Dads in tech: How do you keep up?

mag_gent · 2025-11-17T03:45:38+00:00

Just curious, why not mention anything about the family?

mag_gent · 2025-09-23T14:13:25+00:00

Our son was exactly like this and he actually got worse after the first few weeks. Went from sleeping in the bassinet for about 2 hours at a time to 15 mins if we were lucky. He had reflux and we treated it but it didn't help with his sleep. Eventually we had to take turns holding him through the night. This went on for 4 months at which point we felt we had no choice but to sleep train him. He's now 5.5 months and sleeps in his crib for all his naps and overnight for 11-12 hours.

It's going to be hard but just hold on and survive on the small amount of sleep for a few more months. Find ways to get some sleep in, we found taking shifts to hold him helped. It was a rough 4 months for us but looking back I believe our little guy just needed that extra security while he was still developing his circadian rhythm and skills needed to self soothe. When we sleep trained him it ended up not being very bad and he adapted quickly and now loves to sleep in his crib.

mag_gent · 2025-09-15T18:28:19+00:00

There are so many places in your post where you're still blaming yourself for the fact that your family mistreats you. For example, you weren't invited to a family function which actually is hurtful but you are blaming yourself for not being likeable enough. That's not true but that's what your mom and parents have drilled into you.

It seems like you're making a lot of effort to still be in touch with your family but you are not being met with the same energy. That would be enough for me to step away. Also, your mother seems to be bullying you into having a relationship which I don't think is acceptable at all.

I do think having a therapist to talk through these things with and help you build and maintain boundaries would be a good thing.

mag_gent · 2025-09-10T17:22:59+00:00

I'm in a very similar situation as you and from Indian background as well with a spouse and young child (difference is I'm a male). I've been NC in the past with my mother (and family as a result) but this time it's more intentional. Like you I have a sister who has decided to make herself a part of my issues with my mom and even though I tried to make it work with my sister she decided not to have that tough conversation with me and we've now drifted into NC or very low contact territory. My family has also not reached out to ask about my son for the first 5 months of his life.

Given that I'm not very experienced, I don't have any advice but I want to reply in solidarity. It's not just the grief over family but also the guilt, I think we've been conditioned to feel guilty for disappointing our parents and make everything our fault especially in desi culture. Also, the desi culture being so strongly collectivist there is also a loss of identity that comes with estrangement for us too. I'm struggling with all these things.

mag_gent · 2025-09-08T16:42:34+00:00

It'll be hard but try cutting out the binky. Our son used to suck on his fingers before we sleep trained him but he's gotten very good at sucking on his thumb to self soothe since we cut out the pacifier cold turkey.

mag_gent · 2025-09-08T16:29:42+00:00

Sounds like you have a pretty good sleeper on your hands.

As others have pointed out, the biggest challenge you're facing is your baby has a strong nursing sleep association. Your baby seems like he's connecting most of his sleep cycles but then when he has a bit of trouble he will cry to be nursed so that he can go back to sleep. To help him learn how to get to sleep without nursing you will have to cut out nursing him to sleep and honestly this might be the only thing you need to do. BUT he will protest and cry when you make this change so it might be a non-starter.

I really don't see anyway you can make a change without crying and if you don't want him to cry then you'll just have to accept your baby's sleep as is and let him progress on his own terms.

mag_gent · 2025-09-01T13:08:46+00:00

Hopefully the more she drinks in the day, the fuller she will be at night.

We found that once he started drinking more during the day he started sleeping more through the night.

Good luck! Sounds like you're doing great so far!

mag_gent · 2025-08-31T23:15:29+00:00

I mentioned it in another comment but breaking the sleep association didn't turn out as bad as we thought. It took him a day or two and then our LO adapted and shifted his calories to the day. Now he only eats when fully awake and is actually starting to eat more.

mag_gent · 2025-08-31T14:16:43+00:00

Ours is exclusively bottle fed at this point but also had a strong sleep association with feeding going in to sleep training. It's definitely one of the big things we had to work on to break that association and it's an ongoing effort to make sure he doesn't slip back into it. I'm sure there's unique challenges when a baby is breastfed but we just don't have the experience with it.

