Pet Peeve On These Parenting Reddits..

[marieb3]

@shaughnessyym Agree! If OP wants personalized advice they should hire a sleep consultant.

 

[shaughnessyym]

@marieb3 I think it’s fine to ask, but don’t be mad when parents respond telling you what helped them (they read a book).

 

[marieb3]

@shaughnessyym I agree! No harm in asking but why complain about responses?

 

[thinkgod]

@jsphalford11 I always make sure I respond with what helped me and what has helped my mom friend (5 months minus a day or two apart) because I hated the whole “did you try reading x or how about generation things that have been proven to do harm more than good”. All I got as advice was advice from 20+yrs ago and books to read.

 

[susansusan]

@jsphalford11 Audio books are helpful for time management.

I’ve read that you can use audio books to you get through useful information whilst doing other tasks, I read this at the start of my comment.

 

[jsphalford11]

@susansusan None of the books I see recommended here are available on audio, or are stupidly expensive.

 

[grace_given17]

@jsphalford11 Libby has a lot of audiobooks that you can download to the app on your phone. There’s also a Libby specific sub on Reddit that has good info for troubleshooting problems in the app. Not that there are many problems per se, but a little scroll through there can optimize it a bit I suppose. Also they have resources for other libraries that might be available depending on where you live to maximize what books are available to you.

There are also a few podcasts that are free and maybe helpful?

 

[susansusan]

@grace_given17 I don’t know if all libraries do this, but my local library has a subscription to an audio book platform, in which you get access to a massive library of audio books for free, it could be worth asking your local library

 

[roseredd]

@jsphalford11 There’s a book I’ve recommended on here but the thing is there’s so many good parts to it that if I just try to summarize it as “respond don’t react so you don’t generationally traumatize your kids” a lot gets lost in translation. There’s so much more to it than a few bullet points. I also think it’s important enough of a book that you shouldn’t just take a few bullet points and run but should actually read the whole thing.

 

[abcdeg]

@jsphalford11 Absolutely! We struggled so much with sleep for the first 4 months. A friend thought she was being SO helpful for giving us this huge ass, small font book that she said held all the secrets to good sleep. I basically asked her to tell me the highlights and she said I just need to read it. Long story short, I used my valuable time that I could have spent sleeping trying to read this book. 50 pages in, realized I was so tired that I retained nothing. Super helpful!

 

[shaughnessyym]

@abcdeg But don’t you think that friend also had to read that book when they were sleep deprived? Why is it more important that you get sleep while they stay up and write up a summary for you? This is unbelievably entitled.

 

[jsphalford11]

@shaughnessyym No idea. A lot of folks seem to have family to help out. Or kids that can be sleep trained. Or can afford daycare. Or can afford childcare. Or has a more easygoing infant.

It boggles my mind that people had hours in their day to read something because we had a lot of days, especially in the hell that was 3-9 months with ours, where we barely had time to eat and take care of the necessary housework.

 

[shaughnessyym]

@jsphalford11 I think a lot of people are in the same boat and just suffering too? Yes there’s a wide range of difficulty and ease in infants and some people have a harder or easier time than others.

Personally it was sleep deprivation and frustration that drove me to read the whole book about it. I knew that the short term sacrifice would have a longer term gain. My reading was mostly done while breastfeeding so I tried to take advantage of time I was already captive.

 

[jsphalford11]

@shaughnessyym Breastfeeding was when I either got to eat, do a tiny bit of housework or use the bathroom.

The *only* time, generally. Otherwise, if our baby wasn't being actively tended to, she'd be howling, meaning my wife couldn't work/sleep/recover.

 

[shaughnessyym]

@jsphalford11 In this case I was the breastfeeding parent so I read the books while my husband did other things and I summarized them for him so we both could understand. I asked him to read specific sections that pertained to us so he could help make decisions. It was hard to fit in, but worth it.

 

[jsphalford11]

@shaughnessyym Without going into specifics, my wife would not have been up for that at all.

 

[shaughnessyym]

@jsphalford11 I can’t say what works for you. All I’m saying is, we had it hard too, just like many others. We had a colicky baby who cried every night for hours on end for months. So, I knew we needed to do something and I was tired of googling all night long. Someone recommended Precious Little Sleep, so I read it. During breastfeeding was the option that worked best for me, but everyone has to figure their own stuff out. The book helped. And now, I recommend it to other people.

 

[abcdeg]

@shaughnessyym Lol I didn’t ask for an essay. Literally just any quick tips that she thought would help.

And yeah, it’s shitty that she had to also read it while sleep deprived… like maybe there should be better ways to help struggling parents?

Anything is better than continuing this stupid cycle of handing off books to sleep deprived people and tell them to “just read it”

 

[yamikani]

@shaughnessyym this attitude of “if i had to suffer so should you” ain’t it. if you don’t want to help someone, just straight up don’t respond.

 

[shaughnessyym]

@yamikani That’s not it at all? Did you actually read the comment I replied to. The person I responded to was mad that their friend gave them a book and didn’t summarize the book for them. Just thank the friend and move on if you don’t wanna read it. Don’t simmer because they didn’t spend the time to write out highlights for you?