. You would develop a checklist for that computer to help with debugging it. That’s the exact same thing with kids.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Among parenting social media influencers, this is a gamble for building rapport among an audience: Make some extreme claim that may or may not work for some portion of people who hear it. People who hear it, try it, and find that it works will vividly remember the influencer as being correct. People who try it with no results will quickly forget it about it. Repeat across several claims and eventually some percentage of them will be correct for the audience.
- mason55 5y ago
  Like sport betting advice. Make 64 accounts, predict the outcome of six 50/50 games, start a paid newsletter with the one that got them all right.
- redisman 5y ago
  Often the followers seem to self select. If someone’s advice was crap/didn’t work for you at all, you stop paying attention to them - if it worked you might think they’re a genius
- Fnoord 5y ago
  Cold reading + advertising = influencer (= a cool word for self-employed marketeer)
mberning 5y ago
Very true, I was going to make a similar statement but you said it perfectly. Infants do follow some common patterns, but what works for YOUR infant might be completely different that what you’ve read, been told, or even experienced with prior children. I don’t think there is any shame in doing what works as long as it is safe.
ALittleLight 5y ago
My own "technique that always works" (your mileage may vary) was "The hold". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C8MkY7Co8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C8MkY7Co8 In my experience the baby will often resume crying as soon as you stop doing it, but we used this whenever we needed a couple minutes of relief.
- sergers 5y ago
  We endlessly tried the hold. Maybe actually worked 75% of situations, but as you said majority of time they would resume when we stopped. Helps to try quickly distract them in that moment they pause doing the hold, atleast wth my child
Underphil 5y ago
My only advice to new parents is to largely ignore other parents' advice. Except mine, and only in this one instance.
- watwut 5y ago
  Meh. Advice I got from other parents or on parenting forums were those actually most likely to work. What does not work is advice from "parenting experts" or doctor talking about non medicine etc. And of course advice people trade on forums non parenting forums (like HN) - too much of it is from people who don't interact with kids actually.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    Quoted parenting experts are perhaps no use but actual experts are. My mother was advised by the late great Hugh Jolly, a genuine expert.
- iforgotpassword 5y ago
  If say don't ignore other parents advice, except the one I'm replying to. ;-) I think it's reasonable to survey a dozen parents to get a bunch of different opinions and recommendations of what worked for others, so you have enough things to try if you got a situation, and don't just panic.
- Fnoord 5y ago
  Not ignore, that's the other extreme. Take it with a grain of salt instead of as a bible. Experiment in a non-harmful way. Try things out, see what works. Every child is different, even from same gene pool.
- mortehu 5y ago
  There are definitely a lot of families with sleep problems that could be solved if they read "Solve your child's sleep problem" by Richard Ferber (not just the famous two pages about baby sleep training). Many parents I talk to spend years dealing badly with sleep problems.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
Every child is a whole new world, a whole new potential, and a whole new problem. 1. My first child couldn't be calmed easily, although I found a song that somehow worked. [0] 2. Second child could be soothed by slowly rubbing from his temple down past his eye to his cheek. 3. Third child hated that, but loved having her forehead rubbed slowly in a horizontal manner. 4. Fourth child just wanted a firm pressure on the top of his head (e.g., a palm, he'd also burrow up into your armpit for comfort sometimes, which was awkward when I hadn't showered that day) 5. Fifth child didn't need any of the above, just lots of hugs and kisses at bed time. Bless her. The only generally applicable rules I found are: * Sleeping on your chest when young where they can hear your heartbeart (I found it works best with Dad when breastfeeding, as the smell of Mom's milk tended to stir them up for a feed, even if they're struggling with wind and not able to feed) can be very calming. Ideally done skin to skin. * Slow rocking while making a continuous "sssshhh" noise often helped - the fact I'd become a human white noise generator amused me. * Patiently, calmly, love them. It's most important to do this when it's hardest to love them. Knowing that they can be total assholes and you'll still love them is what grows secure kids. * Ask for help when you're struggling! A lot of your friends and family are probably desperate to help you, but they don't want to appear condescending, or to intrude. So give them permission, explicitly invite them to help, and your sanity will return, which will make you a much better parent for baby. That's it. That's all my parenting advice after five babies. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk
- ido 5y ago
  Yeah, I always find it funny when someone who has themselves only been a parent for 3 months feels they can now dispense sage advice. Sorta like someone going through bootcamp giving advice about programming.
  - indemnity 5y ago