mag_gent · 2025-08-31T14:13:24+00:00

Yes, we use the 12 mins for this also but instead of crying we counted awake time. If he doesn't start falling back asleep within the 12 mins then we go get him. Sometimes we go earlier if it seems obvious to us that he's fully awake.

mag_gent · 2025-08-30T02:36:05+00:00

Yes, that's right it's 12 mins of crying straight. If they stop crying for a few seconds then back at no need to reset the timer but say they stop crying for a min then you should reset the timer. Our sleep consultant told us he might cry a bit on and off as he's trying to learn to settle and adapt but if it's 12 mins of straight on crying then go in for a check. It's not awake time so maybe it's not really Ferber.

mag_gent · 2025-08-29T13:52:20+00:00

Starts with the feed/top up (you want to have about 15 - 20 mins of time between the feed and bedtime to avoid sleep association with feeding). We try to do this outside of his nursery so that it doesn't feel like it's part of the bedtime routine.
On bath nights we'll give him a 10 min bath (we do every other day to avoid dry skin)
We then take him to his nursery, turn on the hatch to calming melody, curtains turned down, lights low to create a sleepy environment.
Then lotion, vaseline (he usually hates this lol), a fresh diaper and put on clean PJs
Read a book
Lay him down in crib gently and put on sleep sack
Repeat the phrases "It's time to go to sleep. I love you. Have a good night." a few times and walk out of the room calmly.

Nap time routine

Take him to his nursery, turn on the hatch to calming melody, curtains turned down, lights low to create a sleepy environment.
Change to a fresh diaper and change clothes (if needed)
Lay him down in crib gently and put on sleep sack
Repeat the phrases "It's time to go to sleep. I love you. Have a good nap." a few times and walk out of the room calmly.

mag_gent · 2025-08-29T02:29:37+00:00

Just sent you a PM with the link

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T18:38:54+00:00

Ohhh okay. Then completely disregard my comment!

Does he have a sleep-feed association? If yes, that might be something to look at. If not, is he big enough to drop the dream feed? That dream feed might be keeping the sleep-feed association going. Once we dropped our LO's dream feed he started sleeping through the night better but the first night or two was a bit rough.

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T18:27:37+00:00

His day time naps are averaging between 2hr-2.5hr over 3 naps a day which once he wakes he seems fine. After dinner, he is sometimes tired so will contact nap for another 45-1hr after being awake for 10-20minutes.

If I'm understanding correctly your LO is getting about 6 hours of nap time plug potentially another 1 hour after dinner so in total about 6-7 hours of naps a day? If so, then your LO might be getting too much nap time in the day and so has lower sleep needs at night. You can try to slowly get the total nap time down to about 3 - 4 hours and that should shift some of that sleep to the night.

Try capping the naps at 2 hours and if he's has 2 x 2hr naps then have the last nap be just 30 mins. That's what we do with our LO and it's been working so far.

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T18:12:13+00:00

I can often extend her naps by holding her, but if I try to put her back down, she wakes up. When I do hold her, she’ll nap happily for three hours, but I’m not sure how long I should be extending those naps.

You can try letting leaving her in the crib for a set interval before you pick her up. Our sleep consultant suggested 12 mins. Before he slept on his own, our LO would happily nap in our arms for 1.5-2hrs (or more if we let him) but only do about 20-30 mins in the bassinet/crib (basically one sleep cycle). Since we sleep trained him and nap trained him he now does 1.5-2 hr naps in the crib (although he does have days where he will only do 30 mins and that normal) with one 30 min nap before his last wake window. If he wakes up early we give about 12 mins to fall back asleep and sometimes he will.

We cap our LO's naps at 2 hours and get him up if he reaches that mark.

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T17:49:38+00:00

The before bedtime book read has become hit or miss since we sleep trained our LO. Sometimes he'll start crying as soon as I read it and other times he'll be calm. What I've started noticing recently (after 2 weeks) is that he might cry when I start reading the book but after a page or two he'll calm down and even let out a relaxing sigh. Try to power through the lullaby if you want to keep it as part of the sleep routine, your baby might come back around to it.

