> You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for. So step up.

I'm not downvoting you but I strongly disagree. You have an obligation to do an adequate job of this. I think it's also important not to become a slave to the idea that you must always do more because it's "supposed to be hard." Doing a great job of raising kids doesn't have to be a grueling slog, and I suspect that people who think it does aren't doing as good a job as they think they are.

Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns.

I don't think it necessarily has to be hard, but people often make it harder than it needs to be because they're unwilling to make personal sacrifices.

I just don't think we should give people participation trophies. If you're not doing a good job and you know it, you should face reality and fix it, not be told "there's no right or wrong way".

I inferred that you thought that gdubs was not doing their best. You used the phrase "strongly disagree". I'm not sure which part you strongly disagree with. Nor can I tell why you think gdubs is not doing their best.

For what it's worth, I definitely agree with gdubs point of view. I'm less clear on what you're saying though. When you say "unwilling to make personal sacrifices", does that mean unwilling to ever make any sacrifice? Or does it mean unwilling to make some under certain circumstances?

In my experience, my kids' sleep seemed to actually improve when engaging in the "extreme" practice of sleep training. That seems consistent with gdubs. How then, am I not "doing my best"?

I didn't mean to shame the OP, though I can see how it might have come across that way. What I take issue with is the implication of relativism. That as long as you love your kids, it's fine if you just do whatever is convenient or easy or comes naturally to you, and there are no better or worse ways to parent. I think that's a copout and that our kids deserve better.

I understand why people do sleep training. We were on the verge of it ourselves until we learned more and were confronted by how hideously wrong it felt on an emotional level. Everyone in the US pushes you toward it, particularly pediatricians. But I think that most parents know deep down that it's wrong, and that they are doing it for themselves, not the baby.

I don't think we should pretend it's all the same. These things matter.

> But I think that most parents know deep down that it's wrong, and that they are doing it for themselves, not the baby.

I'm definitely not in that group. I have no such deep knowledge of it being wrong. I really believe it's actually better for some kids. Like mine for instance. It's not a compromise for me.

I believe OP is saying not to worry about what other people are telling you about how to parent. I didn't infer any relativism from the post.

What I'm reading from you is that sleep training is bad for kids. And that its practitioners just aren't trying hard enough. But I really believe that for some (like my family) it's actually better.

So by the same token, just because you're suffering more doesn't mean you're doing a better job.

I certainly have more respect for someone who does sleep training because they think it's best for the child, rather than for themselves. Of course, everyone will say that's why they're doing it, but you seem sincere.

I still think you have to be misinformed or deliberately ignorant of the evidence that's out there to hold this position though. I also think the reason people don't dig deeper is that they, perhaps unconsciously, would rather not discover something that is uncomfortable and inconvenient for them.

Maybe. It would have to be subconscious on my part. I did read a book about it.

> Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns.

> I don't think it necessarily has to be hard

That's not necessarily coming through in your message, for what it's worth.

I just think that if it is hard, it's up to the parents to deal with, one way or another. They should either suck it up and slog through or change something in their lives so they can handle things better and it's not so hard anymore. I just hope they won't do something that they know is worse for the kid because it's easier for them.

In my opinion, sleep training generally falls in this category. People do it because they're exasperated and neither parent is willing to do something hard--like live with sleep deprivation or put a career on hold. They generally don't do it because they genuinely believe it's best for the baby, though they will try to come up with rationalizations to that effect after the fact.

> They generally don't do it because they genuinely believe it's best for the baby, though they will try to come up with rationalizations to that effect after the fact.

I think this is where you're going wrong. You're putting motivations into other people's heads based on having prejudged them. I certainly did sleep training with my kids because getting them on a regular sleep schedule is good for EVERYONE, not just me. Ever since, we have been extremely consistent about bedtimes, and now we have kids that have no problem going to bed at the appropriate time so they're not exhausted when they have to get up for school in the morning. Yes, it made/makes life easier for me as well, but the root reason to do it is a firm belief that establishing good sleep habits is good for them.

> Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters"

Counter data point. My wife is Argentinian.

I'd say the values you see in her family primarily is "love does come first" and strict boundaries on kids. E.g. the adults are talking, go away.

When I compare that to my own nieces and nephews, they have little boundaries, are quite lethargic and can be quite arrogant. Yet their parents would all describe themselves by your standards.