    We thought we were terrible no good parents with our first child, who is a little bit more on the sensitive and emotional side, with quite a bit of anxiety also. None of the advice from anyone worked, friends, family, parents, siblings, internet. Still not the easiest child at 5, but easier. Second child arrived, mentally prepared for the same challenges… and what a textbook kid, three years on. Super chill, knocked all the milestones out of the park, easy to console, cheerful, little peacemaker, apple of big brother’s eye, makes us look like amazing parents. I don’t give anyone any advice now other than … it can be hard, love your child, and spend a lot of time with them.
philliphaydon 5y ago
My daughter had 3 different cries that I learned when I was left alone with her for 1 week when she was 3 weeks old. Hungry. Wet. Tired. When I learned these she was easy to take care of. The night terrors tho. That phase is soooo hard. 3 weeks walking up in the middle of the night screaming for no reason. Hours to get her back to sleep. Then just stops…
- feiss 5y ago
  > The night terrors tho. i feel you -_-
- Jaxan 5y ago
  > 3 weeks walking up in the middle of the night screaming for no reason Only 3 weeks is not so bad. I woke up every three hours for the first 14 months. And then he just started sleeping well. It’s very random.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Our 10 month old son is still waking up every 1-2 hours at night screaming at the top of his lungs, for absolutely no reason at all. Not hungry, no wet nappy, sometimes hugging and talking/singing helps, sometimes it doesn't. Me and my wife are just 100% exhausted and I can't wait for this to end - but at 6 month mark everyone was telling us "oh this will only last another few weeks, don't worry" - it's 4 months later and he still does it. I'm losing hope slowly.
    - philliphaydon 5y ago
      Unsure if it's night terrors. We went through it twice. Both times lasted 3-4 weeks. Daughter would go to bed, fall asleep, all happy, full belly etc. At around 2am, wake up screaming at the top of her lungs. I would pick her up and hold her and pace back and forth for about 2 hours while she sobbed. If my wife tried to touch her the crying would go back up full blast. After the 4th night on the first time I just threw her over my sholder and hummed to her until she fell asleep, then wife got her blanket and pillow and put it in our bed between us and i would slowly move to the bed, gently put her down trying not to wake her (she woke easy a few times doing this) and then that was usually it for the rest of the night. 1st time was at about 20 months, second time at about 28 months. Bar none the WORST experience we've had so far. In terms of sleeping through the night, she took ~18 months before not waking for milk in the middle of the night. In the early days I had her crib next to my bed and if she began to stir I would instantly wake, make a bottle. (we did formula for the whole thing, kept a flask of warm water and pre-measured milk powder next to the bed). Change her nappy, feed her, and put her back to sleep. I would be awake for 10 minutes and back to sleep. I consider myself very lucky in this regard because I've heard horror stories. Edit: Oh, the other thing with the night terrors, one thing the internet told us to do was get a night light. And don't turn the room light on when they wake. Makes getting back to sleep much harder.
01100011 5y ago
I always figured a baby could just have a headache or other painful/uncomfortable issues that show no symptoms and you've just got to accept that you can't always determine what they need to stop crying. I think it helps me have more sympathy and patience for them when I look at it that way.
pwdisswordfish9 5y ago
> The […] world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. FTFY. Oh wait…
choeger 5y ago
You're absolutely right. Nevertheless it helps to have a finite list of priorities: If it's not cold,heat,hunger, discomfort,illness,tiredness (in no particular order) it's good to know that you didn't forget anything important and your baby is crying for no reason you are responsible for. Btw. What the author calls "wicked hour" we used to call "brain pain" - like aching muscles after training, just with the developing brain. One kid wouldn't calm down after being held very tightly for minutes in a dark room and having a screaming tantrum. Once this was over, she was absolutely peaceful again. Other kid didn't need to scream to cope with the day, but had difficulties at the same time of day.
AussieWog93 5y ago
>IMO this is a great time of one's life to discard the illusion of control. Became a first-time parent back in 2020, and couldn't agree more. The trend of slowly increasing personal freedom/control suddenly stops, and your freedom is reverted back to near-zero. As in, you will become completely dependent on your spouse and cannot even piss or shit alone when bubs is awake. The best thing to do is just acknowledge that this is life now (and more than that, the type of life that human beings have evolved to live in), and the past few years of unrestrained personal freedom were a dream that you needed to wake up from.
jefftk 5y ago
Especially since the author has twins, and it's really easy to think you have two independent samples when you really have two very similar ones (in both genetics and shared environment)
GordonS 5y ago
If being a parent taught me anything, it's to trust my instincts - go with your gut, as the parent(s) you understand your baby better than any other parents, friends or healthcare workers. It's a long story, but we could have saved our family a lot of grief if we knew that from the start - but of course, as first time parents it's not easy to trust your guy.

