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Comment by orangethirty | Hacker News Reader

Congratulations. Nothing you have ever done will prepare you for what follows. Protip: Babies that have issues with sleeping sometimes benefit from loud background noises being played. This due to them being used to all of the noises being produced by their mother's internal organs. You can try putting a radio off a station (for the whitenoise) and raising it to 11. Or maybe a vacuum cleaner. With my child, the radio worked like a charm.

Good luck. Being a father changes you.

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Why is it that nearly everyone who has children feels the need to impart birthing advice on expectant parents, and child-rearing advice to new parents?

The only advice I give now is to ignore all the advice everyone else gives.

So you're also giving advice to new parents then? :P

Probably because they feel they've succeeded at something really difficult (which is true) and want to show off to the newbies. Coders will do the same thing, but it's not as grating in that context because coding is not something that everyone is capable of doing.

Because being a father is the only thing I've ever done that is pretty close to being mystical, and I'm proud of it?

You may think you're a great father, but I don't know you. You're a stranger to me. I don't have any reason to believe you're any better than the last 20 people who tried to offer me contradictory unsolicited advice on how I should raise my children.

There is at this point no faster way to get in my bad books than to put your nose in my affairs and tell me how to raise my children when I didn't ask you to.

Maybe I misinterpreted your question. My answer was to a question more along the lines of "why do parents talk about parenting all the time?" If the person offering advice is being a dick about it (be it about parenting or anything else), then sure, it's inappropriate. But at the same time I remember when my first was born, I was pretty darn receptive to advice because _I had no idea what I was doing_. I'm less receptive now because half a decade in I think I have a decent handle on things, but I'm still not hostile about it -- I generally smile and nod and ignore (which, come to think of it, is what I do whenever anyone offers me advice I don't need).

Because we as humans share our life's experiences with one another. It's how we learn and grow and become better as a whole and as individuals. If I can share something I've experienced with someone else and it even has a remote chance of helping them deal with something I found difficult - I will do it.

This is why many of us are here on HN. To learn and grow, to gain insights from those who have had experiences that we may have in the future.

The advice I will give is to accept advice graciously and consider it. It is all an advice-giver can ask.

Child-rearing? Yeah, I wish someone would have told me about that trick before I had to endure almost three months of almost no sleep (due to the baby crying).Having a child is stressful as fuck. Just trying to help others going through that phase.

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