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? :)
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.
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 !
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.
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.
There are also general parenting support organisations such as Family Action and podcasts like First Time Dads might be helpful.
https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/046...
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.
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
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.
Three books I feel I can recommend.
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!
TLDR: Children do not need teaching as much as they need love and understanding.
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):
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 :)