duxup 5y ago

Yeah babies are different. My kids didn’t scream or cry much at all. Friends whose kids screamed all the time were astonished and tried everything to figure it out. But we had opposite experiences with kids sleeping through a the night, I’m tired just thinking of it.

senectus1 5y ago
yup.my son slept through at 6 weeks, but refused to sleep at all during the day. My daughter slept happily during the day and didn't start to even attempt to sleep through the night till after week 9... never consistently sill after week 12

spdegabrielle 5y ago

I’d like to add: it is ok to ask for help.

progre 5y ago
This. My wife went half crazy from sleep deprivation when our baby was about 1 month. One time both she and our daughter fell asleep after late night feeding. I went to make a sandwich, and when I came back my wife was crying in bed trying to wake the sleeping baby because she thoght she had been sleeping for 5 hours but in reality it was more like 20 minutes. She was desperate because the baby wouldn't wake up and eat. After that we realized that we were heading in a dangerous direction. We started the baby on formula instead of breast milk (at the time there was a somewhat agressive push from the baby doctors to keep breast feeding as long as possible). This meant we could share feeding duties. When she was comfortable with formula we actually left our (about 2 month old at that point) with my parents for 1 night a week so we could both sleep.
- arbol 5y ago
  Grandparent help would have been far more common in the past due to shared living arrangements. Makes you think it might be harder today when coupled with both parents working.
  - progre 5y ago
    I agree, but this also in opposition to the prevailing (maybe cultural) drive for everyone to live their own life. Most people I know wouldn't want to live with their parents or their inlaws. Most parents don't want their grown up kids around. So we build kindergardens and other social services to help with that. And underfunded schools somehow gets stuck with actually making functioning adults out of kids. In Sweden, where I live, stay-at-home parents don't get a full share of the pension funds so the system discurages staying at home with kids. So much for the vote-yourself-rich democrazy. It's a mess. It should be noted though: The small family unit came first, with industrialization. The social network is there to support the industry, not the family.
- dtech 5y ago
  I don't think you need formula, around here they recommend expressing and storing so both partners can feed breast milk.
  - progre 5y ago
    Sure that can work. In our case the breastfeeding hormones was definetly a contributing factor to the crazy so that wasn't an option.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    It's really hard for some moms. Do you feel like ejaculating 15 times per day for a year?
  - sergers 5y ago
    My wife tried breastfeeding, it was too much for her and wasn't really working how much she tried. We had all the pumps, techniques, just wasn't worth the stress. The important thing is your child is being fed. There have been multiple cases where infants have starved to death after being born because the mothers were convinced only to give breast milk, and couldn't produce enough. We switched from 50% formula/breast milk to strictly formula. If u aren't giving breast, there's additional vitamins you need to give aswell Do what works best... In many cases it's not breast milk for everyone's health and sanity. When we switched to ready made Enfamil, that was such a lifesaver for me and my wife

donw 5y ago

Exactly. Babies cry because they're new to the world. They have not yet grown the moderating influence of context provided by experience. Every baby is unique, with a different emotional balance. A big chunk of parenting is figuring your kids out, and balancing that with the set of experiences they need to have in order to grow. Many of those experiences are painful, which means you also need to figure out the balance of "let them cry" and "comfort them", which also changes drastically over time. That's where having both parents really matters, as the tension between them is essential in finding that balance.

furyofantares 5y ago

Here's one that always worked for me from about 6mo to 18mo: If she was crying and I played Hamilton on my phone, she'd immediately stop crying. Then I'd figure out that had been wrong and solve the actual problem for her. This was a 100% thing, it felt like magic, but of course I'm not gonna dole it out as even remotely likely to work with another baby.

EdwardDiego 5y ago
For my oldest child, it was Dominion Road by the Muttonbirds[0], that calmed him, and only that. It was sheer luck I found that out. But, after having more children than you could fit in a regular car, I've realised that each child is an entire bag of quirks that don't apply to others. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk
progre 5y ago
For mine it was Ensigns of Victory by Winterfylleth. My wife would say i was Perfect Day by Lou Reed. I never had any luck with Lou Reed.

farmerstan 5y ago

Babies only have a single mechanism of communication and it takes a while to debug it. Imagine you had a computer that would crash every time something went wrong. You would develop a checklist for that computer to help with debugging it. That’s the exact same thing with kids.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> For example, their techniques that "always work" definitely do not always work. Among parenting social media influencers, this is a gamble for building rapport among an audience: Make some extreme claim that may or may not work for some portion of people who hear it. People who hear it, try it, and find that it works will vividly remember the influencer as being correct. People who try it with no results will quickly forget it about it. Repeat across several claims and eventually some percentage of them will be correct for the audience.