We also tend to put our elderly in homes, an idea that is abhorrant to my wife.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is ideals are nice. But it's purely theory, mostly to serve your own sensibilities.

I'm not trying to say there's one right way to do things. But there are a lot of plainly wrong ways.

If your parenting philosophy is not based on any research or learning about what's best for your child, but instead on what's easiest and most convenient for you, then you're probably doing it wrong. That doesn't mean you can't set boundaries for kids who are old enough to understand them.

I think the way we discard our elderly is closely tied to our self-absorbed approach to parenting. If you don't put in the time and are unwilling to make sacrifices for your kids, you shouldn't expect them to be there for you when you need it.

Keep in mind that the research around this is very poor. It's in the realm of things where flipping a coin might be better.

Most of it is, but not all of it. My own conclusion (which is not the one I wanted to reach, believe me) was that when you throw out all the bad research, the evidence, while not conclusive, does clearly point more in one direction than the other.

Could you show such a research? Because you have been saying it all around the thread, some proof would be handy.

The major studies that have been done are fairly easy to find with some google investigation. I looked at them all over a year ago and formed my conclusions. I unfortunately didn't keep around a list of links to post in debates on internet forums.

This post mentions a few of the main ones (I'm not vouching for the post's content): https://www.laleche.org.uk/letting-babies-cry-facts-behind-s...

So much of the "research" is not research at all. It's no surprise to see anti-vaccine sentiment run strong among Grace Manning-Devlin types.

It's true. Yet another hard thing about being a parent is that there is a lot of crappy "research" and advice to wade through (including most of the research claiming to support your view, btw). But there's some solid stuff out there too--pretending there isn't because you might reach conclusions that conflict with a self-serving parenting philosophy is just another excuse.

Your advice in this thread falls into that category. You take some sort of puritanical ideal of hard work and sacrifice, then apply it to build a... distorted idea of what parenting is and to abstractly shame people who don't fit it, then ignore all requests for references to any research at all done on this, then repeat this over and over with everyone who's trying to figure out what you mean. From what I know, your ideas have no basis in reality. You're only adding noise for parents-to-be to sift through and worry about.

Just raise your kids with love and patience, don't listen to armchair child psychiatrists.

It's always fun to be criticized for not citing research by people who don't cite anything themselves.

You're the one advocating for an approach that is unnatural, brand new in human (and primate) history, and that causes both babies and parents visceral emotional distress. If I'm wrong about the research, why can't you prove it?

Argentina is pretty messed up, low trust culture, outside of the family.

> You have an obligation to do the best that you can

This reads like an expectation mindset that with high probability will end up hurting you, your kid and your relationship. Somewhere here belongs the put-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-first metaphor

As someone with older children, I can attest. Also the attitude can lead to a lot of tension with your co-parent.

It's possible you're coming from a very different background than me... I can understand your point of view if your context is being raised under real impoverished conditions; I agree a parent should do anything they can to meet a necessary level of stability for the child.

But this comment makes me think of what is more likely familiar to members of this forum, where parents use their children to serve their own ego, trying to do everything to yield the best "Success" for their child where success is defined by the parent. For so many of us (professionals in the tech industry), the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question--we know we'll be able to provide food, shelter, etc. People will say they do other things for the "wellbeing" but what they really mean is living out their own failed life goals by putting that baggage on their kid.

So yeah, you got downvoted. It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and a child.

> the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question

Mental health, substance abuse, and suicide statistics, including among the middle and upper classes, would seem to strongly indicate otherwise.

> It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and a child.

So "try hard, make sacrifices, and do your best" is now considered problematic? The relativism in this mindset is absurd. Nobody here would claim that there's no right or wrong way to design a distributed system, or that there are no right or wrong ideas about religion, but we have to pretend it's the case with parenting so we don't hurt anyone's feelings?

Children are not clay to be molded, and they are not computer systems to be planned and carried out. They are individuals. And there are no clear solutions to mental health, substance abuse, or suicide--but there are clear non-solutions like helicopter parenting.

EDIT: And best-efforts at laying out everything for your kid are more than potentially-wasted energy. It's smothering, controlling behavior of someone who should have the right to live and make their own choices and mistakes.

"Helicopter parenting" and "smothering" are not the only alternatives to self-serving, self-absorbed neglect.

Throwing your hands up because something is hard and there are no obvious answers is not a recipe for doing a good job at... anything.

I guess I see fewer under-concerned parents than I do over-concerned parents. Of course there are both.

