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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9444 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

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The newborn stage for me as a father was a hell of sleep deprivation for little-to-no emotional return. Pretty sure my wife had some hormonal assistance there that I just didn't. YMMV, I just want to make sure @FiveHourMarathon doesn't have expectations falsely raised and then shattered. ;-)

For what it's worth, though, things get better much faster than I'd have expected before I had my first kid. I could have anticipated that it would be heart-meltingly adorable for a 1 year old to precariously toddle over to my legs to demand "Bup up!" to be picked up ... but really the emotional connections started far earlier. There's a great yet subtle transition from "I'm talking to her when I hold her because it's so boring and there's nothing better to do" to "I'm talking to her when I hold her because holding eye contact while she contorts her lips and makes noise trying to copy me is one of the most fascinating things ever! I'm rooting for you honey!"

YMMV, I just want to make sure @FiveHourMarathon doesn't have expectations falsely raised and then shattered. ;-)

Haha definitely fair.

I was surprised by my ability to operate on very little sleep and short naps (even at 31) and I shouldn't overgeneralize from that!

So far so good, I've enjoyed the newborn stage more than I thought I would. I was dreading it, but it's mostly like raising an orphaned baby animal, except that I care about her way more and she's way more important.

I figure it'll get bad later, but right now she's such an easy baby that if she was any easier I'd be worried about her. Given, part of that may be that Mrs. FiveHour coped with her fear of the vagaries of parenthood by buying every possible baby device and tool, so maybe it's just easy because we are oversupplied with gadgets to make it easy.

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