mason55 5y ago
Like sport betting advice. Make 64 accounts, predict the outcome of six 50/50 games, start a paid newsletter with the one that got them all right.
redisman 5y ago
Often the followers seem to self select. If someone’s advice was crap/didn’t work for you at all, you stop paying attention to them - if it worked you might think they’re a genius
Fnoord 5y ago
Cold reading + advertising = influencer (= a cool word for self-employed marketeer)

mberning 5y ago

Very true, I was going to make a similar statement but you said it perfectly. Infants do follow some common patterns, but what works for YOUR infant might be completely different that what you’ve read, been told, or even experienced with prior children. I don’t think there is any shame in doing what works as long as it is safe.

ALittleLight 5y ago

My own "technique that always works" (your mileage may vary) was "The hold". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C8MkY7Co8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C8MkY7Co8 In my experience the baby will often resume crying as soon as you stop doing it, but we used this whenever we needed a couple minutes of relief.

sergers 5y ago
We endlessly tried the hold. Maybe actually worked 75% of situations, but as you said majority of time they would resume when we stopped. Helps to try quickly distract them in that moment they pause doing the hold, atleast wth my child

Underphil 5y ago

My only advice to new parents is to largely ignore other parents' advice. Except mine, and only in this one instance.

watwut 5y ago
Meh. Advice I got from other parents or on parenting forums were those actually most likely to work. What does not work is advice from "parenting experts" or doctor talking about non medicine etc. And of course advice people trade on forums non parenting forums (like HN) - too much of it is from people who don't interact with kids actually.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  Quoted parenting experts are perhaps no use but actual experts are. My mother was advised by the late great Hugh Jolly, a genuine expert.
iforgotpassword 5y ago
If say don't ignore other parents advice, except the one I'm replying to. ;-) I think it's reasonable to survey a dozen parents to get a bunch of different opinions and recommendations of what worked for others, so you have enough things to try if you got a situation, and don't just panic.
Fnoord 5y ago
Not ignore, that's the other extreme. Take it with a grain of salt instead of as a bible. Experiment in a non-harmful way. Try things out, see what works. Every child is different, even from same gene pool.
mortehu 5y ago
There are definitely a lot of families with sleep problems that could be solved if they read "Solve your child's sleep problem" by Richard Ferber (not just the famous two pages about baby sleep training). Many parents I talk to spend years dealing badly with sleep problems.

EdwardDiego 5y ago

Every child is a whole new world, a whole new potential, and a whole new problem. 1. My first child couldn't be calmed easily, although I found a song that somehow worked. [0] 2. Second child could be soothed by slowly rubbing from his temple down past his eye to his cheek. 3. Third child hated that, but loved having her forehead rubbed slowly in a horizontal manner. 4. Fourth child just wanted a firm pressure on the top of his head (e.g., a palm, he'd also burrow up into your armpit for comfort sometimes, which was awkward when I hadn't showered that day) 5. Fifth child didn't need any of the above, just lots of hugs and kisses at bed time. Bless her. The only generally applicable rules I found are: * Sleeping on your chest when young where they can hear your heartbeart (I found it works best with Dad when breastfeeding, as the smell of Mom's milk tended to stir them up for a feed, even if they're struggling with wind and not able to feed) can be very calming. Ideally done skin to skin. * Slow rocking while making a continuous "sssshhh" noise often helped - the fact I'd become a human white noise generator amused me. * Patiently, calmly, love them. It's most important to do this when it's hardest to love them. Knowing that they can be total assholes and you'll still love them is what grows secure kids. * Ask for help when you're struggling! A lot of your friends and family are probably desperate to help you, but they don't want to appear condescending, or to intrude. So give them permission, explicitly invite them to help, and your sanity will return, which will make you a much better parent for baby. That's it. That's all my parenting advice after five babies. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpXp6o8dnk

ido 5y ago
Yeah, I always find it funny when someone who has themselves only been a parent for 3 months feels they can now dispense sage advice. Sorta like someone going through bootcamp giving advice about programming.
- indemnity 5y ago
  We thought we were terrible no good parents with our first child, who is a little bit more on the sensitive and emotional side, with quite a bit of anxiety also. None of the advice from anyone worked, friends, family, parents, siblings, internet. Still not the easiest child at 5, but easier. Second child arrived, mentally prepared for the same challenges… and what a textbook kid, three years on. Super chill, knocked all the milestones out of the park, easy to console, cheerful, little peacemaker, apple of big brother’s eye, makes us look like amazing parents. I don’t give anyone any advice now other than … it can be hard, love your child, and spend a lot of time with them.