I most often see that kind of thing from parents who are trying to compensate for failing to be present in more fundamental ways.

Some of the most troubled people I've known had very involved parents.

Yes, I downvoted your comment. I don't doubt your intentions are admirable, but please don't shame strangers.

GP is trying to survive in the world in which they find themselves. Will sniping some guilt at them summon up some hidden parenting strength?

> You have an obligation to do the best that you can

The problem I have with this attitude is the pronoun. If you have some standards, great but please try to keep them to yourself. There's a lot of toxic "you should do this, you should be like that" type of talk in parenting circles, a lot of which is frankly condescending and non-actionable and add a lot of unnecessary stress, especially for insecure people.

People like to armchair-coach about what a parent ought to be doing, while completely ignoring that the parent's emotional well-being is a pretty big component in a healthy relationship w/ their kids.

This is exactly why others are saying to ignore unsolicited advice: because a lot of it isn't actually advice.

Feel free to change every "you should" to "one should" in your head.

I understand that this is a sensitive subject, but there are people reading this thread who are about to become parents, and they need to know the truth.

> one should

No offense, but that's still kinda condescending. I have 2 kids myself but I don't go around preaching. Stuff like post partum depression, pre-existing chronic conditions, overbearing grandparents, domestic abuse, etc are all real things and you and I are neither psychologists, pediatricians, nor social workers so best to leave the advice giving to licensed professionals.

Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I disagree. If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it.

The "licensed professionals" I've talked with about this, like my kid's pediatrician, gave me terrible advice and were either ignorant of the research that's been done, or grossly distorted it to fit their bias.

> Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling.

I mean, parenting being hard is neither here or there. You said it is "hard" yourself. There are parents that think parenting is wonderful and can't see themselves do anything but raising kids.

> If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it.

That's great, and it's exactly what I meant when I said I took issue w/ the "you" pronoun: wanting better for oneself is very very different than telling others what ought to be what.

Medical professionals are known to make recommendations based on probabilistic heuristics (i.e. 95% of cases with certain circumstances fall into the same bucket so they usually assume said bucket) and this is why celebrity doctors like Dr Mike say that it's important to build rapport and have an open dialogue with the physician, armed with all the knowledge you are able/willing to muster yourself.

The thing w/ online advice is that people seeking help on the internet are often already very apprehensive and vulnerable and having a flood of strangers on high horses passing judgment doesn't necessarily help. The irony is that if we're in "I did my research and know better than professionals" territory, then the problem is that everyone and their mothers also claim to have done "research" too and "how dare they question my self-acclaimed expert authority", and that type of thread derails real fast.

Many of these parents are well-meaning but are in fact woefully underprepared to effectively provide help that is clear cut among medical professionals (e.g. dealing w/ a fever), and they often are eager to offer quick takes on topics where the research is mixed, non-existent, poorly done and/or where it doesn't really really matter (stuff like optimization advice for parents worrying about late blooming in development milestones like potty training). And then there's topics like spanking, where it's pitchforks galore, and the signal-to-noise ratio is basically zero.

To be clear, I’m not asking anyone to accept my “authority”, which as you rightly point out, is nonexistent as a random anonymous person on the internet. I’m not claiming to be an expert on child psychology, but I do have some knowledge of statistics and research methods, so I can read the abstract of a study and know, at minimum, if its methodology renders it worthless BS, scientifically speaking.

But, ultimately, the experts are divided on this issue, and the research is available for anyone to look into on their own. I gave my interpretation. Anyone else is free to give theirs. People can make up their own minds.

My experience is that it’s usually the sleep training people who handwave away the research, relying instead on appeals to convention (in the US) or emotional lectures about “shaming” the poor, helpless parents. But again, people can decide for themselves.

Also, for the record, I’m in the group that loves being a parent. It’s my favorite thing in the world and brings me joy every single day. It has been hard at times, but that never reduced my enjoyment.

> Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're a bad parent.

Sounds like you have no clue. Try looking after 3 babies then come back an talk to us.

This is a pretty terrible accusation for someone who you know nothing about. Why would you take the argument here?

Sorry. In retrospect, I shouldn't have engaged. Too late to delete now...

I don't have any opinion on sleep training, but you've been downvoted a lot here and I would just like to make an observation that I don't think has been stated explicitly so far.