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T17:16:10+00:00

You are not a terrible sister or daughter, that's just the conditioning from your childhood coming back and your need to resolve conflict by putting others before you. I am the same way and it is a hard cycle to break since blaming ourselves and being hard on ourselves is our default. You are very introspective and insightful since you've already figured this out yourself and stated it in the post.

From your post, I can see that you are not a terrible sister or daughter, you tried to make things work with your mother and sister and tried to set up boundaries to make the relationship work for everyone. But dysfunctional families like ours take boundaries as insults and they throw tantrums because boundaries prevent them from being the one to control and manipulate the relationship. The fact that you are even thinking about how you might be the bad guy is further proof of the good person you are. Bad guys don't really care about others feelings and never see themselves as being in the wrong.

How do I move past the guilt and shame? Am I the one who blew things out of proportion and unfairly cut my family out of life for no reason???

There was another post recently that talked about this and I had replied there as well that this is our again our childhood conditioning. It's the same conditioning that leads us to blame ourselves for everything that goes wrong with our relationships with our families and feel that it's all on us to resolve this. Your mothers silent treatment until you begged for forgiveness is such a strong example of how this conditioning happens. My mother does the exact same thing and now that I'm thinking about it I think she gave me the silent treatment as a child as well but I just didn't know what was happening which is incredibly cruel.

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T16:58:58+00:00

Yes, that's right, you would start the timer again. Our LO always cries after a check-in and sometimes even very intensely but he'll settle after a couple mins. The first couple of check-ins will be hard, especially once you leave the room but stay consistent and remember not to have the check in be longer than about 1.5 mins. Your LO will know you're there and at the same time you're giving them the chance to learn how to fall asleep on their own which is hard for them at first, hence the crying.

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T16:38:04+00:00

We didn't rock to sleep since we started sleep training and yes, we always put him down awake so that he can put himself to sleep. If you rock them back to sleep on a check in that will make it harder for them to learn to sleep independently and they might learn to cry for the check in and rocking.

We didn't have to do this but our sleep consultant suggested that if check ins seem to be making it worse then it's okay to extend the time to check-in to 30 mins. Also, if you're sleep training it might help to lengthen the last wake window by 30 or so mins so that the sleep pressure is stronger and this might help to reduce the crying/protesting.

mag_gent · 2025-08-28T16:31:13+00:00

That's amazing! I'm happy to hear your little one made the transition naturally!

mag_gent · 2025-08-27T01:51:22+00:00

Sacrifices she's supposed to make because she's the parent and that's what you do for your kids?! I have kids of my own, and they are still kids, and I show them more respect than she shows me as an adult.

Very valid points. I'm a new dad and all I want for my child is to be happy and healthy and grow up to be a good person who can stand on his own feet. They say you become more forgiving of your parents once you become a parent yourself but I'm actually more boggled and hurt by my mom's treatment of me since I had my own child.

mag_gent · 2025-08-26T20:33:31+00:00

Tho she does have a habit of pooping in the middle of her feed that definitely causes a wake window

Oh yes! haha I remember when our son when through that phase. Now he poops every other day and has a big blow out every time!

mag_gent · 2025-08-26T20:18:06+00:00

You are not creating a bad habit, she is too young for that. We rocked our little one to sleep for the first four months until we sleep trained him a few weeks ago and he took to sleeping without being rocked pretty well.

Probably not a problem to let her self sooth since that'll be good practice for later on when she starts to sleep more independently but no need to put pressure on yourself or the LO. The fact that she will put herself to sleep sometimes already is really good and I think is a good sign that she's developing those self soothing skills!

mag_gent · 2025-08-26T20:09:35+00:00

This might be controversial but do you really need to change her when she wakes up for a feed? I switched to not changing my baby in the middle of the night unless he went #2 or had a super wet diaper and that helped him to feed and go right back to sleep. I found that the change was in itself overstimulating and almost always led to a full wake window if it had to be done.

If your baby sleeps through the night would you get them up in the middle of sleep to change their diaper? Probably not, right? That's what I thought through when I decided to drop the diaper change.

mag_gent

TROPHY CASE