Take solace in the fact that kids cry over ridiculous stuff. For 20 minutes. Because, for example, you peeled their orange for them.

1.5 year old daughter wanted to eat the piece of pasta on the upper right corner of the plate last week. Couldn't manage to get it on the spoon. I helped her, but picked the (equivalent) piece of pasta next to it. The combination of frustration and anger over having to eat the wrong piece of pasta because she wasn't capable to get the right one on the spoon was too much for her. Of course a "dis-un dis-un dis-un dis-un DIS-UN DIS-UN D I S - U N!!!!!" meltdown followed.

Not saying this makes it any less frustrating when you need to get them fed, bathe them, brush their teeth, read them a book, and put them to sleep by 7:30 but it's already 7:25 and they're losing their shit over a noodle

Nevermind that if they play on the street - a perfectly normal activity before cars - a driver will kill them :-(

I believe social and cultural norms changed over last century at least in West and this trend is mimicked by so called "developing countries" making parents isolated, tired and frustrated; add technological burden for kids not spending their developing time running around exploring world but be hooked to single pair or worst single adult because of all the danger increases amount of stress average parent has to cope with.. add to this how unnecessary stressful in some aspects modern became.

So many people led me to believe that I would fall in love with my kid the instant I first laid eyes on her, and it simply wasn't the case. I love her so much now, but it definitely wasn't the immediate flip of a switch that some may believe

What's interesting though is that for me, having spent time with a baby seems to have changed some wirings retroactively. Just saw a toddler yesterday doing random things and having so much fun in the puddles, it was reeeeally cute. Good memories.

What nobody tells you though is that annoyingness and cuteness go hand in hand. As soon as they stop being annoying, they also stop being cute. It's hard to enjoy much of that cuteness because life's generally hard, loud and exhausting with a toddler. But as soon as it starts getting better, you also realize how much you miss that will never come back.

As Paul Graham said so wisely: There are only 52 weekends you will ever have with your three year old. Life is short, use it. Or at the very least, try to :)

I'm confused. Shouldn't it be 156?

There are plenty of things I miss about the south, but unsolicited parenting advice is one of them. Very much a "you're not really an adult" vibes

My wife had serious complications after birth, so she basically wasn't there for the first 4 months. We had help during work hours, but all the rest of the care fell on me. I woke up 4 times a night to feed our kid, took him with me almost everywhere (in one of these https://media.s-bol.com/RoDEQRlMPRYY/386x840.jpg ), sat with him when he couldn't sleep, etc.

We bonded hard. My wife reported similar feelings like those described in the other comments. It took her a few years to catch up.

In addition you are very sleep deprived.

I know someone who said "I love him, but I don't like him" in relation to their new born.

It can take a while to come to terms and bond properly. You don't get anything back at the start. Once they start smiling, laughing, etc, it becomes even more magical.

It's difficult for me to overstate the emotional impact at the moment of the birth of my kid. It was intense and powerful. I've never felt anything like it, before or since. There was definitely something there.

But the bond didn't come for me until I could actually interact with this other human being. Offering a bottle and hearing a coo in response didn't really do it. Playing peekaboo was sort of the beginning for me, I guess.

I could definitely see someone conflating or confusing the two experiences.

It could also be generalized anxiety. Mine would take uniquely weird forms, including awakening from a dead sleep convinced my son was buried/lost somewhere in the house. I'm convinced that the biological impulse to care/provide for babies is at the firmware-level of our impulses, and, as such, must be something that is acclimated to, rather than controlled by executive function.

We have barriers to keep her on top floor. They have to be sturdy.

Moment we can get kid to pee she is instantly fully awake, confused as to how she got there and goes back to bed for the night.

We’ve leaned to sleep lightly. The moment we hear her first stirrings we swoop in and stick her on toilet.

Crazy times

Our kid had night terrors for about a year. Just about the time the random worrying stopped happening we started getting woken up to blood-curdling screams we couldn't really do anything about.

Second one went 5 years of them. Almost nightly. Gradually Shifted to sleepwalking instead. Less dramatic, but more dangerous.

Either way exact moment she pee’d it was over.

babies are a group effort. women need their tribe. its an old fashioned way of thinking, but i am only speaking from my lived experiences. YMMV etc. this was also a way for young girls to become familiar with babies and understand pregnancy. once you have seen a live birth and distended nipples and the bloody river of afterbirth, women have a very realistic notion of what childbirth means...its like acclimitizing before entering the death zone while climbing mt.everest. parenthood requires proper introduction before one can jump into it. exposure to other parents..usually family is better for women because one way or another, we are all going to end up with the same blooms and warts as our grandmothers anyways. might as well understand the terrain before entering it. #female perspective.

as far as men are concerned..all i can say is make sure you have a way to earn and support your child. because babies are expensive. how do you prove that you are worthy of being a father? by being a provider, of course. one can always hire a night nanny. but you still need the means to support a child.

Some days, by the time baby is asleep my nerves are just utterly shot by trying to concentrate around the crying.

Crying is a baby's only tool, and babies are certainly allowed to feel emotions like boredom, disgust, annoyance, cold, as well as physical pain. You're also allowed to ignore your bored or upset child. But don't call it manipulation when the kid is being absolutely aboveboard and straightforward. Viewing it as 'manipulation' actually increases the likelihood, in my view, that you'll raise a duplicitous child, because from babyhood on the kid'll be taught that saying directly what you want is frowned upon.

As for sleep training, mentioned by a sibling commenter, our reactions to a baby's cries are definitely directly related to kid's bedtime patterns, and I would advocate for a middle road: there's no need to be rigid about a philosophy. With our kid, we'd wait five minutes for crying to stop. Any kid and any adult can wait out five minutes when it's just bedtime, not a question of physical distress. If the kid was still crying after five minutes, check in; if the kid is asleep, win! The kid knows they're not being abandoned for all eternity; you know you don't have to listen to this (*& forever; and we were lucky that it never took us more than 15 minutes (two checkins) before kid fell asleep. Children are different; YMMV.

You really need to stretch definitions to absurd to get near to deception too. They cry cause discomfort and really have no idea how you will react or what you will think f about that.

Babies are dumb and simple biological mechanisms from this point of view.

As some stranger on the internet said:

"After I had my first kid, I thought I was God's gift to parenting. A few years later I had a second kid and he cured me of such misconceived notions." :-D

My wife asked him how he raised such helpful kids and he said: bribery. If they behaved well and helped with things they would be getting a video game of their choice.

That night it took my daughter less than 15 minutes to stop screaming, and then everyone in the house slept for 6 hours straight.

In less than a week she was smiling when we put her down for the night.

I hope it works out that well for you.

I gave in and still put our 4 and 6 year olds to sleep in our big family bed, then teleport them later. After being a bit annoyed in the beginning, I've changed my mind by now. Bringing them to bed is honestly the best thing ever.

Babies are not copies, they react in various ways.