IMO, you are coming across as someone who views themselves as morally superior and so feels entitled to try to control others via shaming them. This is probably not who you are in real life. But IMO this is the major reason why you have been so consistently downvoted in this thread, it is not mere disagreement on the sleep issue. Even if the evidence is easy to Google, linking to it and basing your argument on that would have gone a lot farther.

If you are sincere about taking the hard road (which I have no reason to doubt), I would do some self reflection about why your communication style has not been effective here.

If people feel shame, it’s probably because they have some ambiguous feelings on the matter. No one can force someone else to feel shame, especially not through an internet comment. People like you are trying to shame me for the posts I made, but I don’t think I did anything wrong, so it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Maybe I could have been a bit nicer and more sensitive, but it’s not like I was throwing out insults—just clearly stating my beliefs on a touchy subject.

I definitely don’t see myself as morally superior as a person—far from it. But on this topic, yes: I believe that there are some things people do, like sleep training or putting their career ahead of their kids, that are morally wrong and psychologically damaging. That’s why I’m taking the time to post.

I don’t view downvotes as any indication of comment quality on controversial issues. They generally just reflect the tribal belief breakdown of the community. And anyway, I got as many upvotes as downvotes across all my comments itt—probably like 100 of each based on the swings up and down I saw (no way to know for sure). So it appears HN, or the portion with any opinion on these matters, is more or less evenly divided.

> I don’t think I did anything wrong

> it’s not like I was throwing out insults

> I don’t view downvotes as any indication of comment quality

I am not saying you are being downvoted because people feel shame, I said you are downvoted because you are shaming them. You are accusing others of knowingly harming their kids, because they don't care about them as much as you do.

I don't think this is fundamentally different from an insult in its role in a conversation, and in fact most people would find this incredibly insulting. Insults and shaming/humiliation are attempts to change people's behavior by punishing them or threatening to, but they don't work for convincing them of the correctness of your position. If you are in a position of power over someone you can control their behavior with threats while they still feel you are in the wrong, but of course if it's too often you may end up resented tremendously.

In this conversation you seem to be presupposing that deep down, most people view you as correct already and so don't need to be persuaded, only shamed into the right direction. I think in most things in life this is a risky assumption.

Your argument seems to be that questioning the morality of anything an otherwise well-meaning person does and might be sensitive about is “shaming” and “insulting” and an attempt to “control” the person. That strikes me as very opposed to the principles of free speech and open debate.

You’re the one that keeps using the word “shame”. That was not my purpose. I responded to the implication that there can be no good or bad parenting practices as long as one parents with love. I think that is wrong, and dangerously so. In the past, similar arguments were used to justify physical abuse.

Sleep training is very difficult for most people to do emotionally. There is a natural visceral reaction against it, and feelings of guilt are ubiquitous. That’s my basis for thinking that people already have a feeling it’s wrong, not intellectual arrogance.

I don’t think people end up doing these things because they “don’t care” about their kids—again, those are your words, not mine. It’s more likely that they are being misled and/or suppressing uncomfortable feelings. They might be going along with what a partner wants to do or emulating other parents they know. Or maybe they’ve never been presented with a clear argument against it. There are a million potential reasons.

> Your argument seems to be that questioning the morality of anything an otherwise well-meaning person does and might be sensitive about is “shaming” and “insulting” and an attempt to “control” the person.

One thing to note about your argumentation style here is that you didn't merely question their morality. You assumed that deep-down, they actually agree with you but were acting immorally anyway, and you continued from there. The news flash is that no, people don't believe that what they are doing is wrong. The fact that they find it painful does not mean that they know deep down it's wrong, as you erroneously claim. Doing the right thing can just be painful sometimes.

I guess when you say things like this:

> I certainly have more respect for someone who does sleep training because they think it's best for the child, rather than for themselves. Of course, everyone will say that's why they're doing it

> I also think the reason people don't dig deeper is that they, perhaps unconsciously, would rather not discover something that is uncomfortable and inconvenient for them

> I just hope they won't do something that they know is worse for the kid because it's easier for them. In my opinion, sleep training generally falls in this category.

> People do it because they're exasperated and neither parent is willing to do something hard

> They generally don't do it because they genuinely believe it's best for the baby

> If your parenting philosophy is not based on any research or learning about what's best for your child, but instead on what's easiest and most convenient for you

> our self-absorbed approach to parenting

> because you might reach conclusions that conflict with a self-serving parenting philosophy is just another excuse.

it makes it seem like you are attacking the character of those that disagree with you.