philliphaydon 5y ago

My daughter had 3 different cries that I learned when I was left alone with her for 1 week when she was 3 weeks old. Hungry. Wet. Tired. When I learned these she was easy to take care of. The night terrors tho. That phase is soooo hard. 3 weeks walking up in the middle of the night screaming for no reason. Hours to get her back to sleep. Then just stops…

feiss 5y ago
> The night terrors tho. i feel you -_-
Jaxan 5y ago
> 3 weeks walking up in the middle of the night screaming for no reason Only 3 weeks is not so bad. I woke up every three hours for the first 14 months. And then he just started sleeping well. It’s very random.
- gambiting 5y ago
  Our 10 month old son is still waking up every 1-2 hours at night screaming at the top of his lungs, for absolutely no reason at all. Not hungry, no wet nappy, sometimes hugging and talking/singing helps, sometimes it doesn't. Me and my wife are just 100% exhausted and I can't wait for this to end - but at 6 month mark everyone was telling us "oh this will only last another few weeks, don't worry" - it's 4 months later and he still does it. I'm losing hope slowly.
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
    Unsure if it's night terrors. We went through it twice. Both times lasted 3-4 weeks. Daughter would go to bed, fall asleep, all happy, full belly etc. At around 2am, wake up screaming at the top of her lungs. I would pick her up and hold her and pace back and forth for about 2 hours while she sobbed. If my wife tried to touch her the crying would go back up full blast. After the 4th night on the first time I just threw her over my sholder and hummed to her until she fell asleep, then wife got her blanket and pillow and put it in our bed between us and i would slowly move to the bed, gently put her down trying not to wake her (she woke easy a few times doing this) and then that was usually it for the rest of the night. 1st time was at about 20 months, second time at about 28 months. Bar none the WORST experience we've had so far. In terms of sleeping through the night, she took ~18 months before not waking for milk in the middle of the night. In the early days I had her crib next to my bed and if she began to stir I would instantly wake, make a bottle. (we did formula for the whole thing, kept a flask of warm water and pre-measured milk powder next to the bed). Change her nappy, feed her, and put her back to sleep. I would be awake for 10 minutes and back to sleep. I consider myself very lucky in this regard because I've heard horror stories. Edit: Oh, the other thing with the night terrors, one thing the internet told us to do was get a night light. And don't turn the room light on when they wake. Makes getting back to sleep much harder.

01100011 5y ago

I always figured a baby could just have a headache or other painful/uncomfortable issues that show no symptoms and you've just got to accept that you can't always determine what they need to stop crying. I think it helps me have more sympathy and patience for them when I look at it that way.

pwdisswordfish9 5y ago

> The […] world is chock full of people who found something that worked for them and who then made the unwarranted conclusion that it is universal truth. FTFY. Oh wait…

choeger 5y ago

You're absolutely right. Nevertheless it helps to have a finite list of priorities: If it's not cold,heat,hunger, discomfort,illness,tiredness (in no particular order) it's good to know that you didn't forget anything important and your baby is crying for no reason you are responsible for. Btw. What the author calls "wicked hour" we used to call "brain pain" - like aching muscles after training, just with the developing brain. One kid wouldn't calm down after being held very tightly for minutes in a dark room and having a screaming tantrum. Once this was over, she was absolutely peaceful again. Other kid didn't need to scream to cope with the day, but had difficulties at the same time of day.

AussieWog93 5y ago

>IMO this is a great time of one's life to discard the illusion of control. Became a first-time parent back in 2020, and couldn't agree more. The trend of slowly increasing personal freedom/control suddenly stops, and your freedom is reverted back to near-zero. As in, you will become completely dependent on your spouse and cannot even piss or shit alone when bubs is awake. The best thing to do is just acknowledge that this is life now (and more than that, the type of life that human beings have evolved to live in), and the past few years of unrestrained personal freedom were a dream that you needed to wake up from.

jefftk 5y ago

Especially since the author has twins, and it's really easy to think you have two independent samples when you really have two very similar ones (in both genetics and shared environment)

GordonS 5y ago

If being a parent taught me anything, it's to trust my instincts - go with your gut, as the parent(s) you understand your baby better than any other parents, friends or healthcare workers. It's a long story, but we could have saved our family a lot of grief if we knew that from the start - but of course, as first time parents it's not easy to trust your guy.