> Your argument seems to be that questioning the morality of anything an otherwise well-meaning person does and might be sensitive about is “shaming” and “insulting” and an attempt to “control” the person. That strikes me as very opposed to the principles of free speech and open debate.

I am saying there is a difference between casting aspersions about the character of people who disagree with you, and trying persuade them that your position is correct. I see you added a link recently for some of the evidence that you found convincing. If the purpose of you posting here was to change peoples minds, that probably would have been more effective.

And no, I don't think ad hominem attacks are the same as free speech and open debate. And I don't think resorting to them so easily instead of other types of argument is a small thing either.

I don’t think those statements apply to e.g. everyone who uses sleep training, and I never said they did. But I know of parents who all those statements would apply to. It’s currently quite socially acceptable to prioritize your own ego, ambition, and indulgence over a child’s wellbeing, and plenty of people take advantage. Attitudes like GP that I first replied to are part of why these people feel justified.

None of those statements are “ad hominem attacks”. I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. I’m arguing against specific practices, attitudes, and beliefs. You’re attempting to tone police, which is much closer to an ad hominem argument than anything I’ve said, in that you are objecting to style instead of substance.

An ad hominem attack is when you attack someone's character, instead of their ideas or behavior. If you criticize sleep training because it is bad for the child and explain why, that is ordinary criticism and argument. If you insinuate that people who do sleep training do not care about their children, that is ad hominem.

To use another example: if I explained your behavior in this thread by claiming that you are a narcissist who holds yourself above others and so feels they have the right to (verbally) punish others, has trouble seeing any personal faults, and easily sees character flaws in others, that would be an ad-hominem. I have not done that, because I don't know you and your motivations, it wouldn't be constructive, and most people aren't narcissists. But similarly, most people care about their children, and arguing that they disagree with you because they don't care enough is not constructive.

That’s not what an ad hominem is. An ad hominem means attacking the person making the argument instead of addressing the substance of the argument. If the argument involves issues that might reflect on a person’s character, it is not an ad hominem to discuss those issues.

It’s kind of funny, because ad hominem is exactly what you yourself are doing. You aren’t objecting to the substance of any of my points—you’re just complaining that I wasn’t considerate enough of everyone’s feelings in my delivery and that it makes me a jerk. Even a narcissistic jerk apparently—pulling out the big guns!

I also never said that people who do sleep training “don’t care about their children” and it’s rather dishonest for you to keep repeating it. I think there is often a self-absorption issue which is encouraged by our culture, but it’s not the same thing.

The fact that you think GP called you narcissistic or a jerk really explains why it's futile to argue with you. You seem to have misread everything about the post you're responding to, including the complete agreement on what an ad hominem is.

Respect for coming back and apologizing when everyone's downvoting you. Like my sibling comment, I don't think you're here to start a fight and you're just very passionate about the subject to the point where you come across very badly.

One honest suggestion I'd like to offer you is to consider that the studies that support the "letting babies cry is harmful" side of this argument may be just as questionable as any other quasi-scientific advice new parents get. The "La Leche League", which you linked to, is definitely guided by some dogmatic principles that I think are a little on the nutty side and I don't consider them very trustworthy. It's been a long time since I researched this so I don't have all the evidence handy, but I recall that their favorite study to cite about the harm of sleep training is the canadian "Early Years Study", and if you look at the source of this study, it does not mention sleep training at all. In fact, the only references to babies crying in the entire study is a hypothetical situation where the baby is stressed because the mother is letting it cry and the father is yelling at the mother in front of the baby. This is an example of La Leche using a study to push an idea that the study absolutely does not support. Just be aware. Read the references, decide for yourself, and take everyone's input (including mine) with a grain of salt.

Edit: and don't forget to give yourself a break, because all you need is love. :P Sorry, couldn't resist.

I totally agree that there are questionable studies on both sides. That said, I’m not aware of any studies supporting sleep training that don’t have glaring issues.

I also agree about La Leche League being a biased source. I only posted that because it includes references to a broad swathe of the research on both sides all in one place. I don’t endorse the post itself.

It would be cool if someone compiled a big google doc of what’s out there. I should have done it back when I was in research mode, but at the time I didn’t know what to think and couldn’t have anticipated becoming an anti-sleep training person. Before diving in, I was the one trying to convince my partner that it’s ok. Seeing all the research changed my mind and, honestly, left me horrified that this is the advice pediatricians are giving to